By Jorge Casuso
May 15, 2025 -- People strolling Santa Monica's commercial streets will soon be able to check City meeting agendas on electronic wayfinding kiosks, under rule changes adopted by the City Council Tuesday.
The changes made to the Council Rules of Procedure also will allow members of the public to address the Council during meetings by telephone.
The California Attorney General has paved the way for using kiosks, which will supplement the traditional printed postings on the front windows at the City's SMI community meeting room.
"The requirement that agendas be posted at a location 'freely accessible to the public' may be satisfied by posting on a touch screen electronic kiosk accessible to the public without charge 24-hours a day," according to the staff report to the Council.
While the agendas will be posted on all existing kiosks in the City, six of them on the Promenade, the primary posting location will be the kiosk outside City Hall.
"Agenda materials in accessible formats will still be available in the Clerk’s Office upon request, and all materials will continue to be available on the City’s website," staff said.
The Council also approved a rule change that allows public speakers to call in their testimony during a Council meeting.
To address the Council, the speakers must register no later than 5 p.m. on the last business day before the meeting, according to the ordinance. The calls will be taken after all in-person speakers are heard.
This is not be the first time the public will be allowed to address the Council on the telephone.
At the start of the coronavirus shutdown, the Council voted to allow the public to call in during meetings held via teleconferencing. More than a year later, in June 2022, the Council voted to hold hybrid meetings that offered a call-in option.
The rule changes approved Tuesday include ways to expedite meetings by reducing the time a speaker can address the Council to one minute if more than 25 members of the pubic are registered to speak.
In addition, those who register late will be allowed to address the Council for one minute only if five Council members approve.
The Council also directed staff to return with changes to a provision that would prohibit members of the public to donate their time to another speaker.
Efforts by the Council to wrap up meetings earlier have been proposed, approved and shut down for two decades with little success.
Proposed solutions have included limiting the amount of time Councilmembers have to discuss an item and placing a five-minute limit on oral staff reports. Both proposals made in 2010 failed (“Council Ponders How to Make a Shorter Meeting,” June 24, 2010 and “Development Agreements, Length of Meetings on City Council Agenda,” September 10, 2010).
Last December, the Council voted to limit Councilmembers to one minute to make a personal point of privilege, to two minutes to make a proclamation or commendation and to five minutes to make an opposing statement ("New Council Proposes Rule Changes," December 13, 2024).
The Council also voted to use ranked choice voting to make appointments to Boards and Commissions that can take numerous rounds of voting and prohibited resolutions weighing in on foreign affairs, which are rare.
Tuesday's meeting lasted 8 hours and 31 minutes.
