New Council Will Hold Unusual Meetings Next Tuesday

Above from upper left: Mayor Ruth Beier, Jessy Gregg, Mark Meadows, Mayor Pro Tem Aaron Stephens, DDA Chair Peter Dewan, Lisa Babcock (photos by Raymond Holt).

One week after the new City Council was sworn in, the Council will hold two unusual, open meetings at the Hannah Center, instead of City Hall, right before its regularly-scheduled meeting.

All three meetings will happen on Tuesday, November 19, starting at 6 p.m.

The meetings are being held in a larger space than usual – the Banquet Room at Hannah – so members of the Council and the Downtown Development Authority (DDA) can all sit together at the same table, with space for the public to observe.

Members of the DDA have been wanting to meet with Council for the last few months to arrive at common goals for a development on the land owned by the DDA on Evergreen Avenue, just east of Valley Court Park.

Mayor Pro Tem Aaron Stephens and Council member Lisa Babcock attended the DDA’s work session yesterday, November 14, and expressed willingness to have a joint meeting, now that the new Council is in place.

The joint meeting has now been quickly arranged and added to Council’s schedule for next Tuesday. The Council will hold three consequetive meetings, all at the Hannah Center:

• 6 p.m. – open discussion of appointments of City Council members as liaisons to each of the City’s boards and commissions (see agenda here)
• 7 p.m. – joint meeting with the Downtown Development Authority to discuss the DDA-owned Evergreen Avenue properties and the draft Request for Proposals (RFP; see agenda here)
• 8 p.m. – regular meeting of the City Council to address other items (see agenda here)

Stephens explained at the inaugural meeting of the new Council that appointing Council members as liaisons to boards and commissions would be discussed in public, rather than appointments being decided by the Mayor, as has been done most recently under Mark Meadows as Mayor. Those appointments will be the subject of the 6 p.m. meeting.

Mayor Ruth Beier also said Tuesday that she views Council as a body of equals and reminded everyone that individual Council members may ask to have items added to the agenda.

All three Council meetings will be open to the public and all will also be video-livestreamed and archived at the City’s online meeting portal.

Correction/update, Nov. 19: When originally published, this article said that the 8 p.m. meeting would be a "discussion-only" meeting. It will be a regular voting meeting. (ELi thanks the City's communications staff for pointing out this error.) We also added links to the agendas now that they are available.