This week’s subject is narrow, but contains a question worth considering. It involves one of the ways that ideas emerge and ultimately shape public life in Davis. This specific path involves the Davis citizen commissions that advise the City Council on subjects including city spending, planning, police accountability, and several other areas.

A commission can take up a topic for various reasons, including if the council asks it to, if city staff needs it to, and on its own volition. The third option might be changing. This year the council will decide if a commission should get prior approval from its council liaison (or a council subcommittee) before putting an item on the commission’s agenda.

Why make this change, what’s good about it, what isn’t? Today on Davisville we hear from two proponents — Mayor Josh Chapman and Vice Mayor Bapu Vaitla, who form the council’s subcommittee on commissions — and Elaine Roberts Musser and Dan Carson, two of the change’s leading critics.