Two items of importance top the agenda at tonight's Marietta City Council - and both deserve approval.

The first is a sweeping change regarding where the council does business. And in this case, the "where" also has a significant impact on "how" it does business, in terms of being more transparent.

Mayor Steve Tumlin wants the council to move all of its meetings to its spacious council chamber and wants all of its meetings to be recorded for posting on the city's website.

Council meetings in recent decades have been four-step processes. First come committee meetings, followed by Committee of the Whole meetings, followed by a "pre-meeting" (or as some have described it, a "dress rehearsal") immediately prior to the council's formal meeting, and finally the council meeting itself. Only the last of the four steps has been recorded for viewing until now. Tumlin wants them all recorded.

"By the time we get to the regular council meetings, we've had three previous meetings, which most people haven't heard," the mayor said. "If somebody comes to a council meeting expecting to hear discussion, they don't because it's on the consent agenda (which is a portion of the regular agenda, where a number of items are considered with one vote.) They probably don't know what has already been discussed for nine or 10 hours."

In other words, not only is there no drama, neither is there any substantive discussion at the final meeting in many cases. The public would be much better served if all the council's meetings were recorded and easily accessible on the city's website.

As for the "where," until Tumlin became mayor, all of the council's committee meetings and its pre-meetings had taken place in the cramped council conference room on the fourth floor of City Hall. Tumlin is asking the council to move all of them, including the pre-meeting, to the council's main chamber on the first floor, which has seating for more than 100 spectators and boast good acoustics as well.

"The fourth floor is just not conducive to the public coming," the mayor said. "The smallness of the room - 16 metal chairs. People have their back to you. It's just not a good place to communicate, in my opinion, as far as somebody from the public having an opportunity to sit in a nice forum."

True enough. The city council has done the bulk of the public's business away from the public eye for far too long. There is nothing illegal about meeting in the little room upstairs, but as the mayor noted, it is not a welcoming environment for the public. And for too long, City Hall has operated under the "less public scrutiny, the better" theory. It's time for a change, and the council should vote tonight to implement that change.