Amarillo City Council | Photo by Noah Dawson
Several changes to the Amarillo City Council meeting format were debuted as the newly elected council held their first regular meeting on Tuesday.
Aside from the new members on the dais, two big changes were immediately evident at the start of the meeting. First, the velvet ropes that separated the audience from the dais were gone. The ropes had long been a point of contention in the city, with supporters of the ropes calling them a security measure and opponents stating they symbolize an attempt for the council to separate themselves from the public.
Secondly, City Manager Jared Miller and City Attorney Bryan McWilliams were no longer seated on the raised central section of the dais along with the elected council. Instead, they were seated on the lower sections of the dais, to the side of the council.
In addition to these physical changes to the meeting, several changes were also made to the way the meeting was run. Notably, a Public Comment period replaced the Public Address period instituted by the previous council. The main difference between the two is that, under Public Address, the public was asked to limit comments to posted agenda items, while under Public Comment, the public may speak on any item related to city business. Along with this change, after the city had exhausted the list of registered speakers, Mayor Stanley invited any members of the public who had not signed up to speak.
One other change made to the way the meeting was run was a pivot away from pre-written motions, which some had criticized as making the council meetings seem scripted. This was elaborated on during an Onboarding/Orientation Workshop held the meeting before the meeting, where Mayor Stanley talked about getting away from that practice.
There are still other changes that may be coming to the meetings, including when they are held. During the meeting, the council discussed experimenting with the schedule, with a consensus forming around trying a 3:00 pm meeting time.
As for now, the council is not scheduled to meet again for a regular meeting until June 13th. Additional Orientation Workshop meetings are currently scheduled for 8:00 am on both May 30th and June 6th.