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CITY OF SAN LEANDRO APPROVED AND STAFF REPORT FORWARDED TO CITY COUNCIL DATE: May 16, 2011 tephen Hollister TO: Stephen Hollister, City Manager City Manager FROM: Lianne Marshall, Assistant City Manager BY: Marian Handa, City Clerk" SUBJECT PROJECT /PROJECT DESCRIPTION: CONSIDERATION OF CONVERTING THE FORMAT OF CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES TO ACTION MINUTES SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATION In addition to the actions taken on each agenda item, City Council meeting minutes currently include comments by the Council, staff and members of the public. Staff recommends the City Council adopt the use of action -only minutes as the permanent record of City Council meetings. BACKGROUND The minutes of City Council meetings are the permanent legal and historical record of the Council's actions. Government Code Sections 36814 and 40801 require the City Clerk to keep a record of the proceedings, or minutes, of City Council meetings; however, the law does not specify the format or content for the minutes. Meeting minutes are generally prepared using one of three formats: action, summary or verbatim. Action minutes usually contain only motions and votes, with very little, if any, narrative included. Summary minutes contain the information in action minutes, and also include Council, staff and public comments and narrative. The amount of detail captured in summary minutes varies by minute -taker and by the requirements of the legislative body. Verbatim minutes are a word- for -word, transcript of the proceedings. San Leandro Administrative Code Title 4, Chapter 3, Section 4.3.100 specifies that the City Clerk shall prepare Action Minutes for all City Council regular and special meetings. In practice, however, San Leandro City Clerks have traditionally included comments and discussion by the Council, staff and the public, as well as the formal actions taken. The preparation of these minutes is time - consuming, requiring eight hours or more of staff time per meeting, and the determination of what and how the information is summarized is subjective.