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Neighborhood Association is establishing a Task Force on flooding. He added that there will be a liaison between that Task Force and the Council Utilities Committee, and a special joint meeting will be held in the near future. (205, 210) MEMO 2/24/98 F. John Murphy, 421 Luff Lane, asked the Council to remove Consent Calendar Item 3.G, the second reading of an Ordinance amending the City Code to change Council meetings from 4 per month to 3 per month, and starting time from 7:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Mr. Murphy said such an important issue should have a full public hearing. He said that the proposed change would in fact grant the Council a "33 1/3 per cent increase of hourly compensation at the meetings." Mr. Murphy listed and explained five points relating to this matter. (The statement Mr. Murphy read and the "talking points" report he read are on file in the City Clerk Department.) (205) When Mayor Pro Tern Ruskin advised Mr. Murphy that his time had expired, Mr. Murphy asked for the Council's indulgence to extend his remarks past the normal time limit. Among other things, Mr. Murphy said he wanted "to help the Council remove any suspicion of political cover or lack of credibility in granting themselves the equivalent of a pay raise of 33 1/3 percent." Mr. Murphy described his work background, Council salary and benefits, and other compensation figures. When reminded he had far exceeded the time limit, Mr. Murphy insisted on completing his remarks. Mayor Pro Tern Ruskin said, "I think that anyone who has served on the Council could attest to the fact that the time we spend at these meetings is actually a very small portion of the work that we do. To simply use the length of these meetings to create an equation to determine that our hourly rate which I believe comes to about $6 an hour on straight salary, to use just the length of these meetings to determine that we are going to be endowed with a tremendous increase in hourly rate, is really inaccurate from my experience.... The meetings themselves are a very small, very small, portion of the work that it takes to get the work of the City done." MEMO 2/24/98 G. Pete Hughes, 18 Admiralty Court, said, "reducing by 25% the number of Meetings you have per month is not a good idea. Speaking from the viewpoint of someone who is generally out there in the audience, like Ginny and I are, we find it very difficult to stay informed as to what's happening in the City. We think that the Consent Calendar is far to packed with items which don't really see the light of day." Mr. Hughes said he agreed with Mr. Murphy that this item should be pulled from the Consent Calendar and rescheduled for a public hearing. He said even with four meetings per month the Council is barely keeping the public informed, and cutting it to three meetings per month would be a real disservice to the people of Redwood City. MEMO 2/24/98 Mayor Pro Tern Ruskin said the decision to move to three regular meetings a month was contingent upon two issues. He said it was decided that there would be two regular REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTE BOOK NO. 56 FEBRUARY 23,1998 MINUTES Page No. 282 PAGE 5