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'. . . . . - to meetings such as this. Our top priority has been getting the message out to the public. To cheapen those efforts by this act of self-promotion is unacceptable. As long as I am the - Mayor I don't want to tolerate it, I won't tolerate it. I expect that in the future, any member of this City Council that has a problem with policy or protocol will make every attempt to resolve it with open, honest dialogue, by speaking to myself, other members of the Council, the City Attorney or the City Manager. That is the way to deal with people. The people of Redwood City deserve our best efforts, and we are going to make sure that they get it. So I would now like to move on to the last item of the evening." MEMO 6/23/98 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- C. Discussion ofthe Council Legislative Committee's Role; (205) Council Member Claire said, "Madame Mayor, if! had known these other items were on the agenda tonight I probably would not have put it on the agenda. . .. I am bringing this to your attention tonight because of the meeting that was held approximately two weeks ago on June 8, 1998. It was at the tail end of the meeting when most people had left, when we were going to discuss staff recommendation on some legislative matters that potentially could have pulled $3 million away from the City of Redwood City... That would be equal to thirty less police officers on the street from where we are right now. It was a very important matter to us. It got put on the agenda by staff. Mayor Howard at a meeting on May 18, 1998 basically asked the Legislative Committee to recommend action on the issue - at a future Council Meeting. I would have expected it to come to us from the Legislative Committee. Let me back up. Before I took my one-year vacation from this Council, it was standard operating procedure that the Legislative Committee would review all California League of Cities legislative reports, and make recommendations about those reports to us so that we could take action. When we took action, the Mayor was then instructed to write a letter to each of our Legislators indicating what action we took and whether or not we supported or did not support legislative ongoings in Sacramento and particular bills. In addition to that, the Legislative Committee was charged with taking on other legislative duties assigned to it by the Mayor and/or the majority of the Council. That's the way it went for years. "Bob Bury, former Mayor Bob Bury, use to be the Chairman of that Legislative Committee and he dutifully went through that process and reported to us about once very two or three months... We either accepted his recommendations, modified them, or we didn't accept them. But at least it was reported to us. The fact that this had been given to the Legislative Committee for review by the Mayor indicates to me that the protocol of this Council is that this Legislative Committee would in turn bring that back to us with a recommendation, either to accept it or not accept it, or no recommendation whatsoever. That did not happen. Council Member Ira who was on the Legislative Committee explained to us that this particular item had become a partisan battle in the State Capitol - REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTE BOOK NO. 56 JUNE22,1998 MINUTES Page No. 587 PAGE 25