“1. Creating diverse employment opportunities in various fields and industries.”

This is absolutely not the job of local government, let alone its highest priority. We apparently don’t have anyone–not a single council member–who understands that, and our residents will suffer for it unless that changes very soon.

My perception is that two councilmembers (from the same ward) were able to torpedo both the police and fire “success metrics” by insisting that the phrases “community perception of safety” and meeting “community needs” (as distinctly separate from measurable standards) be included.

Was there discussion about exactly how “community perception of safety” or “community needs” for fire safety (vs. actual standards) shall be measured? If so, I’d be interested in hearing how. Are they proposing to fund a random phone survey of residents to measure “comfort” in these variables?

My Spidey senses are telling me that these wishy-washy terms will be deployed in the near future to attempt to deliver on fiscally unsound campaign promises. Unless there’s a plan, I’m a bit disappointed that the moderator allowed a sign-off on these unmeasurable metrics.

What I resent is when big-impact items like the last-minute Fuller Road Station funding item, which included a call for a future public referendum, are added with only a day or so to respond. Since there is no public alert system to notify interested public of such late additions, it behooves us to check the agenda constantly to make sure no bombs have been added.

The council rule governing approval of the agenda (and additions to it) is this one:

3B – Review of the Draft Agenda
The City Administrator shall submit the draft agenda and supporting materials to the members of the Council Administration Committee for review and comment 10 days prior to the next Council meeting. Such review and comment shall be made no later than 7 days prior to the next Council meeting. Once reviewed by the Council Administration Committee, no matter from staff shall be placed on the agenda. Council members may add items to the agenda at any time, but will use best efforts to do so prior to the Friday before the next Council meeting.

So for this type of late addition, it’s not really a matter of polite deference of councilmembers to each other. It’s a matter of city clerk staff implementing the council’s rule. Namely, if they get a request from a councilmember to add an item to the agenda, then they add it. The language about “best efforts” is, of course, not objectively measurable. In fact, some councilmembers understand the rule to mean they should try to have the item added by 5 p.m. Friday — when in fact the rule indicates that it’s “prior to the Friday” i.e., Thursday. In any case, it doesn’t need to be reviewed by the council administration committee.

At the meeting itself, that’s where polite deference can come in. If a councilmember wants to add an item “from the floor” then this is the rule:

Matters not on the published agenda may be added at the time of approval of the agenda with the consent of 3/4 of the members present. …

In the last few months there’s been a couple occasions where a resolution has been added at the meeting. E.g., The resolution on suspending funding for public art projects was added to the council’s Nov. 19, 2012 agenda at the meeting itself. Jane Lumm voted against that addition to the agenda. And before that, the public art millage was added to the Aug. 9, 2012 agenda at the meeting itself. Properly, I think there should have been a vote on adding the item, and then on the entire agenda; but the vote on adding the item wasn’t taken separately, and the council approved the agenda, with the additional item, on a unanimous voice vote.

So, up until Monday afternoon of a meeting day, the “late” additions (that is, after Thursday the week before) can be attributed to specific councilmembers who exercise their individual rights under the council rule. At the meeting itself, the late additions can be attributed to the council as a body, which could simply vote against adding the items.

For councilmembers, the polite deference at play here is tinged with some political practicality. If you stake out a zero-tolerance position on late additions to the agenda, it could make it tougher when you find yourself wanting to add something late to the agenda yourself.

Perhaps we can grant that there might be some rare occasions on which adding an item at the meeting itself – as opposed to waiting until the next meeting – is ultimately in the public interest. Still, I think it’s worth thinking through how that can best be handled to ensure accessibility to the meeting by the viewing public. If an item is added during the meeting itself, I think it would be suitable to recess the meeting for 15 minutes, timed from the point at which printed copies of the item are distributed to the council chambers audience, and the text is available online, whichever is later. That would allow people a chance to digest whatever it is that the council is considering. And it’s consistent with the council rule that “Every resolution and ordinance shall be in writing.” Currently, for agenda items added at a meeting, councilmembers achieve compliance with the “in writing” rule by using email, which is, of course, not accessible to the public.

I recently raised this issue with a member of the Council’s agenda committee (before the change in membership). I got the impression that the committee does not have criteria for granting/denying the addition of resolutions to the agenda and that most requests are granted out of polite deference to Council colleagues.

The agenda committee should set standards for late additions to the meeting agenda. If it’s not on fire, it probably should wait for a subsequent meeting.

Amen.

I have such gray, cold memories of those council retreats held at the Wheeler Center in which Fraser was commanding the council about all the areas to cut. The setting was as glum as his presentation. He attempted and to some extent succeeded in consolidating,reducing, or eliminating many service areas in the city. This attempt to bring the council together as a constructive visionary body is so different and makes me hopeful that they can function as they should – as our leaders.

Fraser was disrespectful of the council when they tried to get their heads around things like priorities. I remember my shock in 2008 when I attending a meeting where he responded to a council priority session by choosing just one priority of many, one tiny fraction of that priority, and giving a progress report on that one thing. (I don’t remember exactly what it was, but on the order of reducing paperwork by changing work requirements.) This contrasted to me with the priority exercises we went through at the BOC under the aegis of Bob Guenzel, who was respectful of the BOC and produced lengthy staff updates on request. Instead, Council has often been presented with fragmentary decisions based on the immediate need.

By the very way this retreat was organized, it appears that we are indeed into a new era. One thing – could we please stop having resolutions introduced after agendas have already been posted? Give our councilmembers time to discuss major moves with constituents. Thank you.

I don’t anticipate having time to do that. The whole-group discussion of public safety was by far the most lengthy, and resulted in significant changes from the initial draft to the final version. And I thought it was interesting purely in its discourse dynamic. So in writing up that chunk of the session, I thought it was worth laying out public safety in somewhat gory detail, accepting as a trade-off the consequence that the other discussions wouldn’t be included. Also not included was the process that produced the priority areas, which involved standard sticky notes and “dot voting” mechanisms – also interesting stuff.

Spending the first million dollars out of an $80 million budget should be relatively easy. The hard questions will arise when deciding how to spend the last million dollars. If the Council pursues an objectives based budgeting process, like zero based budgeting, it can be sure that it is not spending on things or programs that are relatively less important than the things and programs it decides not to afford.

It is especially refreshing to hear Council members Lumm and Kailasapathy advocate the priorities of their constituents (including public safety). It is disappointing to see Council recognize that infrastructure problems include storm flooding but describe success in terms of only transportation issues (gondolas for the west side?).