In advance of each City Council meeting, the City staff prepares a preparatory packet of information for the issues that will be on the Council’s meeting agenda. We call it the “Council Packet” for short. It includes information on the background of every item on the Council’s meeting agenda, including the staff’s recommendation on each item. Council Packets are almost universal for City governments. Every City I know of uses a Council Packet-like concept to prepare its elected officials for official meetings.
City staff generally submit their materials for the Council meeting by the Wednesday prior to next Tuesday’s Council meeting. The packet goes into pre-production on Thursday. I review the packet before it goes to final copy on late Thursday or first thing Friday morning. After I approve the packet, it goes to the final production stage where it grows from one copy to 24 copies. Following the completion of final production, a City staff member delivers it to Councilmembers’ homes on Friday afternoon. Councilmembers have until Tuesday night’s meeting to read, understand, and form a position on the various items they will pass judgment on at their Council meeting.
This photo above is a Council packet in the pre-production stage, right before I review it for final approval. This photo happens to be of the August 17th Council packet. It is a relatively modest Council packet of 168 pages. We make 24 Council packets for the five elected Council members, various staff members, and a few others. Total paper consumed to print this Council packet = 4,032. Our July 20th meeting had a packet of 216 pages for a total paper consumption of 5,184 pieces of paper. And yes, everything is double-sided.
In addition to the paper consumption, there is also 20 hours of staff time that goes into the production and distribution of the Council packets. This figure does not count the staff time consumed by the preparation of the documents that go into the Council packet itself. I’m talking about just the copying, collating, reviewing, distributing, etc that goes into making 24 copies of a 100+ document every two weeks.
We are in the later stages of introducing a new technology to our Council Packet process. We are making the leap from paper Council Packets to paperless Council Packets. We will now produce the Council Packet electronically and distribute it to the Councilmembers via e-mail on new laptop computers. The Councilmembers will bring their laptops to the Council meeting and work from the electronic copy of the Council Packet during the meeting as well.
In addition to cutting personnel and supply costs, the new paperless packet process will allow us to make changes to our information more quickly and to update the Council with new information at the meeting easier. We will also be able to post the Council Packet on our website so that it is available to the public in its entirety, for free at their complete convenience.
We have a Council meeting tonight. At tonight’s meeting we are starting the transition from paper to paperless. Tonight, we’ll have both versions of the Packet available. September 7, 2004 is our target night to go completely paperless. Wish us luck.
