1/10/2012 Council Preview – New Councilmembers and Mayor/Vice Mayor Election

First meeting of the year, in an even year – always a fun Council meeting.

There are no initial study sessions or closed sessions, so we get right into it.  The order of events in this meeting is a little different than usual, due to some unusual circumstances.  The existing council will still be seated at the beginning of the meeting, and the new council gets swapped in at a midpoint, which makes things complicated.  First up is approval of the minutes of our last meeting, which is scheduled at this point since it applies to the existing council, rather than the new one.  Second up is certification of the November 2011 election results, recognizing the election of the three new councilmembers and the re-elected incumbent, as well as acknowledgement of the results for Measures A and B.  But we don’t seat anyone just yet.  We also hold our one closed session after the meeting, rather than before, so that the new Council can participate instead of the old one.

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12/13/2011 Council Summary

A surprisingly short evening, but interesting nonetheless.  In fact, this blog entry may be longer than the actual meeting was.

We started the evening with a closed session for the City Manager’s annual performance review.  While I can’t comment on what took place, the fact that the City Manager was present at the subsequent council meeting should say something…

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12/13/2011 Council Preview

Probably a long night, certainly for us council folks.  This is the last meeting of the year, so we have a lot to get done before the long break (just shy of a month!).

We start the evening with another closed session, this one being the annual performance review for the City Manager (we did the City Attorney last week).  Then comes an interesting event – a public study session to discuss the upcoming selection of mayor and vice mayor.  This is something we started last year in response to concerns about private campaigning for the positions.  This is an opportunity for councilmembers who are interested in one of the two positions to state their case in public.  Note that it’s non-binding – someone can be elected without expressing an interest on Tuesday, and someone can express an interest on Tuesday but not have or accept a nomination on January 10th.  Then we go to open session.

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12/6/2011 Council Summary – Sunnyvale Adopts Plastic Bag Ban

Wow, what a night.

We started the evening with not one but two closed sessions.  The first regarded anticipated litigation from Save the Plastic Bag, the second was our annual performance review for the City Attorney.  Not much more I can say than that.

We then went to our meeting, and there were no special orders, no presentations, and no announcements.  The consent calendar passed on a 6-0 vote with no pulls.  And there were no public comments.  We really breezed through the initial stuff pretty quickly.

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