Don't Need "No Stinkin' Study Sessions"

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Once again, we're doing some downtime thinking while the Town Council and every one of the town's boards takes the summer off.
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Council special sessions are open meetings where the council does the town's business. These meetings are in addition to the regular council meetings. Generally, they are "special purpose focused."  In the past two years, the Oro Valley Town Council has held just 7 special sessions, covering the following topics:

• Fireworks Ordinance
• Employee Benefits and Ancillary Benefits Providers
• Appointment to Preservation Commission/Budget Discussion
• Police Chief Contract/Budget Discussion
• Economic Summit
• Town Manager and Town Attorney Discussion/Air soft guns
• Council Vacancy

The last special council session that was held was more than a year ago, consistent with the Mayor''s "habit" of jamming as much as possible into each regularly scheduled council session.

Council Study Sessions are used by Council to understand and discuss, as a group, important situations, such as the town budget.  By law, any meeting of four or more council members is a violation of "open meeting laws."   So, it would seem to us, that special study sessions are in order for so much of what we find in Oro Valley. For example, discussion of the town budget.

In the past year, the council has had two study sessions; one in September regarding the Town Centre PAD; one in April for 2 hours 36 minutes to discuss the $96 million budget.  That's right.  Aside from when they passed the budget in May, that was the only public vetting of the budget. Every other discussion, if any,  was behind closed doors.  So much for "transparency."

Why has the council met only twice for a total of 3 hours 51 minutes to study important  issues? Aren't there other important issues that the council should deliberate upon as a group? Do you think, for example, that a study session regarding the $5 million aquatic center reconstruction would have been a good idea?  We do.  Can you think of other situations where a study session would have been useful to the council... To the public?
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