A city used these easy steps to have a productive council meeting and you won't believe what happened next!

0:11 Chad

Chad

Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of ZacCast. Uh, Chad Janicek here with Patrick Lawler. How you doing, Pat?

0:17 Patrick

Patrick

I'm good. I'm good.

0:18 Chad

Chad

Good. Hey man, today we are talking about how to have productive council meetings. This is sort of a broader part of, uh, a discussion that we've touch- touched on over the, you know, the course of this podcast, um, which is being a decision-making organization. You know, we talked a lot about speedboats versus, uh, aircraft carriers, and making quick decisions and iterative decisions and things like that. But today I think we wanna focus on how to make sure that your council meetings are productive. Both of us have been on the, on the wrong side of counterproductive council meetings probably many times, and, uh, I'm sure everyone who's listening has their, their horror stories. As a manager, what do you need to do to prepare for and build a culture where your meetings are productive?

1:02 Patrick

Patrick

Yeah. So, you know, obviously this is a, this is a really hot topic for city managers. Uh, it's, it's one of those things where you sit around at a conference and you talk to city managers, and you, you hear the kind of the horror stories of, of what went down in a really bad city council meeting or, you know, things like that. And, and, you know, the fundamental core of, of really, for me, the first thing that's the most important is that you have to have communication with council members outside of a council meeting. You can't leave it up to your once a month or twice a month meeting to communicate with your council meeting members. You've gotta get out there, have conversations with them, call them on the phone, uh, go to lunch with them. Uh, that, you know, that was one of the things we always had in, in the communities that I've worked in, uh, things as simple as having a budget to take your council members to lunch on a regular occasion so that, one, you can get to know the individual, uh, but two, you can really dig in and, and explain to them the, you know, what's going on in the city, the mindset of why decisions were made or how they're made, uh, and an opportunity for them to ask a question in, in kind of a, a non-threatening atmosphere, right? Just a mano a mano just conversation. And, uh, and be able to do that over, over a meal and kind of break bread and have that conversation has always been extremely beneficial for me personally.

2:29 Chad

Chad

Yeah. The thing about those is, like you said, you're building a relationship, right? So you're building trust. The-- I've seen plenty of examples where council members didn't trust staff, and that's a really precarious place to be as a, uh, an employee, uh, or as a manager as well. Um, you, you st- when that happens, that's, that's really when you can start to see the breakdown between the, you know, the roles of council versus, uh, the administration. Uh, 'cause if they don't trust you, they're gonna start doing things that they probably shouldn't be doing or asking questions antagonistically in meetings and things like that. So building that relationship, being open with them in those, those meetings where there's no pressure, they can ask any, any question no matter how stupid they may think it is, and you'll be able to give them an answer and explain the thought process. I think those are also a really good opportunity for a, a manager to educate council members on how different processes work, how the city operates. No council member is ever going to or should ever get to the point where, like, they're going to be able to be a city manager. Like r- they're not running the city, um, at least not in a council manager form of government. But it is helpful for a city council member or a mayor to, to understand in broad brushes, you know, broad strokes, um, how various processes of the city work, from a development process to, uh, street construction to the water sewer department to police and fire. Uh, what are the big picture challenges that these departments face? How, how do those processes work? Um, one thing that I've seen a lot is because some of these processes aren't always clear, you can have meetings that get derailed when a question comes up that's about the next step in the process, right? Like we're talking about platting right now and, and discussing, uh, approval of a plat, and questions come up about drainage or, um, you know, uh, facade or something that's gonna be in the next step of the process, and then you spend twenty, thirty minutes talking about that, uh, when what you're really just trying to do is approve a plat and move on. So h- those conversations are really good opportunities to educate the council on, on how things actually work.

