Northwood Administrator Dennis Recker has recommended that council consider holding work sessions before city council meetings that would take the place of the city’s committee system.

Currently, the city has six committees, each comprised of three members of council, one of which is chairman of the committee. Those include Finance, Safety, Economic Development, Service, Environmental/Solid Waste, and Utilities committees. The mayor assigns members of council to each of the committees.

“Basically, the proposal was put together because we felt it could solve some quorum issues, and help to inform all members of council on a wider variety of issues,” said Recker. “It would build expertise across council instead of specialized pockets, basically reduce the number of meetings and still accomplish the same work and business.”

The president of council would conduct the work sessions, he said, similar to committees of the whole meetings, held once per month in council chambers.  Discussions would lead to a consensus of council, he added.

“They would make recommendations, and there would be one report instead of six different committee reports,” said Recker.

Recker said most municipalities have some form of the committee system, though counties have work sessions.

“My most recent experience with county government exposed me to how well those meetings can work and how they can cover a lot of business. It does built expertise over time. You’re just not going to Finance Committee meetings, but work session meetings that cover a wider array of issues involving all of council. So there would be less reliance on a committee system and just basically providing for a work session. It’s new and different, and people want to take a look at it and see what happens.”

Council briefly discussed the issue at a meeting earlier this month. It did not vote or take action on the proposal.

Mayor Mark Stoner said he tries to provide balance when making committee assignments.

“When I make out the committee lists, I always try to balance it out so no one person is on three of the heavy committees – safety, service and finance,” said Stoner at a meeting on June 2. If the number of committees are cut, he said, he would have to increase the number of members on the remaining committees. “Which could mean that someone is on three of the heavy committees,” he said.

Councilman Dave Gallaher offered an alternative to Recker’s proposal – scheduling two committees of the whole each month.

“I talked about this a couple of years ago, and it didn’t get a lot of support,” said Gallaher. Issues could be discussed before all of council.

“We’d have all of council and the mayor. There would be the chance of discussion. The entire council would get the information at the same time. It might make it a little bit easier. We could still have committee chairman that may have to break off and have a committee meeting occasionally. But for the most part, we could take care of our council business at our committees of the whole, and then vote at the council meetings.”

Stoner said a potential downside to that idea is that it would increase expenses to the city if the law director and city clerk attended the meetings.

“It would be extra pay for them,” said Stoner.

Gallaher said they would not have to attend the meetings.

Councilman Jim Barton said he prefers the committee system.

“Almost every committee meeting I’ve been to, there’s usually more there than just committee members. For instance, tonight, we had the Economic Development committee, and six of us were there. I’ve been on council a long time. I guess I’m used to the committee way of doing it. All they can do is recommend to council. I just like to keep it the way it is for now,” said Barton.

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