Davenport: Council leaning toward disabling committee system

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By Tory Brecht | Friday, February 2, 2007 1:13 AM CST | () comments

Davenport’s traditional Thursday committee meetings appear to be on the verge of extinction, with a majority of aldermen coming out in favor of streamlining the city council’s meeting schedule.

In lieu of the biweekly committees — whose meetings run from 1 p.m. until well after 4 p.m. Thursdays — the council would instead alternate Committee-of-the-Whole meetings and regular city council meetings every other Wednesday to conduct city business. All meeting times would be moved to 5:30 p.m.

Currently, the Committee-of-the-Whole is always on the Monday following the previous week’s committee sessions, followed up by regular council two days later, on Wednesdays.

Mayor Ed Winborn — a strong proponent of the meeting schedule changes — said having a week between Committee-of-the-Whole and regular meetings rather than two days will give aldermen, staff and the public more time to reflect and digest issues.

In addition, having all meetings begin at the same time on the same day every week will increase public input, Winborn believes.

“I think it will allow more people to participate in our process,” he said.

Although the elimination of committee meetings will mean one less opportunity for the public to address a small number of aldermen, having more time between the presentation of an issue and a final vote should mean more opportunities for the public to weigh in, he said.

Although the formal committees will be dissolved, committee chairmen and vice chairmen will still hold their positions and will lead discussions on issues that come up in their area.

At Thursday’s finance committee meeting, where Winborn gave a Power Point presentation on the proposal, Alderman Keith Meyer, 3rd Ward, appeared to be the only elected official adamantly opposed to the change.

“I find it ironic that it says more time, more people, more input, but it’s actually less time, less people and less input,” he said.

Meyer also objected to the fact the meeting schedule issue was not listed on the finance committee agenda in advance, which limited public discussion.

Winborn said he originally proposed waiting two weeks to hold the discussion, but a majority of aldermen told him they wanted to act sooner and requested the item come before them on Thursday. The details of the proposal were put on the city’s Web site Thursday afternoon, and residents may e-mail their thoughts on it to the city, City Administrator Craig Malin added.

Winborn and a number of aldermen pointed out more benefits of the change, including freeing up staff time, eliminating duplication of discussion on issues and bringing Davenport up to date with the rest of the major cities in the state, none of which still use the antiquated committee system.

Alderman Bill Lynn, 5th Ward, thinks more citizens will get involved in politics if the change is made.

“Right now, there are a lot of people prevented from running for office because they can’t use all their vacation time to attend Thursday afternoon meetings,” he said. “I think this will open it up to more people.”

The proposal was unanimously moved forward to Monday’s Committee-of-the-Whole meeting at 4:30 p.m. at City Hall. Winborn said if it passes, it could be put into effect immediately.

He is confident the votes are there for passage.

“I’ve talked to all the aldermen and at one point, all of them were for it,” he said. “We might lose one or two along the way, but I think it will be approved.”

Tory Brecht can be contacted at (563) 383-2329 or tbrecht@qctimes.com.