On Tuesday night, after what seems like ages, the new council will be sworn in with Joe Krovoza and Rochelle Swanson replacing Lamar Heystek and Ruth Asmundson. That much we know. What we really do not know is what these changes will mean for the city of Davis.
What the biggest open question is what these changes which will continue in January when Don Saylor leaves the council will mean for city staff. In a city manager form of government, the city is basically run by unelected city staff members.
One of the big questions that I have no resolved in my mind is who actually ran the city the last four years. At times I believed that the council majority ran the city, and indeed the city manager at times appeared to anticipate what the majority wants. At times it appeared that one specific councilmember had dominated. At other times, it seems perhaps that the city staff simply adhered to the loudest and most vocal councilmember. Finally, at other times it seems like city staff was making stuff up as they went.
It is possible that perhaps all of those scenarios played out at various times on various issues. I am going to pull out three seemingly random examples from the past few years, first the decision to do an equal weight EIR on Hunt-Wesson, second, the decision to withhold the fire report from the public, and third Verona.
Who made the determination to an equal weight EIR on Hunt-Wesson? In December of 2008, the City Manager pulled out a recommendation that would do a full-weight alternative EIR to consider the possibility of a business park at Hunt-Wesson along with the proposed mixed-use housing project. That decision eventually led Lewis Planned Communities to pull out of attempting to develop the site as mixed-use housing.
One person who did not make this determination was Mayor Pro Tem Don Saylor who at one point remarked that he was not expecting this staff proposal and was caught off guard by it. He made a number of efforts to change the mixed-use proposal back to the main EIR with the business park alternative as an alternative (a move that would have saved $50,000 to $100,000). But he failed to get council support for it.
There may be a number of theories as to why this proposal was made. First, it is possible that it came from the City Manager who believed just as he said that there had not been a full study of the business park alternative and that the city needed to consider the impact of a zoning change from current usage. The City Manager has consistently held the view moreover that Cannery should be planned concurrently with its Covell Village neighbor.
There is also the alternative theory that perhaps the Covell people played a role in killing this project. The problem with that theory is why would the Mayor Pro Tem object if that the idea was to promote Covell Village?
Reading the body language at that meeting it seems like this was something that the city manager pushed rather than a single council member. The motivation for doing it is difficult to assess.
The second example is the Grand Jury report on the fire department which ultimately came for a vote in early 2009. The Grand Jury report had heavily criticize the fire department for their a number of problems ranging from drunken firefighters sleeping in the fire station to hostile work environments and union intimidation. The city asked Bob Aaronson the ombudsman to investigate, but strangely never allowed the council to read the full report or released it to the public.
Who made that decision? Well we know the City Manager worked very hard to avoid the council being able to read the full report. We can get into a variety of possible reasons, but one that seems fairly obvious is that they did not want Lamar Heystek or Sue Greenwald to get their hands on it. The City Manager obviously played a large role in this. But it would never have worked unless three councilmembers supported him. Strangely, Stephen Souza at one point made the comment that he did not need to see the full report.
So what happened? Was the council protecting their buddies in the fire department? Did the council prefer to delegate authority to the city manager to give themselves immunity and plausible deniability? This was clearly a case where the City Manager and Council Majority worked in concert.
Final example is the recent Verona example. In 2008, the council approved the Verona Subdivision. Then in June, city staff went to the Planning Commission to start a process to approve changes to the development agreement. These included the waiving of middle income affordable housing requirements, an elimination of the parkland, and a reduction of supplemental fees.
However, over time changes occurred to the proposal. So at one point the fees were to be reduced to $3000 per unit, but after complaints and pressure city staff changed it to allow for $12,000 per unit except $6000 for the previously designated middle income affordable units which would remain at $6000. The proposal went through at least three different iterations, but council put the kabosh on any discount, and they did so unanimously.
In this case, it seems pretty clear that the city staff acted and stumbled on their own, without any sort of council direction.
These are but three examples that show pretty clearly there was not one single set arrangement. At times the city staff clearly acted on their own, at other times they worked with the council majority.
The real question we will be watching for is determining how and whether the city staff changes the way they do business. The previous council seems almost deferential to city staff. They rarely overruled them and often deferred to their judgment. Will the City Manager be able to work with a new council and a new majority that may be very different from the previous council? There are a number of questions about the quality of some of the people that have been promoted into high level positions in the city manager’s office in particular.
One thing to watch will be to see how often the new city council overrules staff recommendations. If that happens frequently, particularly early on, you know there is a difference of opinion and a period of adjustment. If it is still happening in December and into 2011 with frequency, it will be clear that staff will not be able to adapt to a different council than the one that brought them in. At that point, I think Bill Emlen would be on the hot seat, but not before.
