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Sunshine Ordinance September 17, 2012 Page 5 The City has no ability to ensure that an outside panelist is independent nor does it have a mechanism to enforce compliance with the RFP/RFQ process and regulations that City officials and staff are held to. The inability to ensure or enforce compliance comprises the RFP/RFQ process and may jeopardize the City's ability to negotiate and obtain services at optimum price. 4. Budget Outreach and Strategic Plan In preparation of the City budget and the pending strategic plan, staff has incorporated a variety of public outreach initiatives. During the normal budget adoption process, presentations are made to neighborhood associations, business forums and employee groups. To ensure public viewing of the document, staff places the budget on the website, CityNews, and available as a hard copy at the City Libraries and City Hall. To ensure more educational outreach to the community on the budget, staff would work to host an informative session prior to the budget adoption to assist constituents understand the budget and to add comment and suggestions. Staff would also be available to meet with any group upon request. Regarding the strategic plan, prior to adoption, the plan would include a number of community outreach meetings to solicit feedback. These comments would be shared with Council and staff to incorporate as appropriate into the plan. 5. Open Calendars An alternative two-tier calendaring option is presented whereby the calendars of elected officials would be posted on-line while the department head calendars would be accessible pursuant to a public records request. There will be exemptions from disclosures based on policy and legal reasons such as meetings relating to attorney client or work product as well as meetings relating to personnel issues. An alternative Open Calendar Option would not mandate posting of council calendars on-line. It also would not apply to department heads. In addition, Councilmembers would be required to make public a monthly calendar that is updated throughout the month with additions and/or deleted meetings. 6. Lobbyist Registrations SACReD proposes lobbyist provisions that would require lobbyists who are attempting to influence City legislation, administrative decisions, or City Council elections or local initiative measures to register with the Clerk of the Council. An alternative staff recommendation models the City of Milpitas' ordinance that allows special interest lobbyist that receive at least $250 total compensation in any month to register with the Clerk of the Council Office. WSA-5