DOES CITY CHANGE SERVE THE PUBLIC?

If you planned to attend the Chattanooga City Council meeting last Tuesday night and arrived at the John P. Franklin City Council Building at 6 p.m., you would have found the doors locked and the lights out.

At the council’s regular meeting on Oct. 24, after discussion in a previous strategic planning meeting, Council Chair Raquetta Dotley noted that council meetings beginning Nov. 7 would start at 3:30 p.m. instead of the 6 p.m. time that had been used for 30 years.

Agenda items and committee business would be discussed first, followed by a short recess, then the regular voting meeting.

The notice of change, as per city charter, was sent to this newspaper on Oct. 26 and was included under Meetings/Hearings in the classified ad section on Oct. 29.

The problem with that change, we believe, is the public can never know exactly when the voting meeting will start. Other than the monthly zoning meetings, which will start at 6 p.m., the other regular meetings of the council could begin at 5 p.m., 5:17 p.m., or 5:27 p.m. This past Tuesday, the entire meeting was done at 5:13 p.m. But no one will ever know unless they attend the earlier committee meetings, which could last 45 minutes, an hour or perhaps an hour and a half.

We think it puts the public at a disadvantage if they really want to attend a voting meeting.

Former council chair Chip Henderson doesn’t see it that way. He believes the move will use everyone’s time, including the public’s, more efficiently.

“If there’s something they really want to express themselves on, they’ll show up at whatever time is necessary,” he told this page last week. “They’ll find a way to get there.”

Henderson said he believes the public will find the proper rhythm. Typically, he said, the agenda session and committee meetings together take about an hour. If a 30-minute recess is standard — and the chair will make that call — meetings will start around 5 p.m. Generally, he said, the regular meetings would start anywhere between 5 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.

Although he said the typical time for Tuesday meetings has been 6 p.m. throughout his three terms on the council, he said it has varied depending on special situations. The last meeting in October, for instance, began at 4 p.m. because of Halloween. However, he said, “the [council] room was full” because people were curious about the vote on the tax district for Westside development.

He said the previous wait time between the agenda/committee meeting at 3:30 p.m. and the regular meeting at 6 p.m. was too short for council members to go back to their regular jobs but too long to just “sit and heel.”

Over the years, Henderson said, the time of both the agenda/ committee meetings and the strategic planning meetings have moved forward in time, closer to the voting meetings.

“It makes our time more efficient,” he said.

The online City Council Rules of Operation do not specify a time when meetings must begin. The document states the council chair shall “have the authorization to set forth the rules and procedures for use of the City Council meeting space.” It also notes, for instance, “The Council shall have regular meetings every Tuesday” but doesn’t set a time. Further, the rules declare strategic planning meetings shall be “the First and Third Tuesday of each month,” agenda sessions “shall meet each Tuesday,” and that standing committees of the council will meet “from time to time,” but no specific time is designated.

Henderson said if the times shifts don’t work, the council can change it.

“By no means are we trying to eliminate public input,” he said. As the change goes forward, he said, “we’ll get a sense of whether this works for the public.”

Dotley, during the meeting on Oct 24, said the move was “on a trial basis.”

“Maybe this is it, maybe it’s not, but it’s worth a try,” Henderson told us.

For years, members of the public have said the Hamilton County Commission should change their weekly 9:30 a.m. meeting time to evenings to allow weekday working people to attend. We think the city council’s move in the opposite direction will be confusing to people who want to only come to the regular voting meetings.

Former Chattanooga Mayor Ron Littlefield recalls that meetings of the old City Commission and then City Council were held at 9 a.m. and sometimes drew complaints over that start time from working people. In 1993 when he was council chairman, the council changed the start time to 6 p.m.

Now, he said, it’s “absolutely correct” that a start time that’s not set won’t accommodate as many people.

Deborah Fisher, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government, agreed. She said she’s not sure “an ambiguous starting time” is proper “adequate notice” of a meeting.

“There needs to be a set start time for a regular meeting,” she said. “It puts [the public] at a disadvantage. It could cause a lot of frustration with members of the public who want to come to the meeting.”

Time will tell if a “trial basis” becomes permanent or if the trial ends in a hung jury.