The Indianola City Council held a study session after their regular meeting Monday, discussing the recent rise in longer council meetings. City Manager Ben Reeves tells KNIA News the council has been dealing with a lot of unique changes as of late but the longer meetings, sometimes lasting nearly four hours, doesn’t lead to the most effective government for either the council or residents.

“The discussion really focused around how do we become as efficient and effective as possible while enhancing the most transparency as possible. So it was a really good discussion about what elements work best for our community, and how we can be more respectful and supporting the mayor as she governs the meeting. Not step on each other’s toes while talking, and yet making sure every petitioner for every agenda item has the same equal rights and they aren’t waiting all night long before their issue is heard.”

Reeves also said there is a balance, because you don’t want to have too short of a meeting where all the council’s thoughts aren’t being heard or issues being moved on from too quickly.