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can be some consideration." Mr. Hughes said if the Council could afford to eliminate one meeting per month, it should, instead, eliminate the three- minute rule and allow people to speak. He said the citizens deserve that extra meeting. C. John Murphy, 421 Luff Lane, commended Vice Mayor Ruskin, Mayor Pro Tern of the February 23,1998 Council meeting, "as well as the other Council Members who attended, for extending a courtesy during the public discussion of an ordinance that revises a City Code" that allowed him to finish his comments at that meeting. He said those remarks "were intended to be constructive and not entertaining. Therefore I will not expand on my prior reasons for moving the matter of reducing the number of monthly City Council meetings from the Consent Calendar to an agenda item for public discussion." He said it was unfortunate that recent candidates for Council did not discuss reducing the number of meetings per month during their campaigns. D. Nita Spangler, 970 Edgewood Road, said the crux of the issue was, "This is public business. This is not to be done, as I read in the paper the other day, in committee meetings.... This is where the business of the City should be handled." Mrs. Spangler said the public has a far more difficult time getting information from the current Board of Supervisor's meetings than before, and it was not a good situation. She said, "You don't get paid very much when you become a Council Member or Supervisor. But then. nobody drafted you either. You come here willingly, and you usually put up a good scrap to get elected." Mrs. Spangler said there was a vital need in Redwood City to bring people together, and "you now have a nice building - for goodness sake, use it." She said more meetings were needed to keep important issues in the foreITont, such as flooding. Mrs. Spangler said Council Members shouldn't have to go out in the community to gather information for five hours at a time, staff should be able to do that. She said the Council should keep four meetings per month with study time included in each one, and "if you don't think a good engineer talking about the water system in Redwood City isn't a fascinating subject, you are pretty dull people.... This is what you are supposed to be doing here." She said 7:30 p.m. is a better starting time for working people, and Council Members could shorten meetings if they curtailed their own lengthy or redundant speeches. Mrs. Spangler said a Council meeting was a great place for the community to meet each other, exchange ideas and "work towards a greater Redwood City instead of a neighborhood Redwood City where, we're better than you, or you're better than we are, or you get something that we don't get, and that kind of thing. Let's end that... because what benefits one area benefits all of us." REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTE BOOK NO. 56 MARCH 2,1998 MINUTES Page No. 302 PAGE 8