Cedar Rapids council meetings to start earlier, beginning in January

In January, the City Council will start its two-a-month, formal meetings at a different time.

Currently, the council meets the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month at 4:30 p.m.

Beginning in January, the council will start the meetings at 4 p.m.

Then, in June, the council will hold the first meeting of the month at noon and the second at 4 p.m.

Mayor Ron Corbett on Monday said the council has been making modifications to its meeting schedule and meeting times during the course of his first two years in office.

Since Corbett took office in January 2010, the council has moved from weekly meetings beginning at 5:30 p.m. to twice-a-month meetings starting at 4:30 p.m. This past summer, the council experimented with noon meetings, and Corbett on Monday said the experiment worked well.

Holding one meeting a month at noon will start on June 12, when the renovation of the former federal courthouse - the city's new City Hall - is expected to be complete.

The council began using the new council chambers in the building at 101 First St. SE earlier this year.

Corbett said most citizens who want to speak at council meetings should be able to work around their work schedules to get an audience with the council. He noted that the council now allows public comment at a spot early in its meetings and at another at the end of meetings, some of which can last four hours or more.

He said the council conducts more than 200 public hearings a year - most required and on matters of no controversy - and 98 percent of them draw no public comment, he said.

In today's world, members of the public might find it even more difficult to get to evening meetings than to daytime meetings what with responsibilities of family, the mayor said. At the same time, he said citizens have more ways to contact elected officials - which include email and social networks like Facebook - than in the past.

“Meetings are not where we get most of our public feedback,” the mayor said.

Corbett on Monday noted that the city's flood recovery has reached a point where few people now come to council meetings to talk about program details and policy matters related to flood recovery.