City Council Meeting Summaries

Transparency and good communication are underrated factors in helping organizations function well. Here’s an example of how a resident (me!) identified a small improvement that was methodically adopted by our city staff.

I’ve always been interested in following the activity of the City Council, but it wasn’t easy. You could watch the recorded multi-hour meetings on video or read the 10+ pages of meeting minutes, but there was no summarized format of the major issues and the outcomes.

Then I noticed how the Minnetonka School Board approached this issue – they had the same detailed meeting notes and archived video, but they also emailed a shorter summary of each meeting, with hyperlinks to each topic – allowing interested people to understand, in a minute or two, what happened, and making it easier to learn more. Could our City Council also adopt this format?

I forwarded an example of the School Board email to my Ward 3 City Council member, and he suggested that I share my idea at a future City Council meeting (every regular meeting has an open mic for brief comments to the council). In my emails and during the meeting, I focused on the benefits of the concept and avoided criticizing the current process. After the meeting, city manager Mike Funk connected with me and we discussed more details. Over the next year, the city communications department gradually implemented this change, and even invited me to a meeting to provide feedback on the format and rollout of the idea. Now, after every City Council meeting, residents like me get this email summary – just like I imagined! (You can sign up to get it too, and other city communications, by going here: https://www.minnetonkamn.gov/services/text-email-notifications)

I had two major takeaways from this experience. First, is that ordinary residents sometimes see opportunities that city staff and council do not – they’re focused on doing the basic stuff well, not necessarily on innovating or changing how things are done. Second, our city staff is responsive and collaborative when a good idea is clearly identified.

Harnessing the energy of our curious and creative residents has repeatedly moved our city forward – you’ll see many other examples in upcoming Bright Spots posts. How else can we proactively tap into this pool of ideas and talent?