Councilmanic

The Bloomington City Council meets weekly, on Wednesday nights at 7:30. While these meetings are always open to the public as a matter of course, how one gets to participate depends on what week of the month it is.

Regular-strength and concentrated

That’s because there are two kinds of Council meetings. The difference between them is obscure, but important and deserving of explication.

Regular meetings of the council are the first and third Wednesdays of the month. The main thing that happens at regular meetings is legislation. A bill gets introduced at a regular meeting (what we technically call “First Reading”) and eventually gets a final vote, up or down (what we call “Second Reading”) at a later regular meeting.

In between First and Second Readings, a bill gets considered in a Committee of the Whole. Committees of the Whole are held on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month, for the sole purpose of previewing the case for a given piece of legislation. Everyone interested gets to hear what initial questions and concerns the council has about the bill, members of the public get to speak about the topic, and councilmembers get to debate the issue. Then the council makes a non-binding vote of recommendation as to whether on Second Reading (i.e., in a regular meeting) the council should formally make the bill into an ordinance.

Okay, so that’s the legislative cycle in a nutshell. Now the question is, when do all those other things that happen at council meetings happen? Answer: not during committees of the whole.

The pomp and circumstance

The Council allots time only at the beginning and end of Regular meetings for the public to speak on any item not already on that evening’s agenda. Councilmembers, too, get to speak their mind on any topic only during Regular meetings. It’s only during Regular meetings that the Council hears reports from boards, commissions, and various offices in the administration up to and including the mayor himself. It’s only during Regular meetings that the Council can vote on nominees to council-appointed seats on various city commissions.

During Committees of the Whole, there’s no comment allowed from the public except on the items on that night’s agenda. There’s no extraneous councilmember comments, either (theoretically). No boards and commissions. No mayor’s report. No other pomp and circumstance.

Fifth Wednesdays and Other Cities

And if there’s a fifth Wednesday in the month? The council takes a break, much anticipated by all (including — especially — councilmembers themselves).

Is Bloomington unusual in the way it handles its legislation? Not particularly. Fort Wayne meets like we do, only their “regular meetings” are on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays and their “committees of the whole” on 1st and 3rd Tuesdays. Maybe we’re unusual for our smaller size, but Bloomington and Fort Wayne are both second-class cities.

Speaking of second-class, on the other hand, there’s Lafayette: same size as us, but meets only twice a month, with their “caucus” meeting coming five days before their regular meeting. That sure would be nice, to only be worrying about city issues one week out of the month.

Maybe they’re just a bunch of slackers in Lafayette. Maybe not enough happens there to warrant more meetings. (Maybe someone from there will take this bait and notify me so I can stop casting aspersions on their good name. Although it’s so easy…so tempting. Nothing like intrastate rivalry.)

# # #

I chaired the July 27th budget meeting, the last of four over four straight nights. There wasn’t a single public comment on any section of the budget, which we have been reviewing one department at a time. Virtually no member of the public attended in person.

I’m surprised. You’ve heard the advice to the inquisitive to “follow the money.” This is where the plan to spend all the city’s money gets decided…and zero people have comments?

Granted, it’s on TV, and our meetings have been webcast since 1999. And granted, there was zero controversy this year between the Mayor and Council, or between the administration and some other person or entity.

But sometimes I think it has to do with something much simpler: the structure of the meeting. As a member of the Council, I have the right to ask unlimited questions during the Council Questions period of any deliberation. Members of the public can only comment during Public Comment; they can’t ask questions.

Since I suspect that that knowledge is a deterrent to some people to attend and/or speak in public, I felt I should say this: if you send me a question on any topic being considered by Council, I’m willing to consider asking it on your behalf.

I reserve the right to not ask it, of course. I won’t ask questions that aren’t relevant to the topic being discussed. And I won’t ask questions that I personally think are irresponsible. (Sorry, you don’t get to argue with me about what “irresponsible” is. You don’t like it? Run for office yourself, and put up with the crap I put up with.)

But if I were no longer an elected official, I would approach a council member and request that they ask reasonable questions for me. I know enough about the members of this body to be assured that I could get them to do so. In short, I would approach them as if I were a member of their body.

Bloomington’s nine councilmembers meet in regular session twice monthly, on the first and third Wednesdays of the month at 7:30 pm.¬†

It may seem like we meet more often than that. That’s because we do. Let me explain.

Any item we consider — an ordinance, an appropriation ordinance (not the same thing), a resolution (non-binding) — must be introduced during a regular session. Its introduction is called a “first reading.” During that session, the resolution is only read out loud, letting people know that we’re going to talk about it the next time we meet.

Well, if we waited until the next regular session to discuss the resolution in public, it might be considered, and accepted or rejected, in the course of a few meager hours. But everyone wants to get some vague idea of where the public, the mayor’s office and administration, and fellow councilmembers stand on the issue at hand before councilmembers go spouting off about it during a regular session.

So, to get this idea, the council meets in a “committee of the whole,” where we get a formal presentation on the resolution by whoever’s sponsoring it, and then we get to grill people about it. Then we take public comment on the resolution. Then councilmembers get to make final comments, then we vote on a recommendation to our future selves a week from now as to whether the resolution ought to pass (”yes”) or not (”no”). Then we go home.

Since the vast majority of resolutions require deliberation, the council conducts regular “committee of the whole” meetings on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month, also at 7:30 pm.

At the next regular session, the resolution gets its “second reading,” which is also its final reading. We go through the same process as the week before, but usually it’s only to resolve major hang-ups that came up. Councilmembers then vote to adopt the resolution (”aye”) or reject it (”nay”). If the ayes have it, the resolution becomes official, or the ordinance becomes law.

There you go, that’s the basics. It’s all televised on public-access (which we might lose soon thanks to the greedy Baby Bells, more on that later) and then webcast by HoosierNet so you can watch all the gory details.

On the fifth Wednesday of the month, we rest. Also, we take a month off between the first regular session in August and the first in September. And we skip committees of the whole between the last regular session of December and the last one of January. Oh, and Spring Break. Hallelujah.

P.S.: No, I don’t get a per diem for traveling to council meetings.