To emphasize the importance of public hearings, the Salt Lake City Council is changing the way it will consider issues scheduled for public hearings. When an item is scheduled for a public hearing the City Council will consider all comment at the public hearing. After the City Council closes the hearing the Council in most cases will schedule a decision on the issue for the next City Council meeting. Decisions on issues involving public hearings will be made in a new portion of City Council meetings – Public Hearing Action Items. Council decisions on public hearing action items will take place before the public comment to the City Council section of the meetings. After every public hearing the City Council will continue to take written comment such as letters and e-mails and oral comments via the telephone to consider in reaching a decision. As in the past, the City Council also will continue public hearings to future meetings if the issue before the City Council warrants more public comment. The City Council will retain the portion of the meeting devoted to citizens’ comments to the City Council, but the Council may have acted on issues on which the Council has held public hearings.