Charter Review Committee – March 6, 2025

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the March 6th meeting of the Glendale Charter Review Committee. Item number 1 is roll call. Committee members, Durham?

Here.

Flower?

Here.

Here.

Here.

Here.

Here.

Here.

Here.

Present.

Here.

Here.

Present.

Here.

Item number 2, regular business agenda. Report of the city clerk, reposting of the agenda. The agenda for the March 6th, 2025 meeting of the Charter Review Committee was posted on March 3rd, 2025 on the bulletin board outside of City Hall. Item number 3 is oral communications. Discussion is limited to items not part of this agenda. Each speaker is allowed 3 minutes. The committee may question or respond to the speaker, but there will be no debate or decision. The Charter Review Committee lead may refer the matter to staff for investigation or report. And, uh, Chair, we have 1 request from the audience and 0 callers.

Okay, let's go. Who's up?

Thank you. I, I have a handout to give.

Thank you.

For future reference, if the public has things they wanted to distribute, can they, um, give that to you before the meeting?

Yes.

Okay.

Uh, just the one speaker? If you need 5, take 5.

Thank you very much. Members of the Charter Committee, my name is Herbert Mwana. I am going to make a presentation that to some extent gives rationale for why these particular considerations should be studied by this committee. What I have in front of me here may seem like a case for districting. This is the recreational element. It's one of these formal documents that support the general plan. So there's a general plan that the state of California requires, and there are elements which are the individual plans that support the element. And those are the guidelines, that's the pathway that the city and the consultants and the public give in order to tell the city council, this is what we want. In this document written 30 years ago, It states very clearly that we have areas in Glendale with 27,000 people with zero, zero neighborhood parks, and nothing has been done about it in 30 years. And yet this document the city paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for to do, basically they noted and filed and pretty much ignored it, ignored the needs of South Glendale. So this seems to me like a case for districting when you have something as significant as this. 2 years later, after this was written We had a blue ribbon committee, and one of the members became mayor later on for about 20 years— mayor and council member. The blue ribbon committee said the same thing. We have a significant shortage. Address it. And yet the city council never did. And if you were to add all of the monies collected by the city during those 30 years, it could be around $25 billion. They could not spend $10 million to put a park. That is like, like, to me, a rationale for districting. But will it happen if you were to have districting? Will this thing ever happen? Will we have parkland for the areas that desperately need? All right, so let's take away parkland and look at infrastructure like the roads. If you were to drive between Brent Boulevard and Glendale Avenue on Lexington, you'll see roads that haven't been fixed. In 40 years. There are neighborhoods that are single-family homes. Those roads have not been fixed in 50 years or more. So how is it possible that something for other cities is only like 1 or 2% of the general fund, they don't get done? So we have 2 examples, parkland and roadways, as something that you can visibly see that is lacking. Our children are being attended to, our roads are not being attended to. So where is the money going? How are the decisions made? So there's something significantly wrong in the way that the city council performs its duties and the way they are being given the information on which they can make decisions. So if you belong to one of the committees and you make a suggestion, there's no guarantee that they're going to do anything. Note and file. And that's usually the case, and that's been the history of what I've seen in 24 years and hundreds of meetings that I've attended. So what I put down is basically what guidelines should we put in place so that things get done and that the needs of the public are being addressed. And that's what this document is for. And it also in the last two pages addresses something really significant, which is what happens when a city council creates an ordinance based upon false and misleading information, and some of them has caused us. Hundreds of millions of dollars out of false and misleading information. By the way, my email is my name, herbertmolano@gmail.com. And if you want to get substantiating documents of what I'm saying, I have that. And I can give it to you and give you the examples of how I can corroborate the things that I say here before you. So I appreciate if you were to read this, because no matter how you decide to create districts or in the manner in which we decide to do elections, it's not going to matter unless some significant changes must take place in Glendale. Because at the end of the day, this is a city that does not have that much public participation. And if you were to compare this city to Carlsbad, where everything that I said they do— the parkland and the roadways and the great urban design and so forth— it occurs there Because there is public participation at the 50th percent level for a city council session. And here we don't have that. And I think that's part of the problem, right? People who are uninformed, unaware, just like you are. This information is probably new to you. You don't know that. And if you are the cream of the crop in Glendale who are here participating, the rest of the population doesn't know.

Thank you.

And I think this gives you an idea as to what needs to be corrected on top of whatever it is that you're going to do with this thing. Thank you very much.

Very well timed. Um, okay, um, nobody else online at this point?

There are no more speakers?

Okay, thank you. All right, that takes us to item 4, approval of minutes. Um, does anybody have any changes, corrections, questions about the minutes? If not, is there a motion to approve?

So moved.

Motion.

Second.

Second. Can we just do a voice vote?

Sure, go for it.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Aye.

Any abstentions? Okay. Um, staff comments?

I will defer to ACM Toktalian if he has any staff comments. But the only comment that I would want to add is that at the conclusion of the last meeting, the committee asked staff to look at mechanisms for members of the public to submit questions or comments to this body. We noted that this committee does have a webpage, a dedicated webpage on the city's website, and that webpage has been modified to enable the submission of public comments and questions to staff that will be transmitted to you in turn upon their receipt.

Okay, we'll get that as part of our packet?

We would submit them to you probably prior to the meeting. Prior to your next— prior to your next meeting.

All right. Any questions or thoughts about that? Elizabeth?

Yeah, just to add on, I was at the City Council meeting, and City Attorney also reiterated when we meet, encouraged the public to attend. So I think it was pretty well advertised too. So thank you.

I'll say the city also posted on their Instagram talking about the meeting tonight and generally the Charter Review Committee.

2 questions regarding that. First, to your first question, Chair Flower, if a public comment such as this is available ahead of time, can it be distributed to us? Was that answered?

I don't see any reason why it couldn't be.

Great. Secondly, this webpage that's put up, are we able to make recommendations for things For example, the— what you put together for this review committee for us to see where council made all their comments in a very succinct way, is that something that could be made available to the public? They were public meetings.

I guess my thought is it certainly seems technically possible, but I would defer to staff and ultimately, I guess, the city manager whether or not they think that appropriate.

I mean, from a technical perspective, there's nothing stopping us. I'm looking over at the City Attorney's—

And I'm sorry, um, Committee Member Miller, can you repeat the question? I'm not sure that I understood the question.

So one of the documents that's available to us is a very succinct and helpful document that highlights every place that council spoke about council districts. Furthermore, there are public comments from many people in the public that for those public members or for our public who may not come here, they may be likely to open up a webpage, view some of those things, find value in it. So—

The links to the video.

Links to the videos.

Very useful.

I understand. So if there are comments that were previously offered during a public meeting, certainly those can be linked to publicly on the committee's webpage, if that's your question, essentially reiterating public comments. I see no reason why the city couldn't do that.

If that's the will of this group, we can, we can certainly move in that direction. It'll be up next week.

Just expanding that, is there any reason why we wouldn't— there's been materials provided to us— just make it a blanket rule that any materials provided to us or—

No, it's green.

Oh, let me speak up. Um, uh, the— in addition to that very useful summary sheet, there has been other materials that have been provided to us. Is there, is there any reason why it's all public record? Yeah, is there?

That's correct.

So we should just make it available in one easy spot, I would, I would suggest.

I had a comment. I think I sent an email about it, which was about surveys, if we could send any kind of surveys out to the public or not. That would help us with collecting data. Is it possible, or—

It's certainly something that we can take back to the city manager's office and our communications staff to see what's feasible.

We have some people who are subscribed to the city email right now. We received the city, let's say, the, um, um, as the economic development basically department, for example. So there are people who are already subscribed, and probably that could be a section there.

Yeah, we will definitely take that back.

Thank you.

Let's just let us know what you're capable of doing without taxing, you know, city resources too much.

Sure.

Yeah.

All right.

Um, any more staff comments? Do you want to open up another can of worms?

Not for me, Chair Flower.

Okay.

All right, that brings us to item 6, business items discussion. Only one item here, item A, composition of the city council, at-large versus district elections, number of city council seats, appointed versus directly elected mayor. So, you know, this is a continuation of the discussion we really got into last time. I thought it was a really good discussion. I thought everybody kind of came out and was really engaging, and I appreciated that. My recollection of where we had this at is we had a lot of different views, it turned out, on the question of districts. And my view is that's kind of like the big issue that I think we have to deal with. Now, we can continue to wrestle with it, or, you know, we don't have to make a decision on it. Because I think a lot of the other issues like the directly elected mayor, very related, and how you feel about one, as we discussed, it may affect the other. I think we have at least a temperature check on where everybody is, or for some of us, our own districts. Maybe it would be beneficial to go and just shift our focus for tonight on the mayoral question, just to dive in and see where people are, and then, you know, not making any decisions on districts by doing that. Um, what is the sense of the group? Anybody? What would you like to do?

Um, I like the idea of talking about the mayor first.

Okay. Any other views on that?

Chair Flower, we do have one comment from the audience.

Um, I want to hear what everybody has to say about where we're going to take this discussion first.

I'd add that it's related completely, so, um, need to make it— but we could have a discussion about it, and I think it makes sense to, to have one decision instead of a serial decision tree. So instead of, you know, don't decide on this and then move on to that, it's one decision, all-encompassing, because they're so closely related.

Okay.

Ryan? Oh, I was just excited to talk about the mayor.

this time instead.

You planning on running?

No, no, no, I just like variety.

Okay.

Linda?

I'm fine with it because if we decide to go with a strong mayor system, then I think that would already define the situation.

Okay.

Mr. Meek?

You're skipping over.

Okay.

At present, I am definitely for retaining the mayorship as a rotating basis. Okay.

I really— I'm I'm just kind of getting the sense of where we want to take tonight's conversation. Are you comfortable with the idea that we kind of just put aside the district question, not entirely, just for the moment, and focus in on the issues about the mayor position, just to see where we are on that issue without closing the door on the district question?

Yeah.

Okay.

So I'm with Brian. I like variety. But I also know that they're interrelated, but I'd like to know more on the details. of the mayoral election.

Thanks.

Alan?

I'm fine with discussing the mayor.

Okay.

Thank you.

Denise?

I'm happy to go wherever this group wants to go. I do think they're intertwined. I do have comments that relate to all of them in terms of recommendations. Sure.

I'm fine with going on to the next topic because they are intertwined and each idea and discussion kind of adds up together because all of them are very global.

And then I think each time we have a new—

something adds to our decisions overall. So I think it will give us more information to go and think about.

Again.

Carl?