4:35 Patrick

Patrick

Well, it's extremely important whether you're educating council or the community in general, a, a lot of a city manager's job is just to be completely honest and open about what is occurring. Um, and the more you do that, the more you open up the information that's there, the less scary issues become. Now, I know for many managers that sounds counterintuitive. You know, th-they believe that you gotta keep it close to the vest 'cause if you put any of this information out there, people are-- they're gonna go crazy. It's gonna be on social media. It's gonna be on everybody's favorite website called Nextdoor. And, and look, I under- I understand where that comes from, but in my career, I have found puking honesty and providing as much information as possible to be the best way, uh, to have productive city council meetings. Now, that takes us to kind of the next, the next step, which is, um, you know, there's always a debate between, uh, city staff on how do we prepare staff reports for city council meetings. Um, you know, there's, there's one side of the equation that believes those staff reports should be very to the point, very short, not have a lot of extra information or analysis in it, but basically just explain this is the item we're taking up and this is what we're talking about.

5:49 Chad

Chad

Right.

5:50 Patrick

Patrick

Then there's this side of the equation that-

5:52 Chad

Chad

Give enough-

5:52 Patrick

Patrick

Say what now?

5:52 Chad

Chad

Give enough information to get the item approved and move on.

5:56 Patrick

Patrick

That, that's correct. Just enough information to get the item approved and moved on, right? I mean, that, that, that is-You are trying to tailor that staff report specifically to an approval. Um, then there's the other side of the equation, which, uh, y- Chad and I agree on, we fall on the same side of this, which is write a book. Give them all of the information you could possibly give them on, and allow them to review that staff report so that they understand all of the analysis that you went through to come to your recommendation, but also they're able to do their own analysis based on the same information that you used, right? That's, um-- And, and do it in a way that provides statistical details and provides data so that they know and can see just through the writing in the staff report or, you know, we jokingly used to call it the book, the book that you write, that they know how you came to your conclusion. Don't keep them guessing to when they walk into that council meeting why you want something, uh, because then it's all about you, right? It's not about what the best decision for the community is or what the pros and cons were. It's, it's really all about you. And, and you've got to back that up even further, which is you shouldn't walk into a council meeting cold, especially, you know, on a major item, without having talked to your individual council members. You know, and I hear all the time from, from city managers, and, and this comes up a lot, "Well, I don't want to daisy chain my city council members." Guys, you're not a city council member. A, a city manager is, is not a city council member. You're not daisy chaining by having a relationship with your city council. You should know how your city council members feel. You should provide them information. You should get their input and feedback and be able to use that towards, uh, the betterment of the city at the end of the day. That goes eventually so far down the road is when you're a manager for a long time, an item comes up, and we used to do this all the time in the office, Chad, an item comes up, and we pretty much knew right off the bat, because our relationship was so close with our council members, how they would each vote on that item. We're gonna provide them a ton of information. We're gonna have a conversation with them, but we would know specifically which council members we needed to reach out to immediately. You remember those conversations?

8:15 Chad

Chad

Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

8:16 Patrick

Patrick

Yeah. Yeah. So, um, and, and building that book and building that trust and that relationship, that goes a long way, uh, to having very, very productive, uh, city council meetings. It also is important to talk about, you know, we come out of grad school, we get an MPA, we talk about the dichotomy between city council and city manager. Um, it's okay to have a relationship with city council members. I'm not saying you should go out on Friday and Saturday night and party with your city council members, but having a relationship where you actually enjoy having lunch with your city council member d- is not a bad thing. They're allowed to be somewhat a professional colleague and friend, um, in my opinion. There could be some debate to this. I'm, I'm sure we, we could have some with some other managers, but I don't, I don't think it's a bad thing to have that. You just need to understand the line between they're still one of your bosses, and you, you know, you can talk about your kids, and you can talk about your family and all those type of things. But the reality is, is if you do it right, you're gonna form a relationship with those city council members whether you're taught not to or not. It's just the reality of it.

9:19 Chad

Chad

So I, I think about, like, if, if legal briefs, say, for example, to the Supreme Court, were written the way a lot of city council staff reports were written, like, could you imagine how chaotic those oral arguments would be?

9:35 Patrick

Patrick

That's a good point.

