Ad Hoc Legislative Committee

[Steve Adler]

Council Members,

I intend to form an ad hoc legislative committee with the following charge, and I want to give my colleagues a chance to suggest changes to the scope…

My current thoughts on scope:


1. Recommend to full council what should be on our legislative agenda;
2. Recommend protocol for how council members testify or interact with other governmental bodies in their official capacity as council members
3. Recommend a process for timely updating the legislative agenda
4. Recommend an ongoing process for making any modifications to our lobby teams.

[Leslie Pool]

Mayor, thanks for moving forward on this initiative, and it's early enough for us to be able to spend some time thinking about structure and content.

The four areas you list sound great. Couple items I'd add:

- monitor legislative activity during the interim, with our Governmental Affairs staff keeping us current via status report to the ad hoc committee and full Council
- meet & greet visits with legislators & their staffs; with Texas Municipal League and other interest groups
- request staff create simple legislative brochure with basic facts about the City, economic impacts, population demographics, etc., photos & brief bios of Council.

Thanks for bringing this to us and for the opportunity to contribute.

Leslie

[Don Zimmerman]

Mr. Mayor,

I recommend altering the second point as follows:

2. Recommend protocol for how CITY STAFF MEMBERS testify or interact with other governmental bodies in their official capacity as STAFF members.

In the 2015 session for example, the city police chief Art Acevedo was very public in testifying against state firearms legislation, without any Council or even city legislative staff direction.
Even today as I write this today, the Chief is being quoted in the Statesman regarding foreign identification: "Acevedo signs declaration in support of Mexican consular IDs".
Ref: http://www.statesman.com/news/news/loca ... t-t/nnkK2/

It would appear that staff members are already deeply involved without direction or review of elected Council. That being the case, I cannot accept that elected council members need a "protocol", while unelected staff operates currently with no protocol or direction from Council.