I'm okay going ahead with a discussion on, uh, on the mayor. Um, just gonna say they are intertwined, so at this point, at least for me, it's kind of a hypothetical discussion because that may not be where I land, right, when it, when it all comes there. But I'm happy to kind of discuss and flesh out the, the details of what we think, what it could look like. Not that it should look like that in the end.

Yeah, I, I, I appreciate the way you said hypothetical. So for purpose of this discussion, we can frame it as if there were to be a separately elected mayor, what should— what could or should that look like for Glendale? Okay, so, um, with that, um, would the, uh, person online still like to speak? They're in person. Okay, 3 minutes.

Chris Welch, you have 3 minutes. Thank you.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Chris Welch. I am a 26-year resident of the city of Glendale. I live in the Adams Hill neighborhood, so I, I am a resident of South Glendale, and I'm here to advocate for going with district-based elections for the city. A few— couple years ago, maybe, somehow I got in touch with this Dave's Redistricting app. I'm not sure if any of you are familiar with it, but it's where you can play around with, with the districts. And, you know, so I played around with this to, to try and see what would districts look like for Glendale if we had 6 districts. And, you know, going on the notion that districts should be compact, I started at the corners of the city and worked inwards. And basically how it shakes out is that the south part of Glendale would have 3 districts. Basically all of the areas south of the 134 would have 3 districts. It's been a very long time that I can recall that we've had more than maybe one councilperson who has lived south of the 134. Why this is important is because neighborhoods that are affected by things should have good, strong representation. And I think that having somebody who represents a particular area of the city will be the best advocate for that area of the city. There's been a huge amount of development and building in South Glendale. For people who live in South Glendale, it affects them in their daily lives. And I'm not saying I'm opposed to development. I actually support development where it makes sense, you know, where there's transit options, where there's stuff around there, where, where it's already a rich environment. But I get frustrated when I don't see development happening in places outside of South Glendale. It seems to be all down there. And the neighborhoods that would otherwise support it, like Glen Oaks or Foothill, you know, the neighborhoods come out in opposition and things get shot down. And it doesn't seem like there's the same level of focus on, you know, supporting the neighborhoods in other areas than South Glendale. So I think that's— in my mind, that means that the neighborhoods should have representation. to have more parks available to the neighborhood, to really advocate for what that neighborhood needs. And you need somebody who lives in that neighborhood to truly be an advocate to do that. So that's why I'm here to speak on behalf of and in support of district-based elections, as well as, you know, an at-large elected mayor as well. So thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Again, very well timed.

One more request to speak in person.

Members of the Charter Review Committee, I want to address the following: my concerns concerning who gets elected. We've had a mayor, Mayor Gus Gomez, who served for at least a couple of terms. He was in the Adams Hill area. He served us But he never really advocated for the things that we needed, even though I spoke to him directly. I believe Artie Kotzakian was also for some time was also in South Glendale as well. And yet the problems that I mentioned earlier persist. And so the decisions that a mayor will make oftentimes extend far and beyond their usual advocacy. They usually— people run for office for one particular hot topic. Their ideology that they want to move forward, maybe sometimes land use issues. But they have to make decisions on a whole range of things— on policing, on urban design, on Glendale Water and Power, on the rates that we pay, on what to do about the homeless— a whole range of things that most individuals are really not prepared to do. So the warning that I'm giving you is that a person who comes to City Council, or a mayor, worse, with very little information, making significant decisions with regard to what the city is going to do, and do it for 4 years, if it is a 4-year mayor, puts us at a significant disadvantage with regard to the quality of the decisions that we need to have made. And I think that's the danger of having a mayor dedicated or that have a veto power over things. Because we don't have any training way of basically giving someone information concerning how public works should be and what the trends have been, for example. We don't have a way of training someone so that when they are making decisions, they're making decisions in the best interest of everybody. We think we do because somebody advocates for one thing, but that's how people get elected. And the electors have very little information and background on how to elect someone. Oh, I like their last name. I kept telling you how many people thought I was Italian, and so a whole bunch of Italian people voted for me. So the— and that's the way people vote. I think that by moving the mayor year after year, at least it will assure us that not one person is going to have so much power that their ignorance eventually we wind up paying for, right? Or their single-issue advocacy, you know, continues to be the mainstay and everything else is forgotten. So it's a warning that maybe selecting a mayor needs a lot more restrictions and controls. Thank you.

Any more speakers?

No.

All right. Thank you. So I checked with staff just before we got going to see if they had the information from the staff report they previously provided on the mayor and the options. And I thought it would be useful. It's like 8 slides. If we could just ask them to go through it again to kind of refocus us. Okay.

Thanks, Mark. Members of the committee, much of this information, all of this information you will have received before tonight. I'll attempt to give you a succinct recitation of our presentation at your January meeting. I believe it was your January meeting regarding the directly elected mayor. Next slide, please. Before we dive into models, I think it'll be helpful to set the stage once again that the City of Glendale operates with a council-manager form of government. In a council-manager form of government, the electors elect their city council, the city council appoints the city manager who serves as the chief executive officer of the city, and then the department heads are reportable to the city manager. This is distinguishable from a mayor-council form of government, which is also known as a strong mayor form of government, in which the electors elect their mayor separately from their council. And generally speaking—

Mm-hmm.

The department heads are reportable to the mayor. The mayor exerts significantly more authority over the budgetary process, over the executive personnel management, over policy setting as well. And importantly, the consideration of a mayor-council or strong mayor form of government was not in the direction that the City Council has provided to this committee. So the directly elected mayor models that this presentation will touch upon are those found in other council-manager forms of government in the state of California. So, there are— with that said, there are 4 models. They share 3 common features. The mayor is, in each of them, elected at large, serves as presiding officer of the council, and has an equal voice on all matters before the council. What distinguishes the models amongst each other is whether the mayor has an equal vote on all matters before the council, and whether the mayor has veto power on matters before the council. Next slide, please.

Okay.

The most common model for a directly elected mayor is one in which the mayor has an equal voice and vote on all matters before the council, but not veto power. And that model is employed in all charter cities with a council-manager form of government, And a directly elected mayor, except for 4. Next slide, please. The second model, which for the sake of convenience we'll call the Long Beach model, this model has a directly elected mayor with no vote on matters before the council. However, the mayor does have veto power. However, the council can override a mayoral veto by a 2/3 supermajority vote. Next slide, please. The 3rd model is the Bakersfield model. This is a model in which the directly elected mayor can vote on matters before the council only in the event of a tie and does not have veto power. Next slide, please. 4th model, we will call this the Riverside or San Bernardino model. They're both the same. This is a situation in which the directly elected mayor votes on matters before the council only in the event of a tie, but also has veto power subject to council override by a supermajority vote. Both Bakersfield and Riverside have 7-member councils, so it takes 5 votes to override a mayoral veto. Next slide, please. This is San Bernardino. The charter language is slightly different than the Riverside language, but the model is the same. Next slide, please. Turning to the duties of a directly elected mayor, as you see in— or as you may have seen in the information presented to you for this evening's meeting, there are certain common duties prescribed in charters of cities with directly elected mayors. Commonly, they serve as the official head of the city for political representative and ceremonial purposes, and by the governor for military purposes. It's contemplating states of disaster or emergency. They interpret, not exclusively, the policies, programs, and needs of the city and communicate the same to the electorate. They execute legal instruments to which the city is a party, except where otherwise provided by law or council action. They represent the city before other public agencies, except as otherwise provided by council action. So there could be discretion in, in this situation to serve as the city's representative to another governmental body, a regional governmental body, or to have another member of the council serve as the city's representative to that body and exercise other powers and duties that are delegated by law, by the charter, or by the council. Next slide, please. These are some of the more occasional duties found of directly elected mayors in a council-manager form of government. Recommending law and policy to the council for its consideration. As I mentioned previously, in a council-manager form of government, making the budget is a responsibility of the city manager, but some charters also vest the mayor the ability to recommend budgetary and programmatic items to the city manager and their directly elected mayor, require the city staff provide information to the council, appoint members of council committees, boards, or commissions with the consent of the council. So in this situation, the council essentially confirms appointments made by the mayor, whereas typically in a council-manager form of government like ours where they're is not a directly elected mayor. The appointments are shared by, in some form, by members of the council. Take command of the city government, particularly the public safety agencies, during a public danger or emergency with the council's consent. And report periodically to the council on the affairs or conditions of the city. That sums up my succinct presentation for tonight's meeting.

Thank you.

Happy to answer any questions that you have.

All right.

I've got a list of questions, but I'm going to go last. So before we jump into discussion, does anybody have any questions about the powers and roles of a separately elected mayor? I'm going to start with Linda. No questions at this time. Okay.

No, I'm good.

I have a question.

Oh, OK. Go.

Do these types of mayors— are they allowed to appoint commissioners?

That can be a model. It's one of the more occasional duties of a directly elected mayor within a council-manager form of government. and could be subject to the consent of the council. So the mayor could name an appointee to boards, commissions, and committees, and the council could confirm those appointments. That is one model, or rather one potential duty of a directly elected mayor.

I've seen a general law city that does that, actually. Mr. Meek.

We can choose, or the city can choose, how the directed— directly elected mayor would be— have the power in certain things like commissioners. You had mentioned in disaster-type things where this directly elected mayor could be the general. Right now, I believe it would be the city manager.

That's correct.

So we would put that into our wording, which way we would want that to go?

Yes.

Thank you.

Elizabeth.

Would that also apply to whether the directly elected mayor would do the budget as opposed to the city manager? I mean, do we— do we have a choice in that to define that or no?

Candidly, in a council-manager form of government, the city manager serving as the Chief Executive Officer of the city sets the budget and presents it to the council.

But in the directly elected mayor—

In a council-manager form of government, no, that's not typically—

Okay, it's not.

That's not typically found, with the exception of making budgetary recommendations to the city manager.

Okay, thanks.

I would just go back to the previous question as well. If there was going to be a recommendation, if I understood correctly, that a directly elected mayor serve as the emergency manager in a disaster, That's a conver— there has to be a conversation amongst this group and City Council with respect to that. Ultimately, the emergency manager is essentially taking charge of that emergency. The City Council and the mayor still serve as the policy group, and every— all the different department staff, including all the different department heads, police and fire, report back to the city manager. So there is a lot of intricacies with respect to you know, what the role of a mayor there would be. And frankly, that would, in my opinion, sound more like a strong mayor type government than a normal one, a regular city council manager form of government with a directly elected mayor.

