ROCK SPRINGS — The Rock Springs City Council will revisit a resolution creating a reporting system for counselors and the mayor after it was tabled during a prior meeting.
The Council will consider the system policy that aims to increase transparency from the governing body as part of the resolutions portion of the agenda. According to Council documents, the policy and a reporting form was created to document official actions made by the mayor and counselors Those actions include speaking with constituents and policy initiatives taking place between Council meetings. The city hopes the new process will “standardize the submission of this data.”
The proposed policy would see the mayor and Council submit regular written reports to the city clerk, which would be included in the Council’s regular meeting packets. The reports would need to be submitted by a deadline, with the meeting record noting if a member’s report was not submitted. Those who do not submit a report may lose their ability to give a verbal update during the following meeting. The possibility of not being able to speak is an issue Councilor Rick Milonas had when opposing the policy during the May 19 meeting.
He said the reporting policy is similar to the ethics policy passed last year. Milonas was found to have violated the policy during a hearing in May, as well as losing his ethics complaint against Mayor Max Mickelson shortly after. Milonas views the policy as something that targets him specifically, disagreeing with both the possibility of not being able to speak and only being limited to two minutes during his update.
Councilor Rob Zotti said the proposal isn’t about Milonas being a victim or his reach on YouTube, but about communication to residents from the Council about what their representatives do between meetings.
“I believe the mayor added this in there as he thought it would be a good idea for Council to give updates,” Zotti said. “We had it at the end of the meeting, but a lot of people at the end of the meeting tuned out, so we wanted to move it to the top of the meeting. As that continued, the reports, they did get kind of wordy … and so the goal is to still inform the public of what their representatives are doing but do it in a concise manner so we’re not dragging out meetings,” Zotti said.
The meeting takes place at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Rock Springs City Hall and is open to the public. The city streams the meetings on its YouTube Channel. A full agenda can be found here.
