Councilor Staggers has recently been pulling items from the consent agenda. During yesterday’s informational, he asked to pull the minutes from the last meeting (for a correction) and the Phillips Avenue Holiday Lights expenditure. Well that did not sit well with councilor Rolfing. He went into a tirade about inconveniencing city employees who might have to come to a council meeting and answer a question.
WHAT?!
First off, the consent agenda is at the beginning of the meeting, if a department head had to come to a meeting to answer a question, they would be there 20 minutes tops. Secondly, most department heads are at the meeting anyway for other agenda items, and lastly, THEY ARE GETTING PAID like the councilors to do the public’s work, which may include attending the council meeting. If there are certain department heads and city employees that feel like they are being inconvenienced, I haven’t heard that. In fact for the over ten years I have watched the city council meetings I have only seen one person complain about how long the meetings are, a councilor, De Knudson. Rolfing seems to be crying wolf about a problem that does not exist.
Fortunately, councilors Karsky, Anderson and even Erpenbach defended the practice of pulling items from the consent agenda and the city attorney agreed to help with a better process.
Personally, I have not been a fan of the consent agenda, I think every item should be pulled and voted on separately, but since that is not the case, as Karsky pointed out, it is well within the power of the council to pull items from the consent agenda.