Despite attempts by Albert Lea Mayor Mike Murtaugh to make additional changes, a majority of the Albert Lea City Council on Monday voted only to make one change to the council’s rules and procedures for the year.

According to the vote, the public forum portion of council meetings will now be moved to third on the agenda, immediately following the consent agenda. Prior to the vote, it had been seventh on the agenda, right before the adjournment of the meeting.

The preagenda workshops — when the councilors talk about the upcoming meeting on the Thursday before each council meeting — will continue.

“We had to have this discussion tonight about the rules and procedures,” Murtaugh said. “It’s done, and we’ll go on from here.”

He campaigned during the election season that he would work to eliminate the preagenda workshop and to make the city government more transparent. So did new council member Ellen Kehr.

During the Monday meeting, Murtaugh motioned to have preagenda workshops only as needed and to post notices of what would be discussed in that meeting to the public within three days. Those amendments did not go through.

Councilor Larry Anderson said he’s sat in many preagenda workshops before he was elected, and he thinks they are a “very valuable tool that we need to gather information so we make intelligent decisions with the facts that we need.”

He said he thinks the workshops are good learning opportunities for both council members and people from the public who attend.

“It was very valuable in a learning situation, and I don’t want to see that canceled,” he said. “I just don’t.”

Other councilors questioned the need to post notices of the meetings.

“In all honesty, it is oftentimes that same day that I know what’s going to be brought up that night,” Albert Lea City Manager Victoria Simonsen said. “If we limit people to the three days notice, basically the items for the agenda would have to be in on the previous Monday.”

She said she doesn’t have any problem with saying what is planning to be on the agenda, but the preagenda workshops are her opportunity to talk informally to the councilors about the events taking place in the city.

She noted she doesn’t want to put the city in the situation where it actually serves the opposite purpose of appearing like they’re trying to cover things up.

“I mean no disrespect here, but what I’m afraid of is if we have to publish it three days ahead, they couldn’t get it on in time,” Anderson added.

Then, people would have to bring their concern to the public forum because they were too late to get on the agenda, and he’s afraid the public forum would get too lengthy, he said.

Brooks said that instead of trying to make an amendment to the actual procedures, the city can just start by making a courtesy call to the Tribune or other media outlets when special things are set to occur in meetings.

In the end, one of Murtaugh’s motions died for lack of a second, while the other one was voted down 6-1.

Murtaugh said publicly at the end of the meeting that he took no offense to the fact that his amendments did not get added.

Former Albert Lea Mayor Bob Haukoos said over the years the public forum has moved from the top of the agenda to the bottom and back up numerous times.

The reason it was moved to the bottom of the agenda, he said, was so that those people who took the initiative to call the city manager and get on the agenda wouldn’t have to wait longer.

“As a presiding officer, I’ll be open to moving an agenda item ahead of the public forum if it involves, for instance, an out-of-town person who we may not want to unduly delay,” Murtaugh said in an earlier article with the Tribune.

The preagenda workshop, along with how to conduct the public forum portion of council meetings, have been a point of discussion for the past few years.

Members of the public have stated the preagenda workshops make them question the transparency of the city government and whether city officials make decisions ahead of time.

Look to the Tribune Wednesday for the results of other items on the Monday agenda.