Babcock said she isn't happy with council's communications with the public over the past few years.

The sale of public works property on Ebay, where the city notified a list of potential bidders instead of heavily advertising the sale, magnified these concerns, she said.

Babcock said council members need to be able put the issues they want on agendas.

She said Council Member Mark Meadows had too much power over what was on agendas when he was mayor.

"Before I joined the council, we had a mayor who had really unusual powers over what was placed on the agenda, which limited things that were discussed at city council," Babcock said.

Since City Council meetings are open to the public, the items the council members discuss from the agenda is one way for the public to know what's going on in the city.

Babcock said she is hoping that changes under new mayor, Ruth Beier.

Gregg said she didn't think enough public engagement occurred while the City Council was approving new development downtown.

"We have a lot of landscape transforming developments happening downtown and people are very anxious about the shape of their town changing so dramatically and so quickly," Gregg said.

Gregg said she'd like to see town hall meetings to get the public's thoughts on changes.

She said she'd also like to see quarterly public engagement meetings, with increased advertising compared to discussion-only meetings, which the council already has.

"We've got a really engaged, intelligent community," Gregg said.

From the city side of things, this would present an additional hurdle.

"Changing the way that you do things is scary from the side of the elected officials," Gregg said. "It means it's not as efficient for them, they have to incorporate this whole other variable into their discussions which is public comment and public information."

She also said she thinks the city's attitude needs to change regarding public engagement.

Gregg said she thinks transparency is being held back by this fear of change, not to bury shady deals.

"I think too often there's an attitude of 'We know why we're doing this, we know what's best,'" Gregg said. "I think we could do the same work as is getting done and it could be public."