9:36 Chad

Chad

I mean, they write out in, in explicit detail why their position on that particular case is right, and here are all of the, uh, the potentially conflicting arguments that, that could allow you to vote or to rule the other way, but here's why those are wrong, right? It's exhaustive. Um, but in that process, not only does the justice or the, you know, judge or whoever's reading the legal brief have the ability to evaluate all those sides and hear your opinion, but you also get the chance to, to really dig deep into your position and, and what you're trying to accomplish. And when it comes time for oral argument, you're, you're 100% prepared for any question that might come up. Being thorough in writing those, those staff reports also gives you the opportunity to, to really understand the issue. It gives you something that you can go back to before the meeting and, and just run through it and refresh yourself. Um, I mean, particularly if you're in a, a bigger city where you have a lot of items or, you know, you're, you're meeting every week, I mean, it's, it can be difficult to keep track of everything. So having a very thorough, uh, document that you can go back and refer to can prep you for those meetings so that you don't have surprises. Avoiding surprises is, uh, is one of the most important things that you can do to keep your meetings productive, and, and that transparency in terms of the back-end work, or I guess the front-end work, um, is extremely helpful in doing that.

11:00 Patrick

Patrick

Well, we, we also use the, the staff report process as a way to flesh out the issue internally, right? I, I think that's a, a really good point to make, that if, if a staff member w- like you wrote a staff report or I wrote a staff report and then, um, you would review that staff report that I wrote, right? Or the other way around, vice versa. We would then challenge each other or challenge our other staff members or other department directors on, "Okay, I understand that you want this item, and this is what this item cost, but, you know, what, what specific information are you going to be able to provide to show that there's a need for this item? That it's not just a want, there's a need." You know, going and fleshing out all those conversations, uh, and, and having it i- is, is extremely important. And just like your Supreme Court conversation as well, there are friends of the court. Your stakeholders are not just your city council members, and if you wanna do your city council a favor, you would make sure and understand and, and also educateYour other stakeholders. I don't know if that's HOAs, if it's, uh, you know, in Hudson Oaks, it was always, uh, the women's associations. We had women's associations in all of our neighborhoods, and they, they tended to be very active and influential organizations that we would, you know, consistently make sure they had lots of information. But including those stakeholders in, in the process and keeping them educated and informed. It could be Rotary, Lions Club, uh, you know, the chambers of commerce, a, a, a lot of different organizations that are there. But ultimately, that city manager can do their city council and make their city council meetings a lot more productive if stakeholders are also aware of what's going on. Um, you know, 10 years ago, that was cities taking the bold step to publish all their staff reports online. Uh, we always talked about no member, uh, you know, no member of council gets any additional information than a standard resident would get to make a decision, right? So the staff report that city council got was the same staff report that we put on a website, and citizens could make up their mind based on that staff report, just like we were asking our city council members to. They could also pick up the phone and call us. What happened a lot in the community that I-- that we worked in is we would put so much information in that staff report, the residents would never show up to city council. Uh, and that was not a sign that they didn't care because we would still get five or 10 phone calls from residents who read our staff reports and ask us questions directly. We would just be able to address most of those questions prior to a city council meeting. Uh, and generally, we would also bring up those questions in our city council meetings. We'd say, "We were notified by a resident. We got this question. We answered this question this way, uh, and the resident felt like the concern was addressed." Uh, you know, we tried to keep that process as transparent a-as we could and involve as many stakeholders as we could to try to make our council members' lives as easy as possible.

