In fact, each week’s meeting agenda is not “set” until Tuesday evening when the full council agrees to it. At that time any council member can pull an item from the consent calendar for later discussion, and a majority of the council could add or remove an item or reject the agenda. That’s because the council as a whole is the governing body.
Confusion arises because the Tuesday noon meeting between the mayor and the city manager is misnamed “Agenda Setting.” In fact, it is a review of the staff’s proposed draft agenda for that week and beyond. The mayor represents the entire council at that meeting. Those future draft agendas are updated to the council each Friday and posted on the city’s web site.
The fact that the proposed agenda is seldom changed at the Tuesday meetings is a tribute to the city staff’s ability to schedule issues in timely and manageable weekly doses.
The real challenge of the mayor’s job is that he or she must fairly represent the entire council’s policies while still advocating for his or her own priorities as an individual council member. That takes remarkable personal qualities that ordinary council experience doesn’t guarantee. Dick Pust best represents those qualities.
Let’s rename that Tuesday noon meeting “Draft Agenda Review” and snuff the myth that the mayor sets the council agenda.