I expect the City Manger will attempt first to co-opt the new council and then will attempt to adjust his practices to accede to their direction. At some point that may prove unworkable. That will be one of the big things to look for with the new council, whether they can work with and co-exist with city staff and if they do, who moves in which direction.
City staff has a lot of work ahead adjusting to a new mayor, working with a new council, and the small task of figuring out how to govern the city during a time of fiscal crisis and economic recession.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Some very good points here. Allowing City Council members to have a staff would help–also paying CC members a decent salary would be a very wise investment in my opinion. We have a bloated planning staff which is overpaid and over-benefitted (if that is a word) run by a City Council whose members are paid a pittance–a few hundred a month I believe.
I do not know what the exact rules are regarding process, but this CC seems to ram things through on short notice, sometimes very late at night. I’d suggest the following:
1. CC members agree they will not vote on anything unless they have all the info at hand and the proposal has been vetted by the relevant committees (e.g., finance and budget).
2. For important issues perhaps the CC would have a presentation and then vote at the following CC meeting.
A bit more humility by staff would be nice as well–anyone have suggestions there?
The concept of CC members having “independent” staff is, in my opinion, ludicrous. It seems, by definition, that such staff members would not be reporting to the City Manager. If they report to the Councilmember, it is assumed that they serve at the CC member’s will. Unless they don’t really need a job, if a CC member asks the staff to research all the reasons why Plan X should be chosen over Plan Y, does anyone think that if the staff member finds, in their professional opinion that Plan Y is in the best interests of the citizens of Davis, will that be their advice to the CC member? Methinks, not…. “independent” staff for CC members will, I believe, just lead to a battle of “experts” (which by some accounts, number ~ 25,000 in Davis — at least in their own minds), where you may have a staff recommendation from the ‘real’ staff, and 5 differing recommendations from each of the CC members’ staff. Think California Legislature & budget, for an idea of the paralysis that might result. Hopefully, we do not get to the point where city staff’s professional opinion and recommendations are solely based on the desire to get a majority vote on the CC, based on CC members’ preconcieved notions… as it is, we are trending in that direction.
Staff should be able to articulate the facts and why their recommendations are valid, and unless there is a flaw in the facts or analysis, the CC should approve. If you have consistently ‘defective’ staff members, there are other ways of dealing with that.
hpierce: I would see them working as they work in the county system, at the will of the elected member. The County has its CAO just as the City does the City Manager, but the Supervisors have their own staff as well. I don’t see why that’s ludicrous.
Knowing folks in local government, not necessarily in Yolo, Supervisor staff often are used as a “foil” to try get (pressure)local staff to make “special considerations” (i.e. bend/break policies/ordinances) for individual citizens who have the Supervisor’s ear. My analogy to CA legislature is probably wrong… maybe Chicago would be better.
The issue is “at will”… who wants to tell the ‘monarch’ that they are wrong? Unless you have a sincere, open, honest ‘monarch’… are you convinced we have 5 of these? often, on significant policy issues, many CC member opinions are generally well formed prior to the scheduled ‘discussion’ of the issues. In my opinion/experience… for what it’s worth.
One thing to note is that city staff must work with City Council in order to get things passed. If a majority bloc on the City Council obstructs city staff’s ability to plan for the city’s needs properly, city staff is put in the unenviable position of having to compromise its principles somewhat. It must then go back to the drawing board, change its position to something it does think will pass City Council muster/the City Council majority bloc.
Interestingly enough, as more citizens have gotten involved in the housing development process, I have seen a bit of a change in city staff. Some at the lower levels on city staff are sticking to their guns and not compromising their principles. I’ll have more on this in due time. Others on city staff, such as Bob Weir of Public Works, have determinedly kept the public in the loop about the water projects from a project’s inception.
Where some of the curioius divide has come from has been between members of city staff themselves. Some of the upper echelon have taken their cue from the City Council majority. Process was not properly followed; the ball was constantly hidden on issues; public input was kept to a minimum on issues. There is a lot of back room dealing that goes on behind closed doors (I have seen much of it in an indirect way), that truly frustrates the public.
The real cure for all this is to make process consistent, and transparent. Bob Weir had the right idea – put all issues before the public and let the chips fall where they may. THAT IS KEY…
City staff are portrayed here as having its own agenda apart from the public will or the Council. Not true. On those rare occasions where a department is initiating a new city policy, City staff will take on the role of advocate.
But in the vast majority of instances when City staff is told to analyze and recommend a course of action for the Council, staff is rarely compromised by self-interest or local politics.
The notion of the Council having its own “independent” staff is, as said earlier, ludicrous. You’ve added another level of research that is less informed on city operations (for which they would have to rely on city staff). Besides, there is nothing independent with a Council staff. They are the “right arms” of the Council, true, but they are also immediately next to the whole partisan political process from which independent study strives to distance itself from.
