At its January 7 meeting, the Clayton City Council will consider an update to council guidelines and procedures.
Under the proposed change, it would give Mayor Kim Trupiano full discretion for setting agendas including if/when an item could or would not be placed on an agenda for discussion.
The move appears aimed at preventing Councilwoman Holly Tillman from ever being able to place items on the agenda or get her request for a third party investigator from being placed on an agenda–or simply speaking about it. They also are now requesting future agenda items be placed in writing. It should be noted, Tillman has requested a third-party investigator at every meeting since October 2023 but has never been placed on an agenda for discussion.
The agenda item also comes a meeting after the council bypassed Tillman as Mayor and Vice Mayor—she previously had been passed over twice before.
According to the staff report, during the agenda setting meeting for the January 7th City Council meeting, Mayor Kim Trupiano and Vice Mayor Jeff Wan requested to agendize a discussion on current City Council Guidelines and Procedures, and proposed updates to existing guidelines.
Some of the items being proposed include:
Agenda Setting
- Item 1. Agendas a. Formation 2. — Any member of the Council may request that an item be placed on a future agenda by contacting the Mayor and City Manager in writing.
- Item 1. Agendas a. Formation 4. — It is the Mayor’s discretion as to whether a requested agenda item will appear at a regularly scheduled meeting, after consultation with the City Manager regarding availability of staff time to prepare necessary reports and the extent and number of items already scheduled for each upcoming Council meeting.
Public Comments
- The updated changes provides the mayor more authority to limit public comments due to time—set a time limit (such as 20 minutes and the rest of the comments go at the end of the meeting) and polls the audience of speakers.
Clayton Could Cut Hybrid Meetings
On January 7, the council will discuss the continued use of hybrid meetings for city council, planning commission and budget/audit committee meetings. A hybrid meeting allows the public to participate both in person or online—the city is not legally obligated to conduct hybrid meetings.
Per the Staff Report, the cost associated with conducting hybrid meetings includes audio/visual equipment set-up, monitoring and processing of meeting content. Costs for hybrid meetings are: $500 – $600 per City Council meeting ($12,000 – $14,400 annually); $200 – $300 per Planning Commission meeting ($2,400 – $7,200 annually); and $400 – $500 per Budget/Audit Committee Meeting ($4,800 – $6,000 annually).
It is unclear if the council cuts the hybrid meetings, if recordings/video of the meetings would still be available.
If You Go
Clayton City Council Meeting
Tuesday, January 7, 2025
7:00 p.m.
Hoyer Hall, Clayton Community Library
6125 Clayton Road, Clayton, CA 94517
Agenda – click here
“So the question isn’t why we are having this discussion, the question is why haven’t this dicussio happened a long time ago,” said Torres-Waker.
Antioch’s Failed Experiment Undone
Back in May 2023, the city of Antioch removed the ability for the mayor to decide what is being placed on an agenda. Instead, when a councilmember make a future agenda item request, that item will appear on an agenda within 90-days. Items requested by Conucilmembers Mike Barbanica, Lori Ogorchock and Tamisha Torres-Walker frequently were not placed on council agendas.
Council Gets More Say in Agenda Setting:
- Items requested by councilmembers must come back within 90-days
- Meetings cannot go past 11:00 pm, unless council votes that night
- Limits the amount of items on an agenda to 7 items
- At least 3 items requested by councilmembers must be on an agenda
- Items not heard during a meeting, would move to the top of the agenda at the next meeting
At that meeting, Barbanica and Torres-Walker expressed frustrations over a two-year period that the mayor was not bringing back requested items to be placed on the agenda.
“We are not looking to take away the entire thing from the mayors office, we are looking for a way to be assured that everybody’s items make it to an agenda within a time frame and 3 items are reserved for councilmembers that have made requested come back,” stated Barbanica. “If we run out of time, that item then becomes item 1 in the next meeting.”
Torres-Walker agreed with the change in agenda setting by saying, “I didn’t run for office to sell out my values and soul to get an item on the agenda. That is not how this is supposed to work,” stated Torres-Walker.
