The structure of Leander City Council meetings will change beginning in July.

agenda. The meetings will be open to the public and take place an hour before city council meetings.

Council Member Christine Sederquist opposed the action, and Council Member Michelle Stephenson was absent from the meeting.

Leander council members will meet with city staff at 6 p.m. for the briefings prior to scheduled city council meetings which will start at 7 p.m. In the past, city council meetings have begun at 6 p.m.

At this time, these briefing sessions are not intended to be video recorded or live streamed as city council meetings are, but minutes will be kept and made available to the public, according to city spokesperson Mike Neu.

Mayor Troy Hill said he thinks this new process will streamline city council meetings and prevent council members from taking up too much of the city manager’s time during the week. Previously, council members met individually with the city manager to go over items on the agenda prior to meetings, according to city documents.

“The advantage of this over what we have done in the past is the amount of time that it took for the city manager, who is very busy to begin with, to meet with each individual council member is astronomical,” Hill said. “Let’s just steer it in a different direction and make it more streamlined.”

Sederquist said she feels like the additional meeting will be a waste of time. She said typically when she receives an agenda packet the Friday before the following Thursday’s city council meeting, she reaches out to city staff with her questions prior to meetings.

“This doesn’t change anything I’m currently doing,” Sederquist said. “I look at this as I’m just going to come in and waste the first hour of being here.”

Council Member Kathryn Pantalion-Parker said she wants to try the briefing session for now, but the new meeting format does not have to last forever.