14:01 Chad

Chad

Yeah, so two, two other benefits of really good staff reports. One, it gives the council members the ability to, to be fully prepared and ask questions before the meeting, um, questions that can be asked and answered before the meeting or, or answered and, and communicated. You know, there's an issue on this plat, right? And it actually needs to be this. That's, that's great. Let's address that before the meeting rather than at the meeting, uh, because it's something that we can fix. Or maybe this issue that you brought up isn't, isn't that important for right now. Uh, but not having to answer all those questions in a meeting can keep your meetings progressing. Um, but it also allows your council to breed a culture of accountability among themselves, right? So if a question is asked at a council meeting that was answered in a staff report, it's important for your council to have a, a culture of accountability where they can basically tell each other, "Did you not read your staff report?" Like, like, "This question, this question was already answered in excruciating detail in this document that you got a week ago," you know? Um, you wanna expand on that a little bit maybe? I, I, I don't wanna be too harsh i-in that, but it's-- I think it is important for council members to, uh, to have that kind of relationship with each other where, uh, they don't want to, uh, prolong or derail a meeting, um, because they wouldn't want their fellow council member to do the same thing, right? They're given the information beforehand. They h- they're given the opportunities to ask questions and receive answers and provide, um, uh, that kind of information or, or input. Um, so it's the same things that can happen or be answered before the meeting should be.

15:42 Patrick

Patrick

I, I don't mean to sound cliché, but I, I, I do believe this is, o-of everything we bring up in this conversation, this is one of the most important things. It, it probably is the most important thing. Um, because a, a bad council culture, uh, and a lack of accountability on your city council, uh, it, it just, it-- everything else falters on that. If that foundation is not solid, everything else falters. That doesn't always mean you have to have a really strong mayor, although in communities that have historically had strong leadership at the mayor position, especially a mayor who understands the, the roles of a city manager versus the roles of a mayor, and they work well with their city manager, um, you tend to, to kind of breed a culture of accountability on your city council. Yeah, I mean, look, I-- we have numerous examples. I mean, th- we have, we have walked out the doors of City Hall at ten PM numerous times. Uh, Chad and I have looked at each other and said, "Wow, did that really just happen?" We've seen council members on the other side of the dais basically just cut the other council member off at the knees because they didn't read a staff report. Um, and then the other council members support that council member to say, you know, "Look, we're all here. We're all putting in our time. We expect you to put that time in as well." Um, and, you know-

17:02 Chad

Chad

When you don't have that sense of accountability among the council members, you end up in situations where out of the blue, a council member will ask a budget officer to do something like read out 10 years' worth of payroll tax payments.

17:15 Patrick

Patrick

Chad-

17:15 Chad

Chad

Which is something that could, could happen, if there's even a point to doing it, something that could happen well before the meeting, uh, so that, you know, on the fly, your staff members aren't, uh, trying to go back and pull that kind of obscure information, uh, you know, in a meeting. Um, and then with no council members even giving a side eye to it, right? This is just something that, "Okay, we're gonna do this now. We're gonna read payroll tax payments."

17:41 Patrick

Patrick

And it, and it allows council members, um, if you don't have a culture of accountability, it allows council members to go down a rabbit hole that really has no impact on the decision that they're trying to make, right? It allows council members to go off topic. It allows council members to maybe be on topic but be focused on something that's, um, you know, that's basically penny-wise and pound-foolish. That was always a saying that I liked to say to my council members when they were new. You know, "Look, don't, don't ask the question based on the penny because you don't understand the pound."Um, ask me the question on the panel and let me explain it. Let me give you the information that's there, um, and, and don't be afraid to ask that more complicated question. But also stay away from the, the gotcha culture, right? Um, I, I watched a city council meeting, uh, the other day where a city council member made the comment that, um, you know, "Look, this city's not doing what they need to do because we have, uh, you know, we've approved a contract, uh, that didn't come to city council." Uh, and the problem was is that it did. You know, there was like this I gotcha culture, and everybody has to react on the fly. Nobody typically is gonna react a- at a, at a high level of intelligence in that situation, and it just takes the whole meeting down a rabbit hole, right? I mean, you, you get into the mud in a way that it's just hard to get out. And if you can keep your council a-accountable to asking those questions beforehand, or if, if a council member ask a question in a meeting that's a gotcha culture, the other council members say, "Hey, you need to ask that question offline, and if it needs to be brought to council after you've asked that question offline, then, then add it as a future agenda item." We always had that, that outlet in our meetings where, you know, a council member could always ask for a future agenda item, and they were always, you know, held accountable not to ask a gotcha question.

