Consent agendas not worth the hassle for many of county’s smaller cities

Much of how a city conducts its meetings is set in stone. Robert’s Rules of Order must be followed. Citizens must be given an opportunity to speak. And in Florida, commissioners can’t discuss city issues with other commissioners unless they are at a public meeting.

But one area of flexibility that remains is the city’s power to place certain items of business on a consent agenda. These items are approved in one felt swoop – without discussion from the commission or citizens. Often these are routine items, but many have voiced concerns that the consent agenda can and has been used to pass through controversial items without scrutiny.

Larger cities like Gainesville normally pass through several items via a consent agenda, allowing the commission to focus in on the main issues of debate.

But the smaller municipalities of Alachua County, which in theory have less on their plate, wrestle with whether a consent agenda is even worth the hassle.

At a June 14 commission meeting, Newberry briefly resurrected the idea of using a consent agenda, only to bury it minutes later.

Commissioner Bill Conrad said he researched the idea for a couple of weeks and decided that the time saved would not be worth the risk involved.

One of those risks Conrad was alluding to is a lawsuit, which Alachua, a city that routinely uses a consent agenda, has faced recently.

Charles Grapski and Michael Canney filed the lawsuit, after the city refused to provide minutes from the April 2006 election board of canvassers meeting before the city’s next commission meeting. The minutes were then placed on the city’s consent agenda, preventing Grapski or Canney from commenting on them at the meeting.

The city initially won the lawsuit, but parts of the decision were reversed on appeal. The First District Court of Appeal held that the city violated public records laws by not turning over the meeting’s minutes. However, the court did not take issue with the city’s use of the consent agenda to approve meeting minutes, ruling that it was not a violation of open meeting laws.

Other cities have handled the consent agenda issue in a variety of ways.

Like Newberry, High Springs has steered clear of using a consent agenda. City Manager Jim Drumm said the issue has come up in a couple of meetings in the past few years but has never been seriously considered. He said the bi-monthly meetings usually last about three to four hours, and he doesn’t think a consent agenda would speed up the process much, since most of items that would be slated for a consent agenda rarely take up much time, anyway.

Hawthorne made the transition to using a consent agenda when the city hired City Manager Ed Smyth last year. Before Smyth, Hawthorne did not use a consent agenda, and the transition worried some citizens and commissioners that items would pass under the radar. However, Hawthorne commissioners have routinely pulled several, occasionally all, of the items off the consent agenda and opened them up for discussion, rendering the issue moot.

Even smaller municipalities such as Waldo and La Crosse only meet once each month for about two hours. Waldo City Manager Kim Worley said she understands how it can be useful in larger cities like Gainesville but said it isn’t necessary for a small city like Waldo.