Council eliminates briefing sessions, keeps normal meeting time

During a work session at the Waxahachie Civic Center on Jan. 25, the Waxahachie City Council members considered streaming their pre-council meeting briefing sessions and decided to eliminate them instead.

The city’s communications and marketing director, Amy Borders, said if they chose to stream the briefing sessions, they would need to set a consistent start time and move the sessions into the main council chambers, otherwise they would have “to pay another $30,000 or $40,000 to outfit the city council conference room” with the technology to stream.

“I personally don’t understand why we do briefing sessions … it should be said out front, straight up when we do it,” council member Chris Wright said.

He explained how even though the public can sit in on briefing sessions, very few do.

“A lot gets discussed back there and then when we go out front and vote and discuss it, nobody says anything,” Wright said. “It’s transparent, but it’s not really transparent because nobody says anything out front.”

Wright pointed out how at planning and zoning meetings, the planning department says the exact same thing in both meetings, which he felt was a waste of city staff’s time. He expressed his support for not having briefing sessions for both the city council and planning and zoning meetings and having presentations and discussions one time and where everyone can hear.

Council member Travis Smith noted that briefing sessions aren’t common with other surrounding cities.

City manager Michael Scott suggested changing the meeting’s start time to 6 p.m. since the meetings are expected to be a little longer without a briefing session.

“We went to 7 (p.m.) because most people in the past said they couldn’t get off work to get there by 6 (p.m.),” Mayor David Hill said.

The council decided to keep both city council and planning and zoning meetings at 7 p.m., but to no longer hold briefing sessions. This does not require a vote because they are not changing the time of the regular meetings; the change will begin immediately.

To watch past or live city council and planning and zoning meetings, visit https://www.waxahachie.com/government/city_council/city_council_meeting_live_stream.php.

Originally published January 30, 2023 - https://www.waxahachiesun.com/business/council-eliminates-briefing-sessions-keeps-normal-meeting-time/article_50cf9bc6-a0cf-11ed-a8b7-bf5ec483b63a.html