Now, I have a question about boards and commissions because the city council has just implemented a new 2-panel system and they're still nominating and appointing board and commission members through the end of March. But if we had an elected mayor to change whatever the system is for board and commission nominations, would that be something the council would have to vote to change rather than just be a, you know, the purview of an elected mayor?

I think the best way to answer your question is to say that if If it were presented in a potential charter amendment to the electorate, it would be the electorate that, that by popular vote reestablishes the duties for appointments between the mayor and the council members.

So would the charter amendment have to— I'm trying to envision what it would look like on the ballot. Will it have to enumerate a whole list of duties for an elected mayor if that goes on the ballot?

So obviously the language is a very tail-end step, but it would have to ascribe specifically what the duties of the directly elected mayor are vis-à-vis the council.

So we'd probably have to enumerate at least the things that were on the Yes. Thank you.

Again, if any of them were recommended to the council and the council ultimately adopted them for consideration by the electorate, yes. Denise?

No questions.

No questions at this point. Okay. I have a few. I was curious what— this may sound a little niche, but if the mayor were to have an equal voice but no vote, what are the Brown Act implications of that? I mean, if they're not able to vote, are they part of the body for Brown Act purposes?

Yes, they're part of the body for Brown Act purposes.

OK.

But if they're merely presiding but don't have a voice or a vote? I shouldn't quiz you on that. I don't know the answer either. It just seemed weird to me, like, suddenly, if they're merely a presiding officer with a veto, if they're actually subject to the Brown Act.

But they're— and that is a good question. However, there is no mayoral model, directly elected mayoral model in California where the presiding officer does not have either a voice or a vote.

A voice or a vote.

OK.

Yes.

OK.

One of the potential powers was to make certain policy decisions, and I was curious, like, what sorts of policy decisions would those be? I mean, would those be like setting personnel policy, setting risk management policies, that sort of thing? Or is— because that seems a little bit in the weeds for a directly elected mayor.

So the— I think that the charters that have policymaking as a role of a directly elected mayor are to make recommendations to the council for their consideration. But I'd be happy to bring back a survey on what some other cities have done.

I don't think it's necessary. I guess I'm just kind of curious what that looks like. I mean, right now, if— a member of the city council, current city council, has a policy recommendation, they can just ask for it to be on the agenda, right?

Yes.

Okay. So that's essentially the same thing, or to a degree. I mean, they say, I think we should address— start addressing this policy, and then they can make their argument however they want.

And typically, you know, how that would come is a future agenda request, and the council would consider whether there is interest in bringing it back for formal action. It does come, I think, back to a bit of an agenda-setting power.

Yeah.

Okay.

On the execution of legal instruments, what does the charter currently say, or is this controlled by ordinance? I mean, I'm just curious, is that something we need to muck about with, or is it a problem now, or can we just kind of leave it be?

And generally, when I've seen those chair flower there, it's unless otherwise required by law or unless otherwise delegated. And for our purposes, the city manager is the chief executive officer, signs and is required to sign most legal instruments for the city.

And that hasn't been a problem at all?

No.

Okay.

I think the other instruments that you would see that the mayor sign would be ordinances and resolutions. That's, that's really what it contemplates.

Um, on the, uh, representing the city on other boards, how does the city do that now? Like, how is it determined who's going to be on the airport board?

Or—

Sure, maybe I can take this one.

Sure.

Uh, it, it really depends on the board itself. Uh, oftentimes the different boards, uh, JPAs, different committees have their own bylaws, and that That dictates who can serve. But in general, the City Council votes amongst the group to determine who's going to be the delegate or an alternate if available.

All right. Emergency powers, kind of a follow-up to what people brought up before. Does the city currently already have an emergency action plan like most cities?

Yes.

So it spells out who has what authority and what the chain of command is?

Absolutely.

So inserting a directly elected mayor into that process where they haven't normally been in the chain of command might be awkward, right?

It comes with a bit of training as well.

Yeah.

Okay.

And not just training, but, you know, state and national certifications.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. Those are my questions for now.

Okay.

So now we're into the meat of it.

Are there—

should we kind of go down the list that we were given and see where people stand on them? I mean, if we have a directly elected mayor, it sounds like it's pretty standard for them to be the presiding officer at meetings. I don't think anybody have any objection to that.

No?

Equal voice and equal vote. Um, equal voice, if I'm correct, just means they're allowed to participate in the debate?

Yes.

Okay, otherwise they're kind of like the vice president presiding over the— as president of the Senate where they don't get to say anything. Only in a tie. That's right. Um, that never happens. Um, okay, equal voice, equal vote. I'm curious what people think. Should the mayor be like a functional part of the council. That's how, that's how I'm viewing it.

Yes.

Okay. And yes, I would agree with that. Okay.

Alan? Yeah, well, now this kind of jumps back to districting, but one of the arguments for an elected mayor, if the city went to districts, is in addition to your council member, you would have an at-large mayor you could go to with concerns. So I wouldn't want to disenfranchise an elected mayor from voting on issues.

So I, I'm wondering whether we should consider how many council members will be there in deciding whether a mayor should be recalled. Let's say we have 7 districts of council and 1 mayor, and the total 8 people, there could be a 4-4 tie. So is this something that we should consider whether—

when we decide whether the mayor should— I think it's a good point. If there's going to be a mayor who has a vote, you want an even number of districts.

Is there something that we can decide, like, you know, we want even or, like, odd-numbered districts because we want— the mayor wants several votes? Is there, like, a good rationale to fix the number of districts?

I guess how I see it, and I'm curious how other people see it, is that if you're going to go to districts and have a separately elected mayor, You should— who's elected at large, you need an even number of districts if the mayor is going to participate in the vote. Yeah, because otherwise you're just begging for a tie every time.

And if I may, um, I thought that the— from looking back at all of the tapes and the discussion and the input, I thought that council, the majority— it wasn't a consensus, but there was A majority to look at 6 districts with an elected mayor. So we could start with that number. We could throw out other numbers, wherever you want to go.

I agree. I saw the same thing in the videos I reviewed of the discussions. But, you know, just for the sake of discussion, you could do the same thing. If that's— if 6 seems like too many districts for you, you could also envision it with 4 districts and a separate elected mayor. You know, just in terms of the functioning of a council when they go to vote, that would be the same thing. So, but everybody seems to agree that there should be— if there's a separately elected mayor, they should have an equal vote and an equal voice to participate. Okay, we're getting there. Okay, here's a fun one: veto. Does anybody think that the mayor, a separately elected mayor, If we were to have one, should have a veto?

No.

No.

I think it gives the mayor too much power over policy.

Yeah, I, I tend to agree. I think the purpose is to kind of counterbalance but not to dominate.

I mean, we're looking at the city of Glendale with 200,000 people. I don't think we need— as, as things get bigger and more complex You know, if you look at the United States, 330 million people, 550 states, I can see where you might need a veto power in that. But we're looking at 200,000 people, and if we're really trying to drive towards consensus, I don't think the mayor should have that much power. And you need to really work toward building a consensus on council to get things done.

I agree.

My sense too is— actually, I didn't even— never even conceived that a mayor would that a smaller city would have any sort of veto power. But I met a council member from, I think it was Redondo Beach, at a conference once. And he told me about this. And I said, wait a minute, that's a problem. What if you have to act quickly? Because you have a vote, and then their mayor has like 3 days to issue a veto. And it's like, and then it can be overridden, which requires another Brown Act meeting. And I said, sometimes the council has to take actions under a deadline to like approve a grant or something. Uh, for example. And if you have a back and forth that's built— it just— that seems like a mess in addition to everything else that everybody said. But Denise, were you going to say something else there?

Okay. Chair, um, not to throw a curveball, but, um, can you have an odd number of districts with no widely elected mayor? Generally, yes.

It would— I assume it would be— go back to rotating Mayoralty.

I mean, that's essentially what we have now.

Yeah.

Yeah. Again, this is a hypothetical.

Yeah. This is hypothetically speaking.

Yeah. Okay, so, so veto, unless anybody vetoes that, we're going to take that off the list as a preliminary matter. Okay. Please point out if I've left anything else off the list here. But okay, so they'd be the head of the city, the formal head of the city. Policymaking powers, we've kind of seen that that's somewhat ambiguous. That was the impression I got in response to my question. I'm not in favor of that. Is anybody else willing to entertain the idea that the mayor, separately elected, would have any sort of policymaking role other than merely recommending that certain items be addressed by the council as a whole on an agenda.

So maybe, Mr. Chair, I can just clarify the 2 pieces on policy in the presentation. A common duty is that the mayor has a non-exclusive— one of the common provisions is the mayor has a non-exclusive ability to interpret policy and to pronounce policy on behalf of the council. A less common provision Um, one of the more occasional provisions of directly elected mayors in, in charters, uh, of cities with council-manager forms of government is that the mayor, um, is expressly vested with authority to recommend policy to the council. So, there— the common piece is interpretation and a non-exclusive interpretation and pronouncement. Um, and the less common piece is, is recommending policy to the council. I'm not trying to confuse the issue. I'm trying to clarify the issue.

So—

I remain confused.

It's the quagmire of remorse.

It's not your fault.

Does the original— does the first example you gave mean that the mayor's the spokesperson on the policy? Is it a figurehead role? Is that a voice?

So I can—

Or is it—

Maybe I can put it in practical terms. A situation in which the council has adopted a policy, um, and there's, uh, some need to reiterate what that policy means, uh, down the line for purposes of, uh, the city manager and department heads effectuating that policy. Um, the mayor, uh, in, in some of these charter provisions, um, has the ability to provide their interpretation of what that policy means that was previously adopted or that is under consideration by the council.

Okay. With that explanation, I would not be for it.

It feels like it gets dangerously close to the mayor on their own directing staff.

When you say that, does that mean the mayor is really the exclusive voice?

No, not exclusive.

No.

But it would— and I think because I think I have the same concerns that Commissioner Miller just— or Committee Member Miller just mentioned, is that it's like it does sound like it gets dangerously close to somebody being able to direct that. Because hypothetically, if there's another council member who interprets it slightly different but also wants to have a discussion with the city manager about that particular policy—

And maybe I can say that that is one potential scenario in which authority to interpret could play out. It's not the only one, like I said, and you have the language of the other city's charter provisions in front of you, but it is not limited to policy, but interpreting the needs of the city, let's say, in a discussion with the council.

That's—

And presenting the same for consideration in policymaking role. And the other piece is communicating changes in policy. Um, to the electorate.

It's the same bully pulpit.

Yeah.

