CC 03-19-2024 Item No. 4. City Council Procedures Manual_Desk Item Report1
CITY COUNCIL STAFF REPORT
DESK ITEM
Meeting: March 19, 2024
Agenda Item #4
Subject
Revisions to Cupertino City Council Procedures Manual
Recommended Action
Adopt Resolution No. 24-024 amending the Cupertino City Council Procedures Manual
Background:
A revised resolution (Attachment C) addresses direction received from the City Council
on March 5, 2024 regarding Councilmember reports. Refer to the highlighted text in
Attachment C (Section 8.3) and the draft March 5, 2024 minutes (Item #3).
Staff’s responses to questions received from councilmember are shown in italics.
Q1: I'd like to know how would the Council be able to discuss whether to pull an item
without having a substantive discussion in public on why an item should be pulled or
not? (Chao)
Staff response: Under the proposed amendments to the Council Procedures Manual, items
would need to be pulled from the consent calendar no later than 12:00 p.m. on the day of the
City Council meeting. A quorum of the Council would not be able to discuss the decision to pull
an agenda item from consent.
Q2: How and when would any member of the public be able to comment on why an
item should be pulled? (Chao)
Staff response: Members of the public can comment on any consent agenda item following the
publication of the agenda six days before the City Council meeting.
Q3: The time it takes to deliberate on whether an item should be pulled might be longer
than the time it takes on the item itself. Most of the time the time it takes to discuss a
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pulled item does not take long, except in one or two unusual cases. In such rare case,
the pulling of the item is probably necessary anyway. I would like to know whether
there are any statistics on the length of time taken for pulled agenda items. (Chao)
Staff response: Staff does not have statistics on the length of time taken for pulled consent
agenda items.
Q4: The proposed Council Procedures manual states "but may reserve any portion of
their time for further questions or deliberations, as applicable, by advising the Mayor
before yielding the floor.” So far, we have assumed that the remaining time is
automatically reserved after each Councilmember speaks or asks questions.
With this additional rule, in case anyone forgets to say "I reserve the remaining time" at
the end, they would be forbidden to speak again? In practice, how would that be
implemented? (Chao)
Staff response: The proposed amendments to the Procedures Manual would require
Councilmembers to reserve their remaining time if they use less than five minutes of time
during Councilmember questions or deliberations. The time would be forfeited if a
Councilmember does not reserve their time. As with other procedural rules, the Mayor would be
primarily responsible for keeping order.
Attachments Provided with Original Staff Report:
A. Draft Resolution No. 24-024 (Amendments to Cupertino City Council Procedures
Manual)
B. Proposed Amendments to Cupertino City Council Procedures Manual (redline)
Attachment Provided with Desk Item:
C. Revised Resolution No. 24-024 (Amendments to Cupertino City Council
Procedures Manual)