Title
Approve Draft Minutes of the Transportation Commission Special Meeting on December 7, 2022 (Action)
Body
To: Honorable Chair and Members of the Transportation Commission
BACKGROUND
Alameda Municipal Code (AMC) 2-91.16 governs minutes for City of Alameda meetings. It requires details like the date, time, Member attendees, motions, and votes. It also requires brief summaries of each public comment (nor is this required by the Sunshine Ordinance). It does not require summaries of discussions by Council, Board, and Commission Members. In addition, it requires that draft minutes be available upon request within 10 days of each meeting.
The May 2020 Transportation Commission Bylaws section VII. Minutes, includes items copied from the AMC 2-91.16 requirements. In March 22 agenda item 6A (Bylaw updates), staff recommend referring to this AMC rather than copying the text over.
In addition, the May 2020 Bylaws added, “any Commission Member may request through the presiding officer, the privilege of having a written abstract of said Member’s statement on any subject under consideration by the Commission entered in the minutes. If the Commission consents thereto, such statement shall be entered in the minutes.” The recommended Bylaw updates include keeping this provision.
DISCUSSION
The Planning, Building, and Transportation Department has been devoting an unsustainable amount of staff time to writing minutes, and has not been able to meet the AMC’s 10-day deadline for draft Transportation Commission minutes. Summarizing Commissioner discussion is especially time-consuming and difficult. These discussions are often long and nuanced, and the staff members writing minutes are not familiar with the topics.
The Planning, Building, and Transportation Director has directed staff to begin writing minutes without summaries of Board and Commission Member comments, as these are captured in the publicly available videos and are not required by the AMC or the Sunshine Ordinance. This will save staff time and help the Department meet the 10-day requirement. The draft minutes for December 7, 2022, do not include characterizations of Commissioner discussions.
Staff members have begun adding video time stamps to make it easier to refer to videos as the public record of Commissioner discussion and statements, and we recommend continuing this practice. Commissioners can also submit abstracts of their meeting statements for the minutes, as described above. Interested Commissioners should send any such statements to the Transportation Commission Secretary, who will add it to the Consent Agenda for the next meeting, and then the Transportation Commission can vote to approve this addition to the relevant minutes.
RECOMMENDATION
Approve Draft Minutes Transportation Commission Special Meeting, December 7, 2022 (Exhibit 1).
Respectfully submitted,
Andrew Thomas, Director of Planning, Building, and Transportation
By,
Lisa Foster, Senior Transportation Coordinator
Exhibits:
1. Draft Minutes Transportation Commission Special Meeting, December 7, 2022