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Home My WebLink AboutWS 2024-03-18 Item 2B - City Council - 2024 Retreat Follow-UpCity of Tukwila Allan Ekberg, Mayor INFORMATIONAL MEMORANDUM TO: City Council FROM: Laurel Humphrey, Legislative Analyst DATE: March 12, 2024 SUBJECT: 2024 City Council Retreat Follow -Up BACKGROUND The City Council convened its annual Retreat on March 2, 2024, which had the following objectives: • Get to know one another. • Practice braver conversations and collaboration. • Clarify roles and expectations. • Enhance understanding of Council members' working styles. • Establish agreements about how we work together moving forward. Conversations that day resulted in the following potential changes to the Rules of Procedure: 1. Limit public comment time to 3 minutes per speaker. 2. Limit initial Councilmember comments to 5 minutes until everyone has an opportunity speak; additional time can be given upon subsequent rounds of speaking. 3. When discussing items coming out of committees, the three Committee members should speak first. 4. Build in appropriately timed set breaks at Council meetings. Councilmembers requested an opportunity to follow-up on the Retreat and discuss these preliminary changes with all seven Councilmembers prior to moving forward. RECOMMENDATION Staff is seeking Council discussion and consensus on the proposed changes to the Rules of Procedure. Staff will then return with draft amendments. ATTACHMENTS 1. Facilitator notes 15 City of Tukwila Council Retreat Notes March 2, 2024 Recorded by Nancy M. Campbell Attendees: De'Sean Quinn, Mohamed Abdi, Armen Papyan, Jovita McConnell, Dennis Martinez, Hannah Hedrick, Laurel Humphrey, Thomas McLeod Retreat Objectives: • Get to know one another. • Practice braver conversations and collaboration. • Clarify roles and expectations. • Enhance understanding of Council members' working styles. • Establish agreements about how we work together moving forward. Interview Themes: The following are themes raised by several Council members. The themes were reviewed with members who agreed that they reflect the perspective of members present. Desired Retreat Outcomes • Know and understand more about each other • Model behavior that we would like to see in the community and staff • How to work better as a group • A game plan for how to manage inappropriate behavior • Agree to interact cordially and respectfully • Agree to disagree and move on • Run more effective meetings Council Role: • Model fairness and equity • Make policy that meets community needs • Make policy, oversee budget, and ensure implementation • Policy, guidance, fiduciary and not operations • Collaborate with Executive branch but not direct staff • Not oversee staff and operations • Listen to the community • Make decisions not just ask questions Current State of the Council: • New members and relatively new members • Recognition of the learning curve • No shared agenda or priorities • Some intragroup working style conflict • 5/6 interviewed focus on need to learn to work together Tukwila City Council Retreat 1 March 2nd Meeting Notes 16 Member priorities include: • Asylee crisis • Helping youth • Tukwila Urban Center • Market rate housing • Sustainability Relationships: • Not much change from past but getting better • Not coming prepared (asking answered questions) • Disrespectful of other members and staff (e.g., questioning of staff) • Not always assuming good intentions • Speaking to the audience rather than problem solving • Body language of disrespect • Boys Club Need from other Council members: • Work together, team • Agree to disagree and move on • President to take control of the meeting • Committee of the Whole is for learning • Respect where others come from • Come prepared, don't use dais time to learn about the issue • Don't assume or imply motive • New members don't be afraid to speak up Need from Mayor: • Transparency...good and the bad • Honesty • Share the "why" • Create a culture of responsibility, professionalism, and service • Value Council opinion • Cultivate and deepen relationships with CMs Desired Change in Council Functioning and Behavior: • Come to meetings prepared...read packet and ask as many questions in advance as possible • Be mindful of how much time you take up • Be respectful to other Council Members and to staff • Speak to the process and not the person • Less performance and more process to achieve results • How information is communicated to staff is not clear Tukwila City Council Retreat 2 March 2nd Meeting Notes 17 Structure: • Not using Robert's Rules sufficiently • Not adhering to own guidelines re member behavior, community input, time, sharing process • Not sharing responsibility of holding people accountable Review and Modification of Existing Operating Agreements: Members present reviewed the agreements reached at last year's Council retreat. All the agreements below have been incorporated into the City Council Rules of Procedure. Agreements include: 1. Barring circumstances that may be outside of our control, members agreed to review meeting materials in advance of the meeting and as much as possible, direct questions for clarification or additional information to the City Administrator in advance of the meeting. 2. During City Council meetings, council members will only speak when acknowledged by the Presiding Officer. 3. Members agreed not to engage in "side bar" conversations (to include verbal and electronic) when another Council member or staff is speaking. Council members will refrain from showing body language that provides commentary regarding what a speaker is saying. Examples include eye rolling, faces showing disagreement, turning away from the speaker, etc. 4. Members agree to engaging in conversations on the dais with brief and relevant commentary that does not duplicate another member's comments. 5. Council members must limit questions during the public comment period to those that are needed for clarification. 6. After thanking someone who contributes during the public comment period, the Presiding Officer will inform the contributor that the follow up to their question or concern will take place in the following days after the meeting. Members discussed how some of the agreements are not being followed as well as other problems they observe in Council functioning. Members agreed that it is not appropriate to ask staff at a meeting to summarize information that is already in the packet or to direct staff to do any work that is outside the boundaries of policy direction. Some members expressed frustration at the number of side bars and breaks taken by other members. There is a desire by all members present to reduce the amount of duplication in meetings. The members decided to amend the rules as follows: The time limit for public comment was set as three minutes and for Council Member comments at five minutes. Council members can request more time after all members have had a chance to speak. Additional comment rounds are at the discretion of the President. Tukwila City Council Retreat 3 March 2nd Meeting Notes 18 Members encouraged the President to assert himself more and use Robert's Rules of Order to ensure effective use of meeting time. It was also recommended that all Committee members speak first on an item. This may answer questions that members have and thereby reduce unnecessary questions. All members agreed to model the behaviors described in the above agreements and to hold each other accountable for agreement violations. If it is believed another member is violating agreements, a member will call a point of order in an effort to stop violations. It was suggested that meetings should include set breaks at appropriate times to prevent a member who has stepped out of the room from re -asking a question that was addressed while they were gone. It was also suggested that the proposed agreements be reviewed by all in a Council work session and that goal adherence be reviewed again at midyear. Tukwila City Council Retreat 4 March 2nd Meeting Notes 19