Failure of Council To Discuss Zipcars Leads to Huge Amounts of Staff Time To Repair Damage –
Failure of Council To Discuss Zipcars Leads to Huge Amounts of Staff Time To Repair Damage – I have seen mistakes made after midnight, sometime devastating mistakes because people are just not as sharp, they fail to catch things, they fail to make that critical point, whatever it is.
My simple solution would be to have more meetings, meeting every week with only one time-consuming item a week. But instead they have moved in the other direction, with only two meetings a month, meaning we have to pack more onto the agenda, not less.
One thing I would like to see that would shorten meetings is eliminate public presentations which take up half an hour, sometimes more, of prime “awake time.” Instead, I think they should have a monthly, or even bi-monthly or tri-monthly, presentation event, with food and celebration, as opposed to taking up meeeting time at 6:30 pm when people are most awake and aware.
Very rarely can you chalk up the length of the meeting to a debate going on for too long. And yet when they want to limit the length of meetings, they shorten the length of public comments, shorten the length of staff reports, shorten the length of council questions and comments.
Mayor Don Saylor came to his six-month term as Mayor wanting to tame the wild beast. In response to well-known coumcil disagreements early this year, he wanted to create a council where the trains ran on time. They were out early. He cut off debate, cut off discussion and attempted to prevent anything uncivil from occurring.
I remember attending that July meeting, the first regular council meeting of the new council. I remember looking at the agenda and seeing Guidelines for Senior Housing, Fire Services, DACHA, Gateway Proposal, and of course the infamous Zipcar.
When I saw that line-up, I figured we were in for a long night. But something very strange happened, we started passing complicated and important items in a very short period of time. And as a result, we ended up with a meeting that should have easily gone past midnight ending at 8:30 pm.
Mayor Don Saylor had made the trains run on time. Or had he?
During the meeting, Councilmember Sue Greenwald spoke up and said, “This is the first time this has come before us at all, and I haven’t had a lot of time to think about it.”
Should that have been a red flag?
What is clear is that whatever time the council saved by rushing through the Zipcar discussion in less than twenty minutes, they have paid for.
The primary responsibility of getting contracts and recommendations right is city staff. However, when city staff fails in their due diligence, the council needs to be able to ask tough questions to make sure that what they think they are voting on is what they are getting.
And it is here that the process failed. It failed because the city’s legal people failed to note before sending it to council that the language was not as tight as it should be.
It failed because city staff sent a flawed contract to council.
It failed because council rushed through the decision, admittedly not knowing a lot about the issue or having time to think about it.
It failed because, instead of the city staff fixing the problems, they attempted to paper them over by creating a deceptive Fact Sheet that said things were in the contract that in fact were only oral understandings that were not binding by law.
It failed in so many different ways.
At the council level, I am going to put the blame on the back of Don Saylor. Now I hear the protestations that I do not like Mr. Saylor, therefore I am putting the blame on him. Fine, hear my logic and then you can decide if you agree with it or not.
First, as Mayor he set the tenor of the meeting to rush through and do things as quickly as possible, thereby limiting discussion. That set the tone for the entire meeting. And yes, they got done at 8:30 pm, went to a bar and had drinks and partied. But there was a huge cost to that in public relations hits, and the amount of time spent since by staff and people like Joe Krovoza and Stephen Souza, repairing the damage. Had it been done right the first time, it would have saved time.
But there is another point that needs to be made. It was Joe Krovoza and Rochelle Swanson’s first regular meeting. They did not have the experience of seeing staff making mistake after mistake, over and over again. They did not have the confidence, perhaps, to rock the boat on this meeting. And so they went along, and that is forgivable.
Don Saylor, Stephen Souza, and Sue Greenwald have no such defense. But to her credit, Sue Greenwald looked at the contract afterwards and had problems. She tried to warn council and get them to reverse themselves through a motion to reconsider. While she