COEUR d'ALENE - The city of Coeur d'Alene wants to change a number of rules governing its sub-committees to ensure each of citizen-comprised bodies is following the same set.

Several ordinance changes could be proposed in the next 30 days, the first of which would be to prohibit city employees from sitting as voting members on sub-committees.

The goal is uniformity across the city's 16 committees, as well as to ensure citizens, not city employees, are filling the advisory committees that recommend policies or changes.

"We felt that to truly be citizen driven, we want to make sure they are not members of the committee," City Administrator Wendy Gabriel said.

The city began looking at its committee ordinances after a disagreement it had with its pedestrian/bicycle committee late last year over painting directional arrows in bike lanes. The committee wanted to suggest to the City Council that arrows be painted in the lanes, as larger cities do and studies say reduce wrong-way riding.

Funding and maintenance were a concern, but the sides ultimately agreed to a compromise that would paint directional arrows in the new bike lanes on 15th Street on a trial basis.

But it brought up the question: to whom does the ped/bike committee report?

It was formed in 2003 as an independent committee, but gradually shifted as a sub-committee of the parks and recreation commission. It's original ordinance, though, says it recommends to the City Council assistance on transportation, pedestrian and bicycle projects.

As a transportation committee, it would likely serve under the streets department, but it has been operating under a parks sub-committee, which requires it report to the park and rec commission. Now the city is crafting an ordinance that clarifies it report through the park and rec.

The difference is essentially a layer of committees. There are two sub-committees who report ideas directly to the City Council: General Services and Public Works. Street topics go directly to Public Works but the parks department, which has several sub-committees, first flows ideas through its park and rec commission before getting to General Services.

The route the ped/bike committee should take hadn't come up in the past as the committee hadn't attempted to pitch ideas to the City Council before, some members said.

But as the city looked into the ped/bike committee's regulating rules, it noticed a number of other inconsistencies, such as some staff liaisons have voted, while others haven't.

That started the ordinance housekeeping, the first of which, prohibiting employees from membership, will go before the City Council 6 p.m. Tuesday at the library.

John Kelly, ped/bike committee member and city police officer, would lose his seat on the committee with the rule change. He is one of three employees who would be affected, with the others being Brian Keating and Jon Spranget on the child care commission.

Five-year ped/bike committee member Kelly said the committee understands it's only an advisory board that doesn't have final authority over street or engineering decisions. He said he was disappointed in what he perceived as a lack of communication between the city and committee prior to the rule changes.

The two sides had a workshop in February but the rule changes or duties weren't discussed, which Gabriel said was because the proposals weren't ready at the time.

Kelly said he still hopes the stakeholders can sit down together and determine what exactly the ped/bike committee's duties, expectations and responsibilities are.

"I'm all for that. I'm all for re-evaluating the duties and responsibilities and role of the committee and what the city expects," he said.