The Councilmembers unveil their proposed budget amendments this week, and then join in the ritual “voting while not voting.”
Monday morning’s Council Briefing will include an executive session for the Councilmembers to discuss litigation matters with city attorneys.
This week’s full City Council meeting has been cancelled (because there was nothing on the agenda). That also means that there is no Introduction and Referral Calendar this week.
Monday morning immediately following the Council Briefing, the Land Use and Neighborhoods Committee will meet to hear a briefing on a proposed contract rezone. The Council is required to handle contract rezones within a specified period of time, so committee meetings are being held on it as an exception to the general “no committee meetings during budget deliberations” rule.
Tuesday through Thursday, the Council will discuss their proposed amendments to the Mayor’s proposed budget. The full list of amendments will likely be released at some point on Monday. The Council has published an agenda for Tuesday’s meeting, though the speed at which they get through it will depend upon how many proposed amendments they are (and the Councilmembers’ desire to talk about them at length); they may get through the entire list in one day, or it may stretch into Wednesday and Thursday.
As amendments are discussed, the Councilmembers will not vote on them, but if past tradition is followed they will signal whether they are willing to sign on as co-sponsors. This is important data for the budget chair, Councilmember Mosqueda, to use in order to assemble her “chair’s balancing package” over the following two weeks out of the amendments that have broad consensus support. So even though there won’t be formal votes, by the end of this week’s meetings we’ll have a very good idea of which amendments are likely to move forward in some form.
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