FWIW, without reading the whole thread, there is just one thing I'd like to point out:

It is very useful to have the council not only for the things that they do, but for the things that *may* do and also for the things that they *don't* do. Just being there and saying "if you don't know whom to contact, contact me" deserves huge thanks.

The only thing I'd suggest is to rename the "council" to something like "elected members" or "elected representatives" or "elected representative members" or something like that, in order to prevent people with "too much free time" (tm) to start discussing their problems with something that is called "the council" (I believe that this discussion is against the term "council" or the "subject" and not against the members of the council or any of their actions - which makes the whole discussion pointless).