By Jorge Casuso

March 14, 2025 -- Members of the public who address the City Council using an electronic presentation will do so "at their own risk" if the technology fails, under a change to the Council rules approved Tuesday.

A second change approved Tuesday with no discussion relates to the use of ranked choice voting for appointing members of Boards and Commissions, a method the Council has never used.

While the City allows members of the public to submit electronic presentations displayed on the City’s equipment during a public comment, sometimes the technology doesn't work, staff said in its report to the Council.

"The City cannot make an unconditional guarantee that its technology will work, or that the file provided by the commenter will work," staff wrote.

Under the rule change, "any member of the public choosing to use an electronic presentation does so at their own risk, and the City makes no guarantees regarding technology."

A member of the public whose presentation isn't working after one minute, can try to continue or can "stop the presentation, restart their timer, and address the Council directly."

The staff report noted that the City "does not allow members of the public to plug their laptops into the City’s system for cybersecurity reasons."

The second rule change was made after the City Clerk recommended that the Council switch to a different ranked choice voting method that the one it directed staff to implement for appointing board members and commissioners.

When the Council voted on January 28 to use ranked choice voting for the first time, it asked the City Clerk to choose what application to use.

After "much research," the City Clerk chose rankedchoices.com, which uses the Weighted Inclusive Gregory Method (WIGM) to calculate the votes, which is "contrary to the voting process adopted by Council."

"Using this method, the number of Councilmembers who chose a nominee as their first choice is added to the number of Councilmembers who chose the nominee as their second, third, etc.," according to the staff report.

Each count is given "approximately 2/3 of the weight given to the previous count" before all the votes are added together "to arrive at a tiebreaker value for each nominee."

The rule changes were proposed "to make meetings run more efficiently for the benefit of the public."