Does a governing municipal council really need to be told — in writing — how to behave when it’s conducting the public’s business?

I guess the Amarillo City Council needs such rules spelled out.

Whatever. It’s good to know the council has accepted the rules on how to behave in public.

The council adopted a set of rules that requires council members to, um, act like adults. Interesting, yes?

The new rules require council members to: maintain order and decorum at council meetings and obey the mayor’s edicts; treat each other and city staffers with courtesy and respect; refrain from using their position to obtain special privileges; and refrain from condoning illegal or unethical behavior.

It fascinates me in the extreme that the council felt the need to adopt these rules and codify them in writing.

Every single one of those guidelines seems as though they always would be understood from the beginning.

A lot of things changed when the City Council took office this past spring. Three new guys joined the five-member council. They promised “changed,” and delivered it in spades. Some of it was good. Some of it was, well, not good. One of the not-good elements emerged quickly as at least one of the new council members began arguing publicly with Mayor Paul Harpole about this and that policy matter.

What’s more, the call for former City Manager Jarrett Atkinson to resign right out of the chute was seen as, well, far less than respectful  . . . not to mention the demand that the Amarillo Economic Development Corporation board be fired summarily.

Change? Yeah, we got it, all right.

Now, though, the change that voters said they wanted has been tamped down a bit to require a level of decorum.

The Amarillo City Council is acting like a collection of grownups — even as it puts its rules of behavior in writing.