Tuesday's swearing-in of both Mayor Michael D. Quill and City Councilor Gilda Brower created a change that was more than ceremonial. There is little doubt there will be changes in the way city hall does business, starting as early as tomorrow. The big question is how much change and how fast?

Prior to this week, the working coalition at city hall was usually Mayor Timothy C. Lattimore and Councilors William Graney and Matthew Smith, a Democrat and a Republican respectively. While the shift now has Smith as the sole Republican, it is too easy and early to suggest that governance will be partisan. What is more likely is that the four Democrats will better communicate among themselves than the three-member majority did over the last two years.

With that in mind, there are a couple of areas where the public might see changes sooner than later. Noting the criticism of his predecessor, expect Mayor Quill to, at least for now, keep speakers to the three-minute limit and not engage them in discussion, as his predecessor did, which only seemed to lengthen meetings.

He most likely won't have a member of the public challenging him from his first council meeting, or in the near future, as several of his predecessors have had. At some point he will have the likes of a Mary Lou Picciano or Art Wenzel, but for the time being he might just have a honeymoon of sorts to keep agendas and meetings moving forward. And frankly, Auburn could use a break.

While the past two years have seen proposal after proposal debated on changing the procedures of how council meetings are run - restricting public participation did not have support from the three Democrats (including re-elected Councilor Thomas McNabb) running this past November. Instead, taxpayers might see action on two items.

Graney was not happy when the outgoing mayor and Councilor David Dempsey were joined by Smith to change city hall's hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., effective today. Don't be surprised if this is put back on the agenda as early as next week to change the hours back. He also may push for his idea of expanding the hours of service for the city clerk's, code enforcement and treasurer's offices to 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., to benefit the public with staff having flexible hours to cover the extended period.

Another change, long pushed by McNabb, is to have council meeting start times go from 6 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursdays. That may be a tougher sell, not because it will cut more of the public out of attending council sessions, which it will, but because it will be difficult for Brower and Smith to change their work schedules.

Cosentino, a former mayor of Auburn, can be contacted at cozguytho@aol.com