I mean, well, it's a, it's sort of enhanced bully pulpit.

It, it would not— I want to stress though that it's the, the one iteration that I've just mentioned is not the only way to view it, and it would certainly be up to the committee to shape that role.

And it would also be up to how it plays itself out in practice, and we don't know where that might roll.

That's up to you to discuss.

Yes.

Mayor's going to mayor. What's that?

Mayor's going to mayor.

Mayor's going to mayor.

Yeah.

Any other thoughts on that? I'm not comfortable with it personally, but—

I kind of— yeah. As the saying goes, the devil's in the details. And there's a lot of details. It is dangerous when you have one person interpreting what policy means. I think it's certainly something to consider because, candidly, I came— my homework, I came prepared to talk about districts. I haven't really considered—

I'm sorry.

We're going to have a whole couple weeks for me, at least, to really provide some meaningful feedback on mayors.

Excuse me, I like the mayor's gonna mayor thing because, um, yeah, even if you don't put that in there, a strong personality in that seat is going to do those sorts of things anyways. But if they can point to an actual textual provision in the Charter that says they get to do it, that just gets worse.

Well, in our form of government with the city manager, it seems to me that the city manager would then say Is this what you mean to the council as a whole, rather than a mayor doing it? The manager would say, this is my interpretation of what you've just passed or just what you've said. And then the council says yes or no, what we mean is something like this. And that's the way the city's council-manager works.

Right, but what— You're going to jump in?

Yeah, I mean, I can try to jump in from a practical perspective. I mean, the reality is the decisions are made in public. There's quite a bit of discussion that goes into it, and it's really, I think, the city manager's and the city attorney's role to make sure that the motion and/or resolution that's before the council for consideration is clear. And if there's any ambiguity at that point, that's going to be the driving force behind how it's interpreted down the road. To me, that's the legislative intent and the legislative record. So I I mean, I'm not going to opine on what's better or what's not, but what we typically go by now is making sure we have clarity in the motions and resolutions.

I will say that—

I'm sorry, I have a question for Mr. Israel. Um, does that in any way circumvent the need to agendize items for discussion before the council? I mean, does that mean the mayor can just bring up anything with respect to policy without it being agreed to, agendized by the council?

As the governing body, the council, with the exception of closed session items, must conduct its business, must take action in an open notice meeting. So if the council is going to consider an ordinance or a resolution or adopting a motion to establish a program or to codify a new law, that has to come in a public meeting. I hope that that answers your question. I think that that's what your question is.

If I understand, are you asking, Alan, if the mayor who has that kind of policy directive authority, can they just add something to the agenda?

Yeah, just at will rather than have the council—

Without complying with the Brown Act?

Yes, and currently, the council has to vote to agendize. you know, a proposal by another council member. Isn't that—

Correct me if I'm wrong. We can't override the Brown Act with the charter.

No.

Right. So the charter would still control. The question of who puts— how does an item get on the agenda, that's still within the city's purview.

Yes.

Okay.

Well, I guess if we wrote the charter provision in such a way that it allowed the mayor to do that, it would. If we left it sort of as is, really the council, or in this case hypothetically the council and at-large mayor, would still have to hammer out its process as to whether an individual can request something on the agenda or whether it requires more than one. So I guess we've got to be careful how we write it.

Yes.

Unless you want to give that power directly to the mayor, that the mayor always has the ability to agendize something. Other than that, I think if it's silent or remains in the current system, it would be however council wants to do it, whether they want one person to be able to do it or whether it requires 2 or a majority vote to bring it on.

We also have the option to not even include this item in our recommendation, correct?

Okay.

That's where I'm at.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm just kind of poking at this since these were things that were brought up as potential items to include.

Well, I just, you know, I think One thing to just consider for this committee to think about, unless someone's so moved and can produce a point on it, is to really think about the ambiguity that we experienced around the way it's written. So unless we're so moved by what the intent of it is, specifically the intent that was called out by our assistant city manager, is the intent that I understand understand it to be with the city attorney's role and the city manager. So therefore, I wonder why this would even be necessary. I mean, if it's about the mayor speaking about policy, that's covered in the first one, isn't it? The first one where they speak for the— you know, when they're addressing and they're the figurehead, the ceremonial. So, I mean, let's maybe not complicate Yeah, thanks.

I have a technical question.

Is there a term limit to the mayor?

Um, hasn't been put under discussion yet. I think term limits generally are something we're going to have to deal with at some point, not just for the mayor but for the council.

It is a topic of discussion that came before the council, and would be before the committee's purview to consider that as well. Great.

So, the last thing I have is the appointment power, which I kind of find interesting. The idea of the mayor being allowed to put forth appointments, but they're subject to confirmation by the council as a whole. I haven't been the closest watcher of how Glendale's process has played out. In different cities I've worked in, sometimes it's all very collegial with appointments and it goes very smoothly, and sometimes it gets really, really, really hot. And so I don't know what the history here has been or whether or not there's a sense that it really needs to be addressed at part of this process. So I guess I'm kind of looking at staff at this point, just to— without characterizing your boss's actions in the past, but like, has the process of appointments of like Planning Commission and such ever— does it require revisiting as part of the charter process?

Sorry.

Go ahead.

I thought that was the end of the question.

I was going to keep going.

I know how that works. I will say that the City Council has spent quite a bit of time over the last 12 to 18 months on this particular issue specifically. They adopted a fairly— I'm not sure what word to use. It's robust appointment process where we have committees made up of 2 council members, one who is the primary, one who is the secondary. And every individual— and the purpose behind it was to make sure that each individual councilor or did have the ability to make or recommend an appointment. They just have to get support from their colleague. Once that occurs, then that recommendation or that nomination comes before the full City Council for appointment. All that to say that, yes, to your point, it has been a little bit of a, of a challenge in the past. The City Council recognized that. They did adopt a new policy. We're in the midst of hopefully finalizing the final appointments at this point, which essentially entailed starting fresh. So every— each and every single board and commission member is going to be appointed as a new member serving either a 2 or 4-year term.

I have a question about the appointment. So currently, when I went to the city website, there's like a committee like GWP, like whatever committee, and there are 5 City Council, and it shows who appointed which and the term length. So if somebody currently— I'm, I'm just trying to understand how the appointment works right now. So if I want to be on the committee, and then how do I, you know, do I need to pick who I want to be appointed? But like, how does this whole process work?

Sure, it gets a little bit into the process, and I'm going to look over to our attorney sitting in the back, Lucy Varpetian, has been very close to this, working with the City Clerk's Office. Like I said, we're in the midst of all of this going on right now, so I would suspect that over the next few months that will all be cleaned up and verified. But to answer your specific question, if you're interested to serve on a board or commission, you fill out an application, it goes into the pool, and ultimately the appointing panel of 2 council members have an opportunity to review your application, call you in for an interview if they wish And if they can agree on your nomination, they make that nomination at a city council meeting. It comes back the following week for a vote by the entire city council.

So the fact that somebody was appointed by like Council Member X has nothing to do with like they have a relationship, they know each other, you know, I personally submit my application to the council, has nothing to do with that?

No.

They kind of rotate?

Yeah, the purpose behind The purpose behind having the name of the council member would essentially ensure that each individual council member had an opportunity to make a nomination. But I'm going to turn it over to Lucy because it sounds like she has something to add.

Oh good, it works.

The reason for aligning them is so that there would— the term would be aligned with that number. So the person, the council person in the A position would be the term that the board member's term would begin and end, essentially.

John, could I make a comment to Rachel? You'll be misled looking at the tables for the boards and commissions right now because it's totally apples and oranges. You have some currently new appointments under the new system that's being implemented, And you have a bunch of board and commission seats that have not yet been selected under the new system. So you'll see appointees still on boards that were nominated by prior council members who are not even on council anymore. So don't be misled by the current listings because the whole process of reappointing or, um, you know, changing the board members is not complete yet. So it's very, it's very confu— because I looked at it and I got confused because, um, uh, it hasn't been completed yet. Eventually you'll see everyone being appointed, uh, by a current board member in the number 1 position and a current board member On the second position of each panel, but it's not complete yet.

Because currently the way I saw it is that, let's say, you know, Councilmember A has— can appoint somebody, but I know somebody was interested to serve that board, but I know their political views are different. So that person was worried, if I submit it, that councilmember may not pick me because we have different ideas. So I'm just wondering whether they'll have that kind of political differences will have any role in selecting the commissioner. So that was my question.

Could I personally react to that? Yes, it would. I mean, for all practical purposes, it's going to be hard to— like, if the number one councilperson on that panel really differs from you politically, you know, it's just going to be pretty odd that they would select that person.

This is—

they are typically looking for somebody who is going to reflect their viewpoints on that board.

I mean, there was quite a conversation about appointing us.

Right.

In fairness to that process, my understanding from watching council and why they took 12 to 18 months and went into detail on this topic And put— it's a lengthier process. It used to be one councilperson, each councilperson appointed someone to a commission. Now the 2 councilperson is designed, my understanding, to avoid what could happen, what you've just described. But if I may, in terms of bringing us back to the mayor, could you imagine if the mayor could appoint them all?

Yes.

I just, I just want to put out there something for us to consider in terms of being realistic. Certainly we're here to make recommendations to council, and if somebody's so moved that the— an elected mayor should, should have that role, then they should really build that case as part of the recommendation to council, because realistically they spent 12 to 18 months and they're not going to go for this. The same council that will review our recommendations are the ones that spent 12 to 18 months. So I'm hard-pressed to think that they're going to accept a recommendation from us where we're saying let's let that elected mayor choose all the commissioners. So we can certainly spend time on that, but, you know, time is money.

I don't disagree with any of what you just said. But I will say, I think it's useful for folks, particularly if they don't have a lot of experience in watching how city decisions, either here or elsewhere, get made, to kind of understand when you start pulling a thread here, we're unraveling over here. And so I think the fact that suddenly somebody says, what about term limits? Yes, that is something we're going to have to deal with.

That's right.

Or if we talk about the appointment powers of the mayor, how does that disrupt things over here?

Well, then could I ask the question back to— do you, Rachel, do you have, do you have an opinion on, on where you would like to go? I mean, would you like the elected mayor to be able to, um, choose, appoint commissioners or not?

Is that subject to ratification and confirmation by the whole council? So they would put the name for— the mayor would put the name forward, and then everybody gets to vote up or down on that person's nomination.

