Mayor wants Cedar Rapids council to continue meeting twice a month

If the City Council agrees with Mayor Ron Corbett's request, the council will continue a practice put in place this summer and hold formal meetings on just two Tuesday evenings a month for the rest of 2010, not four meetings a month as had been the case before the summer.

Corbett on Monday said the two-meetings-a-month format has worked well this summer and has given some of the city's top staff a chance to schedule vacations when an-every-week meeting schedule sometimes did not.

Corbett said, too, that city staff members have more time in between meetings when they are held every other week to both answer council questions from the previous meeting and prepare for the next meeting. City staff can spend a lot of time just preparing for the next meeting when the meetings are every week, he said.

The city's incoming city manager, West Des Moines City Manager Jeff Pomeranz, arrives on Sept. 20, and Corbett noted that the West Des Moines City Council holds formal meetings twice a month.

The mayor said the council always can hold special meetings if need be, and he said special meetings might be needed if the council needs to approve buyouts of flood-damaged properties as the city and property owners close on individual buyouts.

Council meetings now are held at 5:30 p.m. two Tuesdays a month at Hiawatha City Hall. Corbett said he might ask the council if it has any interest in mixing noontime meetings with evening meetings later in the year or next year.

The Cedar Rapids council is expected to move back to City Hall at the Veterans Memorial Building, which is now being renovated, in February or March.