19:33 Chad

Chad

Yeah.

19:33 Patrick

Patrick

Uh-

19:34 Chad

Chad

Any kind of question where you can tell that there's a point that they're trying to make that has-- that is not clear in the actual phrasing of the question.

19:43 Patrick

Patrick

Yeah.

19:43 Chad

Chad

Your council members will be like, "That seems like, that seems like a question that we should be... Let, let the staff go back, answer it either in a memo or in a future meeting, and not try to get them to handle that right now." That's, or something that could've been asked beforehand. But-

19:57 Patrick

Patrick

Yeah, there-

19:58 Chad

Chad

We can't get to that without having some level of, of accountability. And, and honestly, I mean, that has to be bred among the council members. It's, it's-

20:05 Patrick

Patrick

That's correct

20:06 Chad

Chad

... it's, it's only something that a manager can, can initiate or suggest, but it has to really be part of that culture.

20:13 Patrick

Patrick

And, and, and I would tell you, in, in my opinion, that was not something that was naturally bred within, uh, the council that I worked for. Really early on, uh, when I was city manager, there were those, you know, I wouldn't call them gotcha questions 'cause I don't think, I don't think they really ever did that, but there were those challenge questions. Like, "I just need to see if you're smart. I need to see, you know, how much you know." Um, and, and I think we, we were able to get that out of the culture, but some of that was, you know, reflective. Um, not to toot my own horn, but I had a photographic memory. So a lot of times when council members would ask that off-the-wall question, I'd be able to answer it. And so it kind of, it, it stopped it a little bit as, as we moved forward, and then eventually developed in the culture that they just didn't ask those questions anymore. Um, and, and that's beneficial because you don't get off topic. You, you don't-- You're able to address the issue at hand with a clear mindset. Um, and there's, there's not some, you know, other issue that clouds the decision-making that's in front of you at the time.

21:19 Chad

Chad

Okay, so let's, let's clarify two things, or at least one thing, is that a lot of the things we've talked about so far have been about, um, answering questions and, and providing information before meetings. But we're not saying that the decision should be made and that the s- council meeting should be a formality, right? Uh-

21:38 Patrick

Patrick

No, yeah.

21:38 Chad

Chad

There's still, there's still, uh, public venues for commentary to be made, for debate to be had. Um, so that's-- We're not trying to say that everything should be done beforehand and then you should just go and approve everything at the council meeting and that's it. Um, but there are things that can be asked beforehand so that maybe those can be brought up to everyone, and you don't have to scramble for the answers at the meeting, right? It's all about being cooperative and collaborative in this decision-making process, and not about trying to, uh, to sort of prove a point or, or make yourself look good as a, as a policy maker. But there's a couple or at least one other way that, uh, particularly in bigger cities this is common. Um, but, uh, before you actually have your decision-making meeting, you can have some kind of work session or pre-council meeting where a lot of those, that back and forth can take place in a public setting where the, you know, residents can attend. Um, but you can hash out some of those questions, uh, in a, in a setting that is designed for discussion, as opposed to a council meeting, which is, uh, which is a little bit more geared towards actually making those decisions.

22:42 Patrick

Patrick

Yeah, I mean, Fort Worth is a prime example that, you know, Fort Worth had the pre-council process, uh, where, you know, if an item was coming before council, they had a pre-council meeting where, uh, basically staff was brought into the room, the staff responsible for that item was brought into the room. Um, it was a, I guess, less scary-

23:02 Chad

Chad

Well, there's-

23:03 Patrick

Patrick

... area. It was like a-

23:03 Chad

Chad

Yeah, there's no-

23:04 Patrick

Patrick

You know

23:04 Chad

Chad

... pressure because there's no decisions being made. And-

23:07 Patrick

Patrick

Correct, there's no decisions being made

23:08 Chad

Chad

... the actual council meeting is later, so if a question comes up that you can't answer, then you can provide the answer at the meeting.

