As part of the City Commission’s procedural reforms adopted in 2022, pursuant to Ordinance No. 2022-4496, City Commissioners are “encouraged, wherever possible, to refer new business to a Commission Committee prior to consideration by the full City Commission.” There is no limit on the number of Commissioner-sponsored referral items per meeting agenda.
City Code Section 2-14(d)(3) provides for the automatic withdrawal of any agenda item that “has been deferred by the sponsor and has not been heard for a period of 120 days or more following the meeting date the item was first placed on a City Commission agenda . . . .” However, this rule does NOT apply to items “postponed by the City Commission due to a lack of time.”
Due to the excessive length of our Commission agendas, including a large number of discussion items that were NOT first referred to Committee, a significant number of discussion items carry over from month to month.
I would like to discuss how we can efficiently resolve the large number of discussion items pending before the City Commission. Moving forward, I would encourage my colleagues to first refer new business to Commission Committees, so we can more efficiently complete our workload and focus our time, during regular meetings, on business that has been vetted and is ready for action.