Lacey City Council adopts Monday rule for meetings that fall on election day and holidays

The Lacey City Council adopted a new timetable that moves any regular meeting of the group that lands on an election day or a holiday to Monday.

The Lacey City Council holds regular meetings on the first and third Tuesdays of the month.

The policy revision, enacted through Ordinance 1684, was approved at a meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 7. It amends Chapter 2.04 of the Lacey Municipal Code.

City Clerk Elissa Fontaine said the revision establishes “consistent expectations for council, staff and the public” by preventing future scheduling overlaps with election activities or city closures. 

“I will also note that per writing the default schedule expectation does not remove any of our options in rescheduling the meeting or canceling if needed,” she said. 

She added the ordinance also puts the council’s informational dinner meetings into the code, an amendment to align all meeting types under the same statutory schedule. The ordinance passed without opposition. 

Mayor Andy Ryder said the change was prompted by the discovery that the council’s Tuesday schedule conflicted with several civic events during the past year. 

“We realized when we moved our council meetings to Tuesday, the result of that is that we have some holidays and election days that happened on Tuesdays,” he said. “This makes a lot of sense to account for that and move to appropriate times where the facilities are going to be more readily accessible to everyone.” 

Council member Michael Steadman recounted he had brought up the concern at the time the Tuesday schedule was adopted. 

“Election Day was obviously going to be one,” he said, explaining the Olympia and Tumwater city councils also meet on Tuesdays. “Those were my concerns when we did this, but it was the majority of this council, so I went with it.” 

Policy alignment 

Immediately after the vote on Ordinance 1684, the council aadopted Resolution 1174 to align Section 7.01 of the Council Policies and Procedures Manual with the new meeting schedule. 

Fontaine said the companion resolution guarantees the public has “information ready and available” in both the municipal code and the policy manual. 

Resolution 1174 amends the section governing council meetings and work sessions to adopt the Monday rule whenever an election day or a holiday interferes with the regular Tuesday timetable. 

The updated Section 7.01 also consolidates provisions on meeting types, quorum procedures, and public notification to authorize council, staff and advisory boards to utilize a single guide for scheduling and conduct. 

Regular meetings will remain on the first and third Tuesdays of each month, and work sessions stay on the second and fourth Tuesdays. 

Informational dinner meetings are scheduled for the first Tuesday of the month at 4:30 p.m. in City Hall. If any of those sessions coincide with a holiday or election day, the Monday prior becomes the official meeting date. 

According to the City of Lacey, the Open Public Meetings Act (Revised Code of Washington 42.30.070) mandates that if a regular meeting falls on a legal holiday, it should move to the next business day. 

The new resolution states moving to Wednesdays under that rule conflicts with standing advisory board meetings, so Lacey officially chose Monday instead to synchronize its schedule and avoid overlapping with other governance commitments. 

A summary of Ordinance 1684 was also approved for publication to notify the public of the amendment and its effective date; no fiscal impact was recorded for either action.