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Orozco, Norma From: Tim Johnson <tjohnson@jlkrllp.com> Sent: Friday, February 11, 2022 6:53 PM To: eComment Cc: Sarmiento, Vicente; Lopez, Jessie; Hernandez, Johnathan; Mendoza, Nelida; Penaloza, David; Bacerra, Phil; Phan, Thai; Gomez, Daisy; Ridge, Kristine; Flores, Rosa; Mendoza, Steven; Carvalho, Sonia R. Subject: 2/15 Council Mtg Format... Mayor, Councilmembers, City Mgrs Office,Asst City Mgrs Office, Clerk of the Council, and City Atty Office...As I reviewed the supplemental agenda item for Tuesday's council meeting, it spurred a couple of thoughts I keep forgetting to send onward. Two with regards to staff presentations and then an idea (or rather ideas...)for another update. Here goes: 1. Public Comments on Staff Presentations: I certainly appreciate all of the staff presentations which seem to be helpful and I especially appreciate how the mayor and councilmembers ask questions and such. However,the format of the council meetings seems to be set up so that public comments are always given AFTER the staff provides their presentation and after the dais has an opportunity to ask questions or provide their comments. With this format, it seems to remove the ability for the public to comment to staff and for the council to hear from the public on the topic at hand in time to provide valuable perspective. It may be possible that a member of the public can bring up a comment that a councilmember may not have thought of before and may want to incorporate it into their own comments or questions to the staff. Or, perhaps a member of the public may provide a comment that the staff presenting may want to address or be sure to emphasize because it is important for the public. I feel that the format could easily be changed to either have staff presentations after the public comment section or have a separate public comment time before the staff presentations although that may present logistical challenges with regards to on-line queing and such. Regardless, it certainly feels that the public should be heard before the item is closed out by the council and staff. This would be like having public comments on an regular business agenda item AFTER the agenda item is addressed....now, obviously, there is a difference because the staff presentation does not have a vote attached to it but the staff certainly seems to be entertaining questions from the dais and therefore I believe that the public should be able to speak into the item. A perfect example may be this week with the OCTA update...my gut tells me that there may be members of the public who would like to be heard prior to the OCTA update so they can provide their thoughts/comments/stories about what is going on so that they may be incorporated into the entire process instead of being an after thought. 2. Staff Presentation Collateral Availability: For the most part staff presentations include power point type slide decks providing information for the public and those on the dais. However,these materials are rarely(never?) provided before the presentation to the public/dais so that they may review for the presentation and provide written or verbal comments. If someone wanted to provide a written comment under the current structure of not having the presentation materials to review,they would be blindly making a general comment without regard to the information contained in the staff presentation or they would provide such commentary after the fact(i.e. after the presentation is given and the item is not part of the meeting until the next time it comes up). Again,the OCTA agenda item may be a good example of people wanting to provide some commentary to the dais for them to understand their own points of view however I can see the same concerns being played out with regards to homeless updates and other items of interest also. With regards to the two above items, I believe that all stakeholders would benefit if the staff presentation slide deck was provided with the publicly available agenda items so that the public can view them before the actual council meeting AND all would benefit if public comments were to be taken before the staff presentation was made instead of the current format where public comments are made after such agenda item is considered which seems backwards and not 1