City Council Meeting Agendas

Overview

Council meeting agendas are not just legally required — they are also crucial in providing for orderly and well-organized council meetings. A systematic order of meeting business can make the difference between a council that haphazardly wrangles through meeting issues and one that holds a well-run and well-timed meeting.

Well-managed council meeting agendas allow a smooth flow of information to the governing body and creates an efficient process for the consideration and crafting of agency policy decisions, saving valuable time and making the entire operation of government run more smoothly.

General Meeting Agenda Process

RCW 42.30.077(1) requires governing bodies of public agencies to make their regular meeting agendas publicly available online at least 24 hours before the meeting’s published start time. This requirement applies to all but the smallest local government agencies.

Despite this legal requirement, the statute specifies no penalties for violations and also provides that violations do not invalidate any otherwise legal council action taken at the meeting or provide a basis for awarding attorney fees under RCW 42.30.120 or commencing an action of mandamus or injunction under RCW 42.30.130.

Applicable statutes give cities and towns discretion in determining appropriate meeting agenda procedures for their jurisdiction. See, e.g., RCW 35.22.288 (for first-class cities), RCW 35.23.221 (for second-class cities), RCW 35.27.300 (for towns), and RCW 35A.12.160 (for code cities). Accordingly, council meeting agendas can take many forms. In some cities and towns, an informal custom and practice delegates council meeting agenda preparation to the mayor, clerk, and/or administrator. While this can be a satisfactory arrangement, the above statutes also enable city/town councils to establish formal agenda practices by ordinance, resolution, or rules and regulations that specify how items can be added to a meeting agenda and who can add them.

In crafting specific council meeting agenda procedures, cities and towns should ultimately aim to prepare agendas that give councilmembers adequate information about the items to be considered, far enough in advance to appropriately study the items. Agenda items should also be prioritized and organized as efficiently as possible, allowing the council adequate time to consider major issues while minimizing time spent on issues that are routine, trivial, or non-controversial.

Since council agendas reflect a governing body’s formal actions (or potential actions), it is also important to consider the relevant items that should be included. Agendas should allocate sufficient time for the council to discuss included items, and the items included should be followed by an instrument (such as a proposed motion, ordinance, resolution, etc.) for the council’s potential action. In general, agenda items intended solely to inform or advise councilmembers should be given to the council outside of the formal meeting agenda process.

Consent Agendas

City and town councils can use consent agendas to streamline their meetings. Consent agendas collect and group routine, non-controversial topics into a single agenda item that the council can discuss and vote on in a single motion (commonly with no allowed debate).

Procedures to select the items for a consent agenda vary. For example, agency department heads select the items in some localities, and agenda committees make the selection in others. Consent agenda items are typically introduced at meetings by reading only the title of a single consent agenda resolution.

Any councilmember can motion to remove an item from the consent agenda for separate consideration. Cities and towns can also allow any person attending a regular council meeting to request an item’s removal from the consent agenda for a separate and complete reading and independent vote. If an item is removed, the council can vote on the remainder of the consent agenda with the removed item omitted.

Setting up a consent agenda system usually requires preliminary council action (such as adopting an ordinance or resolution).

Agenda Modifications

What if a prepared and published council meeting agenda needs to be changed? RCW 42.30.077(1) says simply: “Nothing in this section prohibits subsequent modifications to agendas.”

This broad statutory language allows changes to council meeting agendas essentially at any time — including during the meeting itself.

As with procedures for crafting meeting agendas, councils have wide discretion to adopt more precise rules and procedures specifying when and how a meeting agenda can be modified, and who can modify it.

Meeting Agendas and Public Comment

RCW 42.30.240 requires public agency governing bodies to provide an opportunity for public comment at or before every regular meeting where they take final action. RCW 42.30.020(3) defines “final action” as a collective council decision or an actual council vote on a motion, proposal, resolution, order, or ordinance.

While it is not expressly required, designating a public comment period in a regular council meeting agenda is a good practice if final council action is anticipated during the meeting. Doing so helps to ensure that the public comment requirement is not overlooked.

It can also be helpful to place the public comment period ahead of council action items on the agenda, enabling the council to consider any received public comments before any votes or decisions.

Special Meeting Agendas

When governing bodies call special meetings, notice of the meeting must be given in accordance with RCW 42.30.080(2). Under RCW 42.30.080(3), a special meeting agenda is essentially subsumed within the required meeting notice, which must “specify the time and place of the special meeting and the business to be transacted.” Importantly, councils cannot take final disposition of any matter excluded from the special meeting notice/agenda. While statutes don’t define “final disposition,” it reasonably equates to “final action” defined in RCW 42.30.020(3) (see above).

Courts have held that the special meeting notice must describe the meeting business with sufficient clarity to give the public notice of the meeting’s purpose. In one notable example, Matter of Recall of Misipati Semi Bird (2023), the Washington State Supreme Court found that a special meeting notice listing the business as “local control” was too vague to allow a governing body to vote on a resolution specific to the COVID-19 mask mandate.

Examples of Agenda Order and Rules of Procedure

Visit our Rules of Procedure for Local Government Governing Bodies webpage to find many examples of rules of procedure and agenda order.