ROUNDTABLE'S FUTURE WILL BE DECIDED SOON; COUNCIL TO VOTE ON GET-TOGETHERS.

Byline: Cecilia Chan Staff Writer

The future of informal get-togethers where residents meet with a City Council member to talk about driving issues affecting the community will be determined Tuesday.

The council will consider three options for the Residents Roundtable: continue as is, with five meetings a year at various locations; reduce to three meetings; or hold future community meetings as needed.

``I don't have the feeling that the events reached as broad a base of the community as we would have liked to have reached,'' said City Councilman Dennis Gillette, who has not made a decision on the matter. ``My wish would have been to reach more of the community that doesn't have the opportunity to be at the City Council or be aware of the community as they could be.

``At this point, I'm not sure we have accomplished what we originally set out to accomplish.''

The Residents Roundtable began this year, and each council member hosted one of the five discussions on topics including code compliance, open space endowment fund and trash collection.

The number of residents who attended those meetings ranged from a low of seven to a high of 44, according to a staff report by City Manager MaryJane Lazz. The city spends from $500 to $1,500 and uses about 40 hours of staff member time to prepare for a meeting, she said.

Lazz also said the Residents Roundtable could be a vehicle to enhance civic participation. She said that residents, council and city staff could have a greater understanding of certain topics through the meetings, and could identify common problems and ways to resolve them.

``It's important to have that informal ability to communicate with citizens,'' said Mayor Linda Parks, who came up with the idea of the roundtable. ``I do encourage we do it as often as we can. So I am definitely in favor of at least five times a year.''

Compared with the Mayor's Business Roundtable that meets weekly, ``five meetings with residents in general doesn't seem like an expensive use of city resources,'' Parks said.

She said the Residents Roundtable offers residents the opportunity to talk without the three-minute time constraint of a council meeting and the intimidation of speaking into a microphone or being televised.

``And they get answers right away,'' she said. ``It cuts through the bureaucracy.''