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4. Public Participation PolicyCity of Kalispell Charles A. Harball Office of City Attorney City Attorney 312 First Avenue East P.O. Box 1997 Kalispell, MT 59903-1997 TO: Mayor Pamela B. Kennedy and Kalispell City Council FROM: Charles Harball, City Attorney Chris Kukulski, City Manager SUBJECT: Public Participation at City Meetings MEETING Monday, M. 12, 2003Work Session Tel 406.758.7708 Fax 406.758.7771 charball@kalispcll.com BACKGROUND: Late last month the Governor signed a new bill into law that affects how the City Council and the appointed boards of the City conduct their meetings. The law is effective immediately and is intended to clarify or possibly modify how local government encourages and assists public participation in issues of significant public interest. The law is now stated as follows: Section 1. Section 2-3-103, MCA, is amended to read: "2-3-103. Public participation -- governor to insure ensure guidelines adopted. (1) ((a) Each agency shall develop procedures for permitting and encouraging the public to participate in agency decisions that are of significant interest to the public. The procedures shall assure must ensure adequate notice and assist public participation before a final agency action is taken that is of significant interest to the public. The agenda for a meeting, as defined in 2-3-202, must include an item allowing public comment on any public matter that is not on the agenda of the meeting and that is within the jurisdiction of the agency conducting the meeting. However, the agency may not take action on any matter discussed unless specific notice of that matter is included on an agenda and public comment has been allowed on that matter. Public comment received at a meeting must be incorporated into the official minutes of the meeting, as provided in 2-3-212. (b) For purposes of this section "public matter" does not include contested case and other adjudicative proceedings. (2) The governor shall insure ensure that each board, bureau, commission, department, authority, agency, or officer of the executive branch of the state adopts coordinated rules for its programs;: whie The guidelines shall must provide policies and procedures to facilitate public participation in those programs, consistent with subsection (1) of this sectio . These guidelines shall must be adopted as rules and published in a manner whie so that the rules may be provided to a member of the public upon request." The first thing you will notice about the amendments is that an agenda item is required to allow the public to speak during every meeting about any issue within the jurisdiction of Memo on Public Participation May 8, 2003 Page - 2 the body, whether or not that particular issue is on the agenda. We currently have a "Public Speaks" item on every Council Meeting agenda that meets this criterion. However, we will need to begin adding this item also to the Work Session agendas as well. This particular requirement also applies to all open meetings [any time a quorum is met] of any of the appointed boards of the City. The law currently requires that the City have a procedure in place "for permitting and encouraging the public to participate in agency decisions that are of significant interest to the public that ensures adequate notice and assists public participation before a final agency action is taken." Although the City fulfills this mandate quite well, its written procedure is contained within its administrative code and states, perhaps too succinctly, at Section 2,9, that "All meetings of the Council and Committees shall be subject to the State of Montana Open Meeting Law and shall be regulated, accordingly, to insure public participation." Council may consider amending this section of the administrative code to specify exactly how adequate notice is to be provided and how the open meetings are to be conducted to assist public participation. The City Attorney's office has received comments and complaints in the past directed at the fact that the City does not have its own specific regulation in this regard and that an inquiring citizen must wade through the State law to determine the legal requirements of public participation. From the City Attorney's standpoint, Section 2-9, as it currently reads is certainly adequate to pass legal scrutiny as it requires that we comply with state law. Stated in this way it also ensures that our local ordinance will always remain compliant as state law changes. Those that argue that we should have specific regulations suggest that our ordinance is not particularly "user friendly" as the terms that instruct the City must be found scattered about the state code rather than condensed within a local regulation. The City Attorney's office is seeking direction from Council on whether or not it wishes to have a public participation policy and procedure regulation developed for incorporation into the administrative code. Chris Kukulski, City Manager