Also, please remember on occasion city staff will deliberately become a “whipping boy” to cover for errors of judgment by the Council. This is called “taking one for the team,” and it occurs more often than many realize. City staff reputation suffers. The Council remains pristine.
As I’ve read here before, any and all agenda items must be published not later than five days prior to the next scheduled meeting (transparency). For the past few years Staff has driven the process, at times pushing through items because of artificial deadlines required by the State or the Feds. Note: there is no such thing as a ‘date certain’ with any agency at any level, *provided* they are kept apprised of the status of the project/item. (Water/wastewater treatment comes to mind.)
I’d also mandate 48 meetings a year, with added special meetings when needed. As Dr. Wu noted (above) that would require a substantial increase in Council pay, something this town would only do kicking and screaming all the way.
[quote]If a majority bloc on the City Council obstructs city staff’s ability to plan for the city’s needs properly, city staff is put in the unenviable position of having to compromise its principles somewhat.[/quote]
Hasn’t come to this yet, but if, on a 3-2 vote, the City Council decided that the City supply water and sanitary sewer services without one unit of energy being expended, City staff’s principles wouldn’t be able to be compromised… there are certain facts of physics and nature that no plebiscite nor City Council can change. Staff often needs to point out the ‘immutable’ laws… measuring success with a new Council by an increase of times that CC overturns staff recommendations, seems to me to be a combination of ignorance/arrogance/folly.
That being said, staff should be accountable for the professionalism in analyzing situations and making recommendations. City Council should NOT be a rubber stamp, but they should not discount staff without solid reason.
You can argue all you want on philosophy or whether or not the City should have a nuclear proliferation policy, but the city was founded on the need for fire/police protection, keeping the city free from flooding damage, providing potable water, and removing wastes (and a few other things like streets/transportation). When CC wants to micro-manage basic, core services, we’re in trouble. How much to “pay” for a service, fine… how to provide the service on the first-line level, no.
[i]”When CC wants to micro-manage basic, core services, we’re in trouble. How much to “pay” for a service, fine… how to provide the service on the first-line level, no.”[/i]
Bull!
A great example of this is with staffing in the fire department. Our city staff and the pro-fire union consultant they hired have pushed for four-men on a truck staffing. This not only costs us 25% more up front — that’s millions of dollars more — but it results in millions of dollars more in overtime.
Now, why does our city staff want this four per truck policy when most other cities our size and shape either have three or are going back to three ([url]http://www.gilroydispatch.com/news/266825-updated-city-firefighters-reach-agreement[/url]), which is what Davis had for 80 years? The answer is patently obvious: the city staff in Davis was under undue political pressure from the fire union which helped to elect three out of the five members of our city council. The staff was looking out for the staff, not the taxpayers.
The idea that the policy solutions forwarded by staff are always technical and not political is absurd. HPierce is a city employee and he knows better than to argue otherwise.
The fact that staff for years resisted having knowledgeable water experts* who were independent even testify is yet another example of staff looking out for staff on a “technical question.”
*The people from UC Davis who Sue Greenwald had spoken with. Once they testified, whoa, every word spoken by our engineering folks changed 180 degrees. Yet our staff folks had been saying just the opposite for five years, because staff was looking out for staff.
Rich… I never said, nor implied, [quote]The idea that the policy solutions forwarded by staff are always technical and not political [/quote]. Nor have I ever said that the CC should not be the policy “deciders”. Using your example, the CC SHOULD decide the policy of whether there are 3 or four firefighters per truck, after hearing the pros & cons from staff (& others, as appropriate). They SHOULD NOT be weighing in on whether firefighters use 4 inch hoses or three inch hoses to fight fires.
To whoever might know… when I try using the “back button”, things seem to ‘hang’… only noticed this in last couple weeks… doesn’t seem to happen on other sites… any clues? (sorry for being off-topic)
“Once upon a time City staff worked to better the City…”
Let’s get real. Everyone has an agenda. At least CC members have to face voters every four years. City staff has tenure for life.
Dr. Wu… are you suggesting that city employees at some level (managers?, division heads?, department heads?, City Manager?) be subject to confirmation &/or recall by the voters?
Good article. Interesting questions raised. It’s been obvious for some time that Bill Emlen is one of Davis’s sacred cows. Mostly because of some glaringly bad decisions, recommendations, actions made or taken, over a long period of time with zero consequences.
One of the best lines of investigation and observation of trends I’ve seen in the vanguard. Two often we focus on either the staff or the city council. Or often just one of the players by themselves. It is the machinations of the larger system here that produces the decisions we see played out on Tuesday nights.
Well done, excellent post and I hope you continue thinking along these lines.