Electronic reports debut in Palo Alto Electronic reports debut in Palo Alto (August 30, 2002)

First 'City manager reports' posted online in advance of City Council meetings
The first batch of electronic "city manager reports" were to go online Thursday at 4 p.m. -- a full week earlier than ever before.

The reports normally go out with the full printed City Council packet late Thursday afternoons, just days before the Monday night meetings, distributed to libraries, council members and the media.

The packet includes the formal agenda for the Monday City Council meeting, minutes of previous meetings, staff reports, letters and other documents.

The electronic reports will now be available on the city's Web site, www.city.palo-alto.ca.us. The first council meeting to benefit from the reports will be Sept. 9.

"It's been one long haul," Assistant City Manager Emily Harrison said of the effort this summer to reset everyone's schedules to accommodate the earlier deadlines.

She said the council's annual August vacation made it possible to get the initial reports together without any real problems. A special team was set up of representatives of all major city departments to oversee the process, she said.

"The people who are the heroes on this are our administrative assistants," Harrison said. "They bear the brunt of the work. They're the ones who stay late to get the reports finished and ready to go online."

But not all such reports will make the early deadline, she cautioned.

"The real challenge will come when we have issues hitting us, and need to have the staff report done early each week. People don't schedule crises around here," she said. Allowing extra time for public input on an issue also could delay reports, such as the Sept. 18 final community meeting on the Mitchell Park plans, with the council scheduled to discuss the issue Sept. 30.

"We'd be crazy to cut short the public-input process, but it might be impossible to get the report finished in time to meet the early deadline," Harrison said.

Assistant City Clerk Deanna Riding, a member of the early-deadline team, said because the whole thing is a trial, it has yet to be determined when a late-deadline report is posted, but "I don't see why we wouldn't post it" as soon as it is ready.

"We're just going to be doing the best we can," she said.

A "preliminary agenda" has been added to the city Web site, with links to the available city-manager reports, with a note that the agenda is subject to change during the week.

The early-deadline idea emanated from two community meetings last year spearheaded by council members Hillary Freeman and Yoriko Kishimoto -- although the idea of putting out the entire packet a week early was explored extensively two years ago at the suggestion of the Weekly, which has pushed for earlier release of council information since it was founded in 1979.