23:16 Patrick

Patrick

Y- Correct. Uh, but the, the biggest thing is that Fort Worth had built a culture w- and, and a trust with their staff. 'Cause obviously, look, it's, your staff is never gonna have a relationship with their city council members in a huge city, right? There's just so many staff members. They'll know each other, but they're not gonna have any type of relationship where there's just gonna be this immediate trust built, right? Besides the ACMs and the CM maybe. But a lot of staff members have to come in and provide a ton of information to city council members, and city council members have to have this ability to ask these questions. The pre-council meeting, uh, was the ability for council members to ask those questions, but the most important part that I always thought as a staff member in Fort Worth was the culture that was built by the city council, that if they didn't ask a question in pre-council, they didn't ask the question in the council meeting. So there was never a question asked that you didn't know was gonna come. If y- you could be prepared so that you could provide the best information possible for them to make a decision.Right.

24:14 Chad

Chad

N-no, there could be questions asked in both, right? Just to reiterate a topic on, on the record, uh-

24:20 Patrick

Patrick

Correct

24:20 Chad

Chad

... in the minutes. But yeah, the-- you, you have your opportunity to ask whatever question you want in the pre-council. So if you get to the council meeting later-

24:27 Patrick

Patrick

And if you didn't ask it, yeah

24:28 Chad

Chad

... then it's seen as kind of a gotcha situation where, you know, we've already been through this whole discussion, but here's this other question that's gonna be really hard for you. How are you gonna answer it? And that sort of, uh, interplay between council and staff was just not something that they did.

24:42 Patrick

Patrick

A-and it, it really-- I mean, I, I don't think I was ever in a city council meeting where it had to be, uh, enforced. It was just a really followed unwritten rule, right, at the end of the day. It was just one of those things that we knew as staff members when we walked in, and, and I was a young staff member in Fort Worth, and so for me, it was just-- it was a lot easier to walk in there as a twenty-two, twenty-three-year-old kid and, and present the information in pre-council and then, you know, obviously not have to be stuck in front of the bright lights of a council meeting.

25:14 Chad

Chad

So the last thing I wanna talk about, and you're welcome to add on any more if you want, is the concept of bike shedding. We've talked about it, I think with, with Brittany Huff, uh, in a previous episode, but-

25:24 Patrick

Patrick

Mm-hmm

25:25 Chad

Chad

... bike shedding is, uh, is a, is a term that is used to describe a situation where when you're looking at a meeting agenda, right, and the things that are the most complicated tend to s- you spend less time on those, and the things that are less complicated, you spend more time. So basically, the amount of time that you spend on an agenda item is, like, inversely proportional to the importance of that item, right? You have a large, uh, street project with, with all kinds of drainage improvements and pedestrian, uh, amenities and things like this, and it's so big that council, who does not work in city government, they might be real estate or a teacher or whatever, um, you know, they don't have the expertise, and so they tend to kind of assume that someone else who's a professional has taken care of those, those issues. But they still need to contribute to the conversation, so when something comes up that is, uh, easier for a normal person to understand, you know, uh, colors of, uh, some building or how, like, what kind of playground are we gonna have, um, things that, that they understand better, they'll spend more time on those, even though at the end of the day, their relative importance is less. You can see this also in-- with city staff, uh, particularly with city managers, where you're in a budget discussion and you end up s- focusing on office supplies and, uh, travel expenses. You know, these small budget, small ticket items that at the end of the day aren't really the cause of your big problems, um, versus the bigger issues, because those are things that are easier to understand. And when you get into a bike shedding mode in a council meeting, uh, it can totally derail you because you're gonna spend thirty, forty minutes talking about things that are, at the end of the day, not very significant. But everyone wants to feel like they are contributing to the conversation and to the decision-making process.

