March 29, 2024

Roles and procedures discussed at council workshops

At the Prairie City City Council’s first regular meeting workshop, a majority of the time was spend discussing city staff, council and mayoral roles and procedures. City attorney John Judisch was on hand to clarify what is lawful for the council and help wade through any potential gray areas between council members and city staff.

“I was asked to come and talk about council rolls, mayor rolls, administrator roll and I think that will parlay some into open meetings and departments,” Judisch said.

On a day to day basis, Judisch said, the city operates through the city administrator position and to some extent the mayor. The city council governs as a body, consisting of the five members.

“Council members don’t operate as the individual, but really on any given issue, as there are three of you in agreement, then that carries the day and that is how the city moves forward on an issue,” Judisch said. “That is how the council operates, that is what goes to the city administrator and it how it funnels down through it.”

If there is a specific item or topic a council member would like addressed or discussed, the individual should talk to the city administrator and have it placed on an agenda. By doing so, it is discussed by the entire council and not just one individuals project.

“As an individual, a council person can have their desires, dreams and hopes as what they would like to see the city, but if they body as a collective, at least a majority doesn’t share in that, it doesn’t move forward,” Judisch said.

According to city code, the city administrator is responsible for carrying out directives and policies of the council, Judisch said., implying the council’s interaction is with the administrator to implement the day to day tasks given the broad ideas the council would like the city to go in. It is the intent that the city administrator to have the clear authority to administrate the day to day operations of the municipal government.

The topic of council members talking directly to city staff was also brought up following an email chain that recently took place involving both parties. Judisch said that council members can have conversations with staff, but they need to be mindful of what is discussed and the manor in which the discussion happens.

“You don’t want to put your staff in a sticky situation where one of you would like to see one this pursued and another doesn’t want to see it pursued and both of your go to the staff member. That could put them in a tricky situation because the staff member doesn’t want to appear to go against a particular council member,” Judisch said. “To me, I think the best way to approach things is if there is a topic of discussion or an area the council member would like to be briefed on, convey that to the mayor, to the city administrator and have that person give a presentation at the next meeting.”

The use of email by council members and staff to relay information was also discussed due to open meetings laws in the state. While it is completely legal for all five council members to be at the same place at the same time, at no point in time can three or more members discuss any topics they have authority or over site on. If that were to happen, it would violate open meetings law because a notice was not given about the gathering.

“If there is more than two of you, that is when you need to have a sense of what is going on,” Judisch said.

The same is true of email communications. Should three or more council members have any discussions in an email chain pertaining to city business, it would be in violation of the open meeting law.

Judisch also spoke about his roll as city attorney for the city and what responsibilities he has and does not have.

“As the attorney for the city, I am the attorney for the city. I’m not an attorney for an individual,” Judisch said. “I’m not the mayors attorney, I’m not the city administrators attorney, I’m not the councils attorney, it is really the entity itself that I provide guidance.”

To conclude the workshop, the council set a special meeting for Feb. 12 to continue budget discussions and the regular city council meeting will take place at 6 p.m. Feb. 13.

Contact Jamee A. Pierson at 641-792-3121 ext. 6534 or jpierson@newtondailynews.com