The Morning Report
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I just spoke again with Fred Sainz, spokesman for Mayor Jerry Sanders. He said the Mayor’s Office doesn’t take Councilwoman Donna Frye’s summons seriously. But the city staff that Frye requested will be attending tomorrow’s council meeting on recycling.
Sainz said he does not believe the charter section was intended to allow council members to formally summon city staff members.
City Attorney Mike Aguirre disagreed. The charter does allow staffers to be summoned, Aguirre said.
Sainz stopped short of admitting that Friday’s memo — which said no city staff would be attending tomorrow’s committee meeting — was a mistake, but said “we did not choose our words correctly.”
“We wanted to communicate to the committee that we were not ready to appear,” Sainz said. “We didn’t want to waste anybody’s time. We didn’t want staff to waste their time to appear before committee and say they’re not ready and then get browbeat for not being ready to speak.”