Consent Item Pulling – Lee’s lack of read

Lee has been rightfully criticized for his constant bloviations, which unprofessionally and inappropriately extend meeting times at a high cost: monetarily in staff overtime pay, and health-wise with tired employees & Councilmembers. We selected one area to illustrate for you – Lee’s continual pulling of routine items off the Consent Calendar.

• What is a Consent Item?
• Consent Items are non-controversial or routine in nature that require little, if any, discussion (i.e. meeting minutes, check registers, items previously discussed at length with group consensus, etc).
• The item’s details and supplemental reports are distributed with the agenda in sufficient time for each Councilmember to review and ask questions of staff prior to the meeting.
• This grouping allows decision-makers to decide them in one motion to make for an efficient, effective meeting.
• Simple questions, clarifications, or short dialogue may also be discussed without pulling and before approval.
• It is important not to remove Consent items entirely for the sole purpose of answering a simple question, as this undermines the process.
• Boards that effectively use a Consent Calendar will find the meetings are more productive, members are more engaged, and the time saved is reallocated to discussing more critical strategic issues that require debate, deliberation and team planning.

Lee’s reasons: to ask simple questions, to provide general comments (often veering off-topic), to request staff presentations, to disparage employees, and to re-hash previous discussions. He nearly always ends up voting Yes anyways (28 out of 33 times).

Below is a summary of when and what Lee has pulled, wasting over 5 hours of meeting time due to his lack of preparation. Also included is an excerpt from the new Council Rules of Order which had to be adopted to explain how to properly prepare for a meeting, to seek prior clarification and avoid unfairly surprising staff.