27:10 Patrick

Patrick

Well, and I, I, you know, I think from, from a council meeting standpoint, when those council members leave that meeting, they feel like the meeting has been extremely unproductive, right? They feel like they just wasted their time on an item that didn't really matter. Um, and you may have, you know, five of your six that feel that way, and your sixth feels like they got every word they needed to get in and edgewise. But, uh, I used to always laugh 'cause y-you know, in, in Hudson Oaks specifically, we would, we would bring an item to them, say it was an unbudgeted item, right, but it was less than fifty thousand dollars, okay? And, and in Hudson Oaks, we had purchasing authority at the city management level. If we have budgets, anything less than fifty thousand didn't come to council for approval. So I, I distinctly remember bringing them the purchase of a police patrol vehicle that we had moved up into a, uh, into the current fiscal year instead of buying it in the next fiscal year. It was like a September purchase 'cause we just had some extra money in that year. And I remember bringing it. I remember, um, you know, them approving it, and then the council members looking at us and saying, "Why'd y'all bring that to us?" Right? Because they had created this culture that was, "You bring the big things to us. You bring the complicated, the policy decisions. Um, you know, you bring those items to us. We, we don't wanna get into the vehicle purchase. We don't wanna get into the supplies, those other things." And the reality is, is most cities are, are the opposite. Most cities spend a bulk of their time talking about some special new piece of equipment that they're gonna buy that costs twenty to twenty-five thousand dollars, right? And they give some fancy presentation-

28:48 Chad

Chad

Or how you're gonna allocate, how you're gonna allocate a small purchase between multiple different departments or multiple funds, right?

28:54 Patrick

Patrick

Correct. Yeah.

28:54 Chad

Chad

Just let your staff handle that. And, uh, y- to get to that point, understanding the role of council and the role of staff is really, really important, and that's something that is one of the manager's primary jobs is to explain that to council continuously, especially if you-- when, when you have turnover, you're gonna have new council members who aren't ingrained and don't quite understand as well as everyone else. So teaching those roles is really important to avoiding some of these things.

29:21 Patrick

Patrick

Well, I mean, I visited a city that we, we had a discussion for, for like thirty minutes over what a prepaid expense was, right? The fact that y-you're buying something for twelve months, but maybe you only have three months left in the fiscal year, and so you have a prepaid expense that you pay three months out of the fiscal year you're in, and then you, you post the rest of the expense in the next fiscal year. City council shouldn't be focused on a prepaid expense.

29:43 Chad

Chad

Yeah.

29:43 Patrick

Patrick

I mean, it-- that type of stuff is just, it does not keep us focused, um, on the important decisions that council members should be spending their time on. And, and some cities have really long city council meetings because of that, city council meetings that go till midnight or one in the morning, and they're doing that every week or every two weeks. And, you know, it was always amazing to me that, uh, you know, we were able to do one meeting a month, and with that one meeting a month, we were usually able to get out of there in an hour and fifteen to an hour and forty-five. You know, the, the only time of year we weren't able to do that was typically right around budget, a little bit of a longer meeting, but most of the time, we were out in, you know, an hour and a half or so. So it, it's just, you know, one of those things where if you can keep it efficient and you can keep 'em, council members engaged, and you can provide them the ed- the information to educate themselves, and then you can also provide, or the council themselves provide a culture in which they are required to keep themselves educated on the issues, then it's gonna be a much easier road to have a productive council.

30:45 Chad

Chad

Sounds like a pretty good place to wrap that conversation up.

30:48 Patrick

Patrick

Yeah, I think so. I mean, I mean, we, we talk about this so often. You know, coming on here and having this conversation, we've sat in a couple council meetings recently that have been a little rough, um, and I have had some conversations with other city managers, uh, to talk about, you know, what, what can they do to make their council meeting a little better. Uh, we just felt like it was a good time to bring this topic up, have a conversation, give a couple of tips, and, uh, and, and let y'all run with it. But if you've got any comments, feel free to send me or Chad an email. It's either Patrick or Chad at zaktex.com, um, and, and we'd love to help any way we can.

A city used these easy steps to have a productive council meeting and you won't believe what happened next!

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