So anybody can submit an application to the mayor, and mayor will do the first screening and then recommend some? Is that the process? There's nobody else there who the mayor will consult with in screening the—

I think ideally in practice they get support from the staff to go through the applications because there's potentially a lot for one person to go through, but the actual nomination would How many commissioners does the city have? A lot.

Probably—

give me a minute, I'll actually pull up the number of commissions. There's between 5 and 7 on each.

Maybe more than average?

14, 15 different boards and commissions, and then there's about 5 to 7, I think, on each. So multiply that, that's what you get, probably 60, 70.

60-ish?

Rough numbers.

Some of them are not appointed. My question was that when a commissioner is not appointed right now, they serve until someone else is appointed, right? So what happens there? Why are we extending someone's service if they can be replaced with someone else? Because that already kind of That's actually illegal. It is?

Yeah, there's—

No, I know it is legal, but is there any other thoughts from the City Council to change it, or is it just going to stay the same way?

I don't know if that's really within our jurisdiction at the moment, but yeah.

Chair Flower, that's in the municipal code. It's regulated.

It also has it in the municipal code?

Yeah.

Yeah. All right. Okay. I've just— I've encountered this under state law.

There's—

But there are term limits for board and commission members.

Okay. All right. Um, I, I'm getting the sense that nobody really wants to, um, empower a hypothetical separately elected mayor with the unilateral power to appoint subject to ratification. So, I'm just gonna—

That makes good sense.

Table that.

But, um, I—

What about term limits?

Back to the limits.

Runs down the list of powers that I heard discussed. So, they'd be the, The presiding officer separately elected. They'd have an equal vote, an equal voice, no power of veto. And it didn't sound like there was really so no interest in really opening up the Pandora's box of policy decision-making authority or policy interpretation. Execution of legal instruments is already kind of dealt with. It's not something that's been an issue. Representation of other boards and bodies. that's already controlled, and I think a lot of that would be outside of the control because there are other bodies, like you said, JPA. Emergency powers, didn't see much appetite to putting an elected mayor into that chain of command at this point. And then the appointments, I think we've beat that horse. Does that give the staff direction on, like, if we were to ultimately, you know, you have a universe of authority that we'd be willing to consider giving it up to a directly elected mayor?

I think, Chair Flower, depending on where the council goes, what we could do is we could prepare a summary of the deliberation by the committee and bring it back, make sure that it ultimately reflects the deliberation. And I don't necessarily want to say consensus, but hypothetical consensus. of the recommendation that the committee wants to make. There is also, in the packet that you received for tonight's meeting, there is sample language that was previously prepared for the City Council on the duties of the— both the powers and duties of the directly elected mayor. before the council ultimately established this body. So that might be something that, that, that we can focus on in bringing, bringing your report back. But it sounds to me like the points of discussion that you've had tonight are, again, in general terms, reflected in a lot of that language.

So we, we drove around a while and then ended up same place.

Chair, could I make a recommendation?

Yes.

Could we take, um, note all the hypothetical consensus that we reached and, and then revisit this at the end when we wrap up districting and then try to come up with one omnibus hypothetical or theoretical or actual consensus?

That's what I'm aiming for.

All right, great.

That's a, you know, not to decide the mayorship questions tonight, but to get a sense of where we are. Because again, as people have pointed out tonight, this is going to reflect back on how we think about districts and vice versa. So we've had that preliminary, you know, get into it on districts. We're not done. But I think— I hope we all feel a little bit more focused on where we stand on if there's going to be a separately elected mayor. We know what that— we want that to look like. We can go back to districts at least having a sense of where we are on the mayor question.

Are we going to discuss term limits?

I wouldn't be averse to it. But my question— I guess I don't recall exactly if that was given to us as part of our mandate. I don't think that that necessarily constrains us from talking about it.

Well, the only reason I'm going there, I'll just get to the end. The recommendation and the discussion that took place by counsel seemed to land on 2 or 4. And I think, you know, if we got some—

That's the term, not the term— or 2 or 4 terms total? Oh, I think it was 2-year term or 4-year terms.

It was 12 years. It was 3 terms, was one recommendation I heard. So we could look at whether we want to recommend 2 terms or 3 terms. And then there was also discussion on this elected mayor, if it would be 2 years or 4 years. There was a— and there wasn't consensus on that. So we might do right as a committee by coming to some recommendation on that. And if you want my numbers, I'll give them to you right now.

Well, perhaps we could put that on the next agenda as another one of these questions that can focus us back on thinking about how the council operates, which will again reflect back on the district question? That would be my preference. I'm glad you brought that up. I'm glad you both brought up the issue of term limits, 'cause it just hadn't been in my head this week thinking about this stuff. So can we get that on the next agenda?

Yes.

Thank you.

Can I ask a clarifying question?

Yes.

I think that we're interchangeably using the vernacular of term and term limits interchangeably. The way I understand it, and this is where the city manager's role comes in to clarify what the intent of this conversation is. I don't want to leave it up for interpretation. So on the future agenda, we'll bring back both those items.

Both.

Should the term be 2 or 4 years for a directly elected mayor? And should the term limit be 1 term, 2 terms, 3 terms, 4, 8, 12 years?

How long and how many?

How long and how many? Is that, is that what I'm hearing?

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

Another question that I want to pose to the board. Do we need to consider whether a mayor can run to the city council right after finishing his or her term, or is it something that we need to consider or not?

I'm not averse to considering it. I guess my take is maybe we address the first question first about term limits. I don't know, what do people think?

I hadn't really—

again, another question I hadn't really thought of about, you know, ability to go back and run for a seat.

So that's a great Permutation. Completely did not think about it at all.

But—

And I think it's a fair question because it's kind of one of those, can you do 3 terms as a councilmember and then another 3 terms as mayor, hypothetically speaking? Or is there a limit on the total amount of time you can do in city government, whether it's as mayor— elected city government, whether it's as mayor and councilmember combined?

If I had to, like, come to a conclusion right now, It's, it's, you have one global limit, whether you're serving as a mayor or a councilperson, you have so much time because I think that's the intent behind this.

I disagree.

Only for the sake of just, you know, yeah, I think it's a good topic.

Yes.

It's a fair question. And it's got some interesting implications behind it.

Yeah, definitely.

Can there be any legal, like, issues? Like, you know, you cannot limit somebody's, like, how long they can serve. Like, is there, like, can there be, like, is there a case, like, you know, from the court saying that you cannot put the limit on somebody's, like, you know, running for governorship or something?

Just, just to jump in, I think this is an issue that we can bring back and have it be part of your broader discussion. It does require us to go and look at it. There are— there is case law that regulates term limits, permanent preclusion from running again, those types of limitations. So that's something we can definitely look at and bring back so that you're thinking about it in the context of this process, and it'll inform your decision as to whether or not you want to make a recommendation there or not. But it'll come back to you in the form of additional information.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Um, I think that gives us something good to look forward to at the next meeting. Um, as to this discussion, does anybody want to— while we're on this agenda item, we— does anybody want— have any thoughts they want to add further about districts, or do we just want to say, hey, good work tonight?

Um, not the districts, but I have a question, I mean, from everyone here. Does anyone have any, basically, opposition in having a directly elected mayor and why?

Oh, so I just want to— we've been assuming that for purposes of discussion. Right, right.

I understand, but I just want to see if we should just stop discussing it because there is a legit reason for it, right?

So the baseline question are there misgivings or opposition to having a separately elected mayor?

I don't know if I would ever require— say, a misgiving.

Fair enough.

But I think if you don't have an elected mayor, directly elected mayor, you still want to have an odd number of seats on the council. So council has leaned towards 6 districts. I believe it's in our purview to change that. We could say, hey, we want 7 districts and no elected mayor, or we want 2 districts and an elected mayor. We could, we could recommend any of those. Whether—

It would be a triumvirate.

—it moves further is another question altogether. But at this moment, I would say Most— I would go, we need like 6 districts, which is what the council is kind of leaning toward, and a directly elected mayor, and then we go from there unless we feel like changing things up.

Well, if you change it, then it would be the mayor not having a vote, basically, if there are 6 districts.

No, then if it's 7 districts, there wouldn't be a The directly elected mayor.

Right, right. But if there is 6 districts, then do we want the mayor to be able to vote? Or does the mayor vote in the case of a tie?

The mayor would have to vote.

Right. Well, if you have a tie, then—

Yeah.

Then yes.

But, you know, I think we've said we'd like the mayor to have an equal—

Right, right. My whole point was to see if there is any reason for us to not consider it. So maybe we could give that a thought before we come back next time.

They're not considering it. Do you want 7 districts or an odd number of districts, whatever that may be?

Are you aiming at districts or are you kind of trying to compare and contrast the, like, the current system where the mayor is appointed by the council itself? It's kind of what we're doing now, and it, it has tended most of the time to rotate through all of the council members. Or if you go to a directly elected, then it would no longer— that no longer becomes there.

Correct.

I would say if you also expand districts, it's not going to be able to— it's probably physically not going to be able to rotate to everybody within the council because they're going to run out of terms before they do that. And if you— so if you expand, whether at-large or by district, if you expand the number of council members, then do you want to give the populace as a whole the ability to say, that's our mayor and not leave it to the council to do that appointment.

Right.

That's, I think, where— I thought maybe where you were going.

So to me, if you were to increase the number of seats to, say, 7, without a directly elected mayor, you're gonna have fights that are even more contentious about who that appointed mayor is going to be because some people will be left out almost certainly. Oh, they have to be.

They have to be mathematically.

Yeah, they'd have to win at least 2 terms.

We could have mayoral terms that are less than a year. I mean, no one said it has to be a year.

By the time they redecorate the office.

Less than 4 years.

No, I think he's saying appointed like everybody would serve 6 months.

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

Mayor for a day.

I mean, I guess it really, again, speaks to what In this hypothetical world, what would the hypothetical mayor really be doing? What's the purpose of this position?

And I mean, it almost looks like our consensus has basically come back to what the mayor does now.

I was just going to say that.

I mean, the discussion is important to look through the various things, but we've really come around to the mayor is what the mayor is now. It's, you know, it is the spokesperson for the city when they're in that appointed position. They may represent— they'll represent government while they're doing that term.

Right.

And so most of it, I guess I'll say, is primarily ceremonial in nature, and I think that's driven by the fact we have a council-manager form of government, so the operations part is really vested in the city manager part of it. But it's like, whether we go directly elected or rotation, the duties I think we all kind of agree are the same. And so now it sort of goes, where do we see it going in terms of, do we think districts, and then do we need— because you won't be able to potentially cordially rotate that or effectively rotate that and give people an opportunity amongst a council. Do we give that to the populace or the electorate as a whole and say, here, you pick your mayor for the next 2, 4, whatever hypothetical years you have on there?

Yeah. See, I think if you go to districts. I mean, you're right, we've arrived at a list of duties that are basically what we have in place now. But if they're separately elected and you have districts, you have somebody who's answerable to all of the districts. Like Alan said, you have somebody else that you, you can go to and say, you know, I'm one of your voters. But, you know, they also— they have to think about the city as a whole and balancing the interests of the different districts while they're doing the job. So you have one vote on there, at least who's constantly answerable to everybody. And I think that that's an important counterbalance to any sort of factional regionalism that might emerge with districts. That's the value I see.

I have a question for John. What's the current role of the mayor in conjunction with the city manager in setting council agendas?

So the mayor's role is with respect to the timing of items coming before the city council. On a weekly basis, the city manager will send a document or an email to the mayor listing out the agenda items for the following week or following weeks. They meet on a regular basis, and essentially they determine the timing.

Can the mayor pull items from the agenda recommended by the city manager?

You mean pull off consent calendar or pull off— just take it off the agenda?

Take it off the agenda.

Okay. Once it is on the agenda, and I'm— and this is where I'm kind of tiptoeing into uncomfortable territory because I know there's some Robert's Rules of Order and maybe some other issues there, but once it's on the agenda, I believe it takes approval of a majority of the City Council to remove an item off the agenda. Am I making that up?

There's also an ongoing council discussion about agenda setting and a presentation of those items once they're appearing on the agenda. So I'm aware that that discussion is still happening at the council level at this point. But if, for instance, there could be a situation in which for timing purposes, for, for, it's gone late into the evening. The mayor, I have seen, ask for consent to carry the balance of items over to another meeting. But if they're, if they're simply not hearing, if they're not going to hear an item, then we are talking about an action with respect to an item. And that's something that they would form consensus around.

My sense then is it's something that's being actively debated as a policy question by the current council and doesn't necessarily need to be addressed by this group. It's kind of like the appointment issue. Like, they're trying something that doesn't necessarily need to be part of what we're doing.

Yeah, with respect to duties of the elected mayor, it's something that this committee could recommend as a duty, and it's something that this committee could be silent about one way or the other, or could recommend one way or the other, or be silent about.

If I might just follow up on Alan's question. So if a mayor has the ability to adjust the timing on the agenda, do they have the ability to make it disappear? I guess, can they permanently pull it and not put it on there? I don't know if that's where you were going, but it's like going— it's like, okay, so I don't know, you get a— yeah, exactly, a pocket veto where you're looking at an agenda and going, you're going down the agenda going, hey, this is going to be a 12-hour meeting, we need to move some things around and reschedule things. But if a mayor— does the mayor have the ability to go, yeah, I really don't like that particular item, and so it constantly is always the item that gets moved? I see Lucy's hand up over there.

I was just going to jump in and maybe add the following. If we're talking about an item that is already on the agenda, then there would need to be a process during the meeting itself to get something continued to a later time, because at that point the public has been advised, individuals may have appeared to be heard on it. But if we're talking about an item that is yet to be placed on a future agenda, then there is a process that the City Council currently follows, and there has to be agreement on placing that item on a future agenda. As Mr. Tektalian was saying, the mayor could have a rule on which agenda, but even that, to a certain degree, there's agreement between staff, city manager's office, as to when the item will be ready to be presented in trying to balance the urgency of the matter with the broader agenda.

Thank you.

number of items that are to be discussed so that there's a— you don't have agendas that are too packed and individuals aren't able to address it. But if, in accordance with the process, if there's ever a situation where the council members have followed the actual city process in getting an item agendized and there is a deliberate effort for someone to not have it come back on a future agenda, then that would come up during a council meeting and that would be addressed at that point. Not the contents of it, but the fact that something is deliberately being delayed and postponed so that it would not be heard. So that would come up and the council members would be able to comment on that, for example, during council meeting— the council comment period. So there's actually an agenda item— there's a, there's a place on the agenda where they get to discuss future agenda items. They would bring it up at that point.

If I may comment, uh, the mayor seems to have the ability to take, uh, action item B and move it after action item F during the meeting. That's any chair of any Just move things around anytime. And that happens in, you know, while the meeting is taking place. Okay.

It's— that's what it means by presiding over the meeting. So with that, I'm going to move— no, I'm just kidding.

Can I make some comments?

Please.

So I, I just want to make some comments to the committee as it relates to process. I promise to try to be as succinct as possible, but Committee Member Magidashian's question at the end— did I pronounce correctly?

Yes.

Great. Her question at the end, I think, begs the louder issue, which is this process. And so what I just want to throw out there, especially— I'm not clear yet if I get to participate by Zoom next month when I'm at a conference, I want to throw a couple of comments out for you all to consider should you in fact vote on something. The issues I've had with the process is that really if you review everything that council has done, council came up with their recommendations. But if we go back from that, the reality of what's really the biggest piece in the room is the vote of the people. So I suffer with the, the process that took place because the process was— it was almost like the cart before the horse. But the— it's the vote of the people or else we're doing an ordinance. And I— and the approach was as if they were doing an ordinance. And so peeling back from that, I believe that if we take into consideration everything they said, those for it and those against it, really I want to make sure that our recommendation includes— I mean, to me, we know that the recommendation was districting, so we're going down that path and we're exhausting that. And we know it was an elected mayor, and we're going down that path and exhausting that. At the same time, I think we have to also be very clear about what not— about What if this doesn't happen at all? And what I mean by that is, I do think it's our role to give them recommendations about the outreach process. I feel strongly about that. And the reason I do is this, that the people that were hired, I think if I have the numbers right, it's to the tune of $200,000, which, wow. But that being said, I think in going down the path of really understanding what they did, which I would like us to consider and recommend to council, is that if it's the will of the people, then our first order is to say to council, put it on the ballot. We already know it probably wouldn't happen until 2030. I'm a project manager, by the way. So I mapped out until 2030. So in peeling back from that, we're 2026, put it on the ballot. That's our recommendation. And then between 2026 and— or 2025 and 2026, we have recommendations for them in terms of how to do outreach, because I just don't think they got it right. 262, that's the amount of people that did maps. Come on. You could draw your own map? Come on. I mean, I know it was fun and there was public comment and it was engaging and all of that. But this is so serious to open up a charter. It is so serious. And so serious— well, I'm going to quote a movie— serious situations require serious conversations. Wasn't that like what Michael Douglas said or something? But the point being is that we have to be very conscious about this and direct that back to council because the majority almost approached it as if, you know, I listened to— no disrespect— I listened to Councilmember Brotman say we'll do this and we'll do this. That's what you do if you're doing an ordinance. And you can do that in the event that we get sued. But we're not there yet. And they can go down that path should that day come. But our role as serious citizens is to say to them, you know what, that outreach, um, that outreach, you've hired a consultant. We're given the directive of 6 maps. They gave the public 14. Public needs a foundation. They need 6 maps or 8, and then they need people to say— the public will come in and tell you what they don't like. You don't start with the public from a place of tell me what you want. Draw a map, choose different colors. Oh, wasn't that fun? This is serious stuff. And so in doing that, I think that really what it comes down to is whichever consultant we hire— again, I'll be succinct— our recommendation to council is the consultants has to be very directed to how they outreach with our public. They have to do the digital mapping. They have to go to South Glendale. They have to do GCC. Oh, and by the way, even the message, make your voice heard, that's not what the message is. The message is, do you want districts or not? I mean, I'm driving by GCC. I got 4 seconds to catch something and be safe in Glendale. As we know, that's a different topic in Glendale. I have 4 seconds. Do you want districts or not?

Thank you.

be heard. So I feel like we have to be specific in those recommendations because I kind of don't feel like council— I don't know if that's their role, but they didn't direct that consultant. And so if you listen to what all the council people said, every single council person, those for it, which were some very good arguments— and by the way, that's— you can build an argument either way. I mean, I was asked that question. Many of you might know I ran in a campaign. I was asked that question. I was not for it. I was not for districts. And I was not for it because there are so many other priorities in the city, not because I'm not for it. I could build an argument to be for it. I've heard very good arguments for it. That's not what's before us. It's— what's before us is the vote of the people. Telling council that let's get it on the ballot in '26, and between '25 and '26, your outreach to the public should look like this— could look like this, not should— could look like this. Your consultant has to go in with maps. Your consultant goes in with maps, sits down with the— and they go to all the HOAs, and they go to all the service clubs, and they go to GCC, and they go to GUSD. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I can list off 50 more. So I could have given them their outreach. All I'm saying is that we can be very directive to council and helpful to them. And then the last part of what I said, which is where I went when you opened that question, I think we have to take into consideration the 2 councilpeople who, who said, I don't want it at all. And I think that has to be part of the outreach.

Thank you.

outreach where we recommend that. We will build a case for districting, for an elected mayor, for term limits, but part of the outreach— I mean, Mr. Milano can have his own outreach and tell everybody why not to district. I guess what I'm saying is that can be part of the recommendations to people, and that's a real project around charter, you know, not going— And I think that's a And your consultants bring you maps and say, what don't you want? And draw a different line around here and do this. They don't start from zero and say, what do you want in your dreams? So those are just a few thoughts. And in the event that you, you vote, what I'm really trying to just say is if we could give some really concrete recommendations to council, which is get it on a ballot, And approach it as if it's a vote of the people and do a robust outreach. And that, you know, and if you get it on a ballot, all these things you were discussing as a committee— elected district, this, and not to do it at all— make that a part of your robust outreach. And I will pause there.

But, um, may I, may I make a comment here? Sorry. So the reason I asked for surveys was— one of the reasons was that, because I feel we, we are a representation, but we can't speak for everyone. So, uh, I would really like to have the opportunity— give the opportunity to others to make comments. And I don't think a lot of people would go to the website and send us messages. Honestly, I don't think that's gonna happen. But I think if it's in an email and you receive 3 to 4 questions and you just have to just click a few times, it's more probable for people to put the effort to provide some feedback. And that also could be a helpful way to understand where the public stands. So should that happen, I think that should help us to have some data so we can analyze and move forward with it.

Do you think we need that, though? Just one last minute, I'll pause. Do you think we need that though in terms of making recommendations? Like, I feel like we're there. It took me 3 meetings. You asked the first time, Chair, where we stood. I can now tell you after 3 meetings and doing a deep dive, yeah, let's go for districting. Let's look at an elected mayor. Let's look at these term limits and let's put it to a public vote. But our outreach must include if they don't want it, what it looks like if we do nothing. Like, do you see what I mean? The outreach includes both. That's all I'm—

Kim, may I say something? Yeah, I think, Linda, you definitely have a point, but the outreach has to come first so that people have to know what they're facing. What are, what are the details? What are the, you know, the intricacies of districting versus not, not having a district? Why did we start the process to begin with? Well, what was the mandate and all that? So, you know, I think I really like that, but I think I think that, as Denise said, it has to come after.

Of course.

Yeah.

I have a question.

The city is obligated to do outreach. So let's say we make a recommendation to the council and we recommend districting and they say, okay, we think we should put that on the ballot. I think my understanding is that the city council's role, like, ends there. They say, okay, we put this agenda on the ballot. like promoting, outreaching about districting, is, is that part of the city's job? Or I'm just asking.

Shouldn't talk. I was about to give a legal opinion.

Would you like me to do it instead? Um, once, once the city council decides that they're going to put something on the ballot or have put something on the ballot, the advocacy piece has to end. The city council, the city can have— it could provide informational sessions But any type of advocacy really has to be grassroots, completely separate and apart from the city itself. For example, we wouldn't be able to hire consultants to drive a certain point home. And frankly, there's a level to the information as well. If you're doing it in such a way where it's, you know, it could be reasonably construed to cross the line of advocacy, you're prohibited from doing that as well from a legal standpoint.

So the city cannot stop the children? Yeah, so city cannot do the outreach, right? That's, that's the answer.

Yeah, it depends what you mean by outreach.

Like promoting, like we, we, I mean, yeah, this agenda is on the ballot. I think that's a fair thing to promote, but then, you know, like advocating for districting, that's a different issue. So I don't think that's something the city can do using taxpayers' money, right?

Correct.

Then, then respectfully, what is council looking for from us? I ask that question again because if they had a consultant and the consultant went out and did all this and they came up— they spent a long time discussing it, then is the recommendation from council for us to be talking about to say yes to districting and all the reasons for it? And I mean, do we even have the option to say no districting?

I think we have that option. I think I view our charge as to look at these substantive questions about these particular amendments to the Charter. Is it a good idea? And it's by appointing this body, they've taken it out of the council chambers and broadened the body of people looking at it who aren't necessarily caught up in worrying about getting reelected. And we all had to, you know, put forth some qualifications. We were picked for those qualifications. To be here and to think about the issues that the council has thought about. You're right; it's kind of backwards that way, but it's kind of to backstop what they've already talked about. And if we reach the same conclusion, it's not because that's where we were going in the first place; it's because we sat here and talked about it. And so we, at the end of the day, have a list of recommendations. Now, are our list of recommendations going to match up with what? Where they last voted on this thing? Maybe, maybe not. But it will lend an additional collective voice to that process before it goes to the ballot. And so it's not simply a matter of the 5 people on the council and what they might have— think is best in their own political agendas. It's what a group of members of the people in the community who showed up for, you know, 2, 3 hours once a month and talked about it thought. And so, at the end of the day, that's— we give them the substantive recommendations. And, you know, at the end of that process, we have time, and I hope we do, to talk about what our recommendations are for what the outreach process could be. We can add that recommendation. I don't think there's anything stopping us from doing that. But I think our first duty is to look at the substantive questions of what should or should not be changed in the charter.

Okay, okay, one last follow-up question, if I may, to then to that point. So if that's what's before us, then back to Mrs.— Committee Member Magidjian's comments, I guess, and to the point that our Assistant, um, City Manager John just made, I guess what I'm trying to figure out then is, so council came to these conclusions, but they had a consultant and they had the ability to get public input. We— if we say go to the vote, that's where it ends. Okay, so if we back away from that, then how are we going to get the public input? I mean, what, what's our resources? We have one public member here.

I, I know. I understand, but it's not like there's no way for people to give us their views on these things. I'm just— I mean—

Okay.

But doing a survey, I mean, I guess I don't think we were necessarily chosen to function as a direct conduit for survey data. I don't think it's— I think it can be valuable, it can be interesting, but it won't necessarily— it might— it's not going to drive what I think about the merits of a particular proposal. I don't think that's why we're necessarily here. We're here to talk about it amongst ourselves as people who are engaged on this topic and provide a recommendation. Are we definitive? No, we're not designed to be. We're supposed to be, you know—

Advisory.

An advisory group of people of good faith coming together to discuss these issues. And if at the end of the day people vote otherwise, that's fine. That's part of the process. But we're here to you know, chew on these issues out— a little bit outside of the political process and to provide a recommendation based on that. And at the end of the day, there should be outreach. There should be, you know, engagement to make sure people are thinking about these issues. But right now, I think we just are really supposed to tackle the substantive issues.

Chair?

I'm sorry. Carl actually had his hand up before, so I'd like to hear from him.

Just a couple of comments, because council didn't have to put this on the charge of this committee. They had done a lot of work on it, but they chose to put it here. So I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that they want some feedback on that. Because at least I, for one, I'm not sure I've reached the threshold for districts, because there are bigger implications to the city. And in theory, I have a little bit more time these days, but it's like I'm just watching the emergency response. to Altadena and to the Palisades and how that works in the districts and some of the things with Los Angeles and a fire chief and whose feelings were hurt over who didn't get a heads up and how that works and whether that kind of environment would be good for Glendale. So my mind is not made up on that. But I don't think they would have put that in our lap if they didn't want some feedback, which could include feedback going, we don't think that makes sense for Glendale. That's, I think, one of the options we have. And if it does— if we do think it makes sense, then to go forward from there. But I'd also say it's only one of the topics that we need to go through. There are other things in this charter that we need to look at and clean up.

Civil service.

Yes, civil service, some of the finance stuff. There are other things that are in there. This one was there. I said, I think, you know, as I was looking at before the meeting and some of the duties of the mayor, we kind of came back around to what was already there. We may or may not end up in the same place, but I think we owe City Council and ultimately the community the benefit of our opinion on that, whether it's yes districts, no districts, or somewhere in between.

Okay. Just a couple— we were formed to, I assume, go over the entire charter. But are we able to make a recommendation for districts without finishing all the charter things so that it could get on a ballot in 2026? Because there's a deadline to get things on the ballot.

Since you're looking at me, Committee Member Meek, I'll take that question.

I was, yeah. That's why you look away. You telegraphed it.

Yes.

The answer to your question is that the, the council, um, gave you charge to look at a number of issues and set certain things as priorities. And, uh, composition of the council was one of them, certainly. Um, as, uh, Vice Chair Povilaitis noted, the civil service, uh, system was another. Um, so, to answer your question, uh, I, I, I do think it was, um, within the contemplation of the council that the committee have recommendations one way or the other to enable a decision relative to the upcoming ballot, whether to put something on the ballot on the— what's our deadline?

I think it's March.

I can maybe answer that.

Sorry, I asked what the deadline was.

Yeah, if we're looking at the— 2026, we need to work our way back. And so items need to get on the agenda 90 days— or there needs to be a call for elections. There needs to be at least a 90-day lead time in order for things to get to— for the call to elections to occur. And so we need to work our way back. I think the last time we were looking at this, we wanted to take at least a preliminary report back to council towards the the end of summer to let them know the progress of the committee and then get some additional direction and then try to bring it back by then. Because the committee assembled, if I'm not mistaken— when did we start? First meeting was October. In October. And I think we were anticipating at least a year to bring some set of recommendations back.

So there'll be probably a progress report at some point But in terms of if we map out that timeframe and when they need to in terms of our recommendation, and we recognize that there are other things on the charter that we want to work on, then when do we think we'll be done with this? If we had to guess. Because if—

I think we're done when, you know, we need to be done. You know, if they're expecting a progress report in August and probably a final report around October, November, somewhere in there before they need to act at the beginning of the new year. I mean, that was— that's my recollection was that—

No, I don't mean the charter. I mean this particular discussion because—

About the discussion about this topic?

Yeah.

Oh, um, you know, we can put this to bed whenever. My sense was at the last meeting that people were kind of coming at the district issues from a lot of different places and a lot of different levels of experience and were kind of digesting ideas as we went. So I was letting it go over to this discussion but also trying to refocus to the related question of the mayor. If— I don't think we need to be doing this for the next 3 months, but this was the biggest topic and probably the hardest to wrestle with. I think So, you know, my thought was to give this some room. We've given it some room. I think we've had great conversation on these points. I think probably one more discussion to get— either we can have another discussion that's kind of open-ended, where do we stand now in districts, and try to put it to bed or at least to sleep for a little bit, table it, and go look at other things and move on to other topics, or we can just start voting on stuff. if that's people's preference.

I want to vote.

Chair, if I could just add one thing. Member Miller brought up advocacy, engagement. There's been words thrown out there. For me, it's just awareness. So I don't— personally speaking, I don't feel the public over the intervening 2 years roughly that this was looked at was sufficiently aware that this was even being contemplated, basically reworking how government at large in the city of Glendale is going to be elected. I mean, I see the public is more aware whenever there's a duck race or a Glendale Tech Week. Honestly, there's more— I don't even want to use the engagement because it's just awareness. You're just aware that it's happening. So, um, I just piggyback on what Member Miller said, that anything we do, if, if we go down this hypothetical route, the, the public needs to be aware. And it should not, in my opinion, be any sort of engagement or advocacy one way or another. It's just, do you even know we're considering districts? Period. And and see what— I mean, people knew about trash cans changing way more than they knew about districts, which in, in my mind, it's, it's, it's, you know, like open heart surgery. So, um, that's just a statement. Um, I do have some homework that I did, uh, and I could either share it now or share it at the next meeting. It's, uh, the chair's pleasure.

Um, is this about districts in particular?

It is, yeah.

My inclination is to carry it over, but I'm—

I wanted to—

yeah, I just wanted to add that the election that we would be preparing for would be June 2026. So not March 2026, but June 2026. So that gives us just maybe a little bit more time, not too much more time. But in an effort to help progress the discussion, perhaps what staff can do for the committee for the next meeting is create maybe a checklist of, you know, different specific areas that you can vote on. And then it would be if this, then that kind of a thing so that they're itemized and you get to have the question framed and then move from one item to the next. We will also be prepared to talk about the term limits or terms in general. And maybe that would help.

Thank you.

You know, allow you to put all the pieces together at the same time, and maybe that will package up this issue pretty well for the committee and set you up to move on to a different topic area, because we're now going into April. So that might help advance the discussion a little bit more if you would actually—

I would appreciate that very much.

Yeah, if you're actually looking at proposed language of different areas that you've been discussing that get placed into a fashion that you can start voting.

2 questions. The first one, say we put on a ballot that you want to redistrict/vote for a mayor. If that passes, can't we come back and assign this to, I don't know, the manager's office or planning, whatever, and say please do your outreach then to understand how many districts we want, um, what the map looks like. It doesn't have to necessarily be before the election of this item, correct?

I think that's correct. I think that's what they tried before, something like that, and it was a little more difficult.

be like? Is it— has to be like we're gonna proposing 6 districts as opposed like 5? Like, do we need to specify the number of districts when you put something on the ballot, or just districting in general? Is that okay?

My preference would be to pick, pick a number of districts. I don't think we're voting on that.

So they can technically come back and do more outreach after that item passes? Okay. And then the second question I had was, say the mayor Moves or resigns, what happens?

I think the default is that they vote amongst themselves.

There could be a process built into it. And the current process is depending on how much time is left before the next election, They would either appoint someone to fill the vacancy or they would be required to take it out to a vote. Keeping in mind that special elections are very costly, that might be something that the committee also considers in determining whether or not that should be built into the process or just allow for a straight appointment.

We also— I don't think we have to solve every single permutation. Because if our charter doesn't say something, we default to state law. And so there are answers out there for these questions that have already been addressed and would apply to the city if we didn't say anything. So—

Just a point of clarification, because I may have heard it. Was your question— again, Ani, the question, was it about This goes to council. We recommend that it goes on the ballot and then council can do outreach. Um, because that's different than what I heard.

My thinking was if this goes on the ballot and we say, do you want districts and a mayor? And people say yes, and then it— the project of districting goes to a different department within the city, not city council. and they do outreach in a better way to understand what the maps will look like then after it's been voted on in the ballot that we want districting.

Could I say— I'm sorry, I'd like to hear from Alan.

Thanks. The council made it very clear that they felt the previous ballot measure failed on districting because no map was included and voters couldn't see a map or what their district would look like. And the current council has made it very clear that if it goes on the ballot, there's going to be a map.

I think that's right. That's my understanding of the direction too. I just didn't think our charge was to pick the map.

It's not.

Yeah.

But it's not going to be It's not going to be approve districting and then the city will decide what the map's going to look like. It should be on the ballot with the—

But to the city— to the assistant city manager, we can recommend to council that it goes on the ballot. And can we also recommend about outreach?

Certainly you can.

Okay.

That was my original vote.

Okay. So attempting to summarize, the next meeting will have more framework for reaching some consensus votes on these particular issues about the composition of the council and the directly elected mayor. We will have an agenda item on— for discussion of term limits, both how many and how long. And I imagine that's going to be a pretty full agenda, but is there anybody else— anything else that people would like to see on that? And I'm skipping ahead to number 8 here, as is my prerogative as the chair.

Okay.

So, Chair Flower, I wanted to actually come back to the main reason of our committee here is to come with a recommendation about districting, one of the recommendations. And we have to be, you know, bringing the substance of behind or the reasoning behind why we need districting or why we should have districting. So one of the things that we were given was the precinct, all the raw data from the precincts. And I tried to decipher that as a layperson, and it was really difficult to do that. So I was wondering if there is another way that we could maybe name the precincts as opposed to for us to go— I mean, if it's our charge to go do the research, I'll do it. But I can probably conclude from that data some of the things that would probably give me more reasoning about yes or no on My thoughts on this, which aren't definitive.

One, the city attorney warned us that the raw data would be kind of difficult to grapple with. I opened it up and went, oh my gosh, it's 1,500 pages. And then I waited for a half hour for my computer to deal with it, and then I shut it down.

Very similar experience.

Yeah. So that was my first reaction. It isn't very useful. We weren't lied to.

Yeah.

It's hard to grapple with. But my second point is, if you go back and look at some of the other material that we were given with all of the sample maps, and yes, there was 26 or 30 of them, they show you, they demonstrate in the data that goes along with each map. Each map is paired with a table, and the table shows you all the demographic information about the various districts, and it's really useful. So, you can see when you change— so, you don't have the raw data, but you have examples of how the districts end up breaking down by certain, you know, demographics of race and income and voter turnout and age and all sorts of things. So, you can really kind of see it. It's a step between the raw— it's a step way past the raw data, but it puts it into practice in a way I thought— I found useful. So, that would be my—

So, were you able to correlate with the results of the election and the data that you had before?

No.

Were you able to do that?

They have turnout information about how many people turned out in previous elections in that district.

Okay. But not the results of the election?

But not the results of the election.

the election.

Chair, thank you. I'm, I'm personally, I'm not looking at who people voted for. I'm more interested, are they voting and, and who is voting?

If I may add, if one of the arguments is that the southern area is not being represented, then how they vote is important. You know, if they— if we look at the results of the, the voting, we need to look at how the South Glendale population voted when they had a choice to vote for someone from South Glendale or not. So I think at least that's how I'm looking at it as an engineer.

I think I understand your point.

You know what I'm saying?

And I don't know how we get to that data.

Right. So thank you.

So I, as the guy who asked for the data, I did spend a considerable amount of time on that project. And I was able to get— so the precinct has a number, and that number correlates with a geography. So the data with the maps that you're referring to and the data that's in the precinct data is kind of apples and oranges. One is demographic, the other one is voting results.

From like one election, though, too?

No, no, no. We went back. I believe it was— 4 elections. It was a lot of data. So, I've chugged through a lot of it. I have what I think is some insight, but I haven't finished that. So, I had another project that I did, and— but I do think I agree with the other member's point that it is important, which is why I asked for it. So— and it is apples and oranges compared to what what you're referencing, because you're referencing demographic data.

Mm-hmm.

Completely different than the precinct-level results. But I do have another look at a high level in terms of districts versus at-large that helped me understand what happened in the state over the last 20 years. I'm happy to email it to staff and they could share it with the committee and we could discuss that at the next meeting in lieu of going in depth here. But it was, it, it was very insightful for, for me at least. It— and that took a lot of time to figure out, uh, but luckily I have some help.

So, um, are we meant to discuss salaries in the committee? And if so, could we talk about—

I think, I think we deserve a higher salary.

You get 2 zeros.

Double it.

I'm sorry.

It's okay.

We're at zero, so it's going to be zero.

Would that be something on the ballot? The salary was part of their discussion, but that wouldn't be something that would go to a vote, would it? It would?

That is something that has been raised in the early meetings that we were going to be asked to address.

Maybe, Councilmember Miller, I can just quickly note that it's the salaries of the council members are set in the charter. So if there is going to be a change to the compensation of the council members, that would require a charter amendment.

So we can zero it out?

So in terms of that check— in terms of the side-by-side list, as As we're working through this, it seems to me that the discussion about salary would probably be the last item then based on where we land that we might weigh in on.

I think we need to talk about what the council looks like before we decide how much they get paid.

Yeah, that's what I'm—

yeah.

Chair Flower, we have one comment from the audience.

Yeah, I'm not inclined to take it at this time because, you know, we, we had public comment open earlier before we started the discussion. Um, we're not taking action tonight, so I hope they come into the next meeting. It's getting late. I'm sorry, what is it for? Oh, for item 8. Okay, sorry, thank you.

Yes.

Okay, yes, we, we have been on future agendas. Okay.

Thank you very much for the time. I would like to offer a different way of approaching it, if I may turn this thing on its head for a moment. What if you were to go and investigate the cities that already have the type of districting that you are aiming for? And then see how effective they are. If I wanted to choose major software to run the city, I would want to see, okay, what city is using this software and how effective are they? Because if you take a city right next to us, the city of Los Angeles, they have districting, they have a mayor with specific duties. How well did they perform during this situation with the fires? I would say that it's a dysfunctional city. Because for many, many years, the problems that they have had have been significant.

This item is about future agendas. Is there something you want to propose for future agendas?

Of course, and that's what I'm proposing. I'm proposing that you bring up cities that have already the type of charter that you guys are aiming for and bring those examples and discuss them, because that will give you real-life evidence of what the actual outcome is when you have those cities and what kind of problems they have. Thank you.

Let's step back to number 7. Are there any reports or information, or is that for us to report?

Staff has no informational reports at this time, Chair Flower.

Any final questions about future agendas before we—

I will just clarify that. I heard you talk about terms of directly elected mayor, term limits for directly elected mayor, but I also heard I think the group wanted to talk about whether a termed-out mayor could immediately run for council. So the revolving door policy, that will also be on the next agenda.

That would be great. Thank you. So just to be clear, we'll we'll have a more structured conversation to hopefully reach some sort of consensus on the council composition issue and then turn to the terms. Chair Flower?

One other comment. This is probably for the City Attorney's Office. In terms of campaign contributions, are those limited or governed With— under municipal code?

And by state law.

Campaign contributions for any elected official in the city?

Yes.

There are limitations at the state level on campaign contributions.

We do have— our municipal code does regulate campaign contributions.

So, if— I guess what was triggered was if we do theoretically, hypothetically consider districts, wouldn't it be appropriate to also consider the potentially campaign contribution limits? Because you're changing in a substantive way how the elections are run. They seem to be tied together. again, like, yeah, like you pointed out, Chair, you pull one thread, it, it affects another. So maybe on a future agenda item, we can also get a little educated on how that works within the city so that we can take that, you know, in, in context of—

Yeah, I guess I'm okay with it, but it's not currently a subject of the charter. So really, the threshold question is, is it something that we think we— it has to be put in the charter? Because it's already governed by state law and by ordinance. So do we think that there's a problem with where the limits are now, and therefore requires to put something in the charter? That to me is— I'm not saying yes or no, but that's the threshold for us.

I mean, for me, it's, you know, we're changing something that's been in place for 100 years, so roughly. They seem to be tied together, so.

That's just adding to the list.

This could be one of those not in the charter, but The committee wants to consider item that could be listed at the end and presented to council as, here are some ideas that were presented that are not part of the charter. We had agreed on the front end that we would just have a running list of those for a future presentation potentially to council. So we can add that to the bottom of that list or to the middle of that list.

Does that work?

Yeah, I think that's totally appropriate. Yeah.

I'm just getting nervous about the calendar now that it's been raised.

I hear you. I just, I just feel a duty to, to consider things that I think are material to this issue.

Um, any final comments on future agendas? Going once, going twice. Item 9, adjournment. Do I have a motion?

So moved.

Second.

Okay. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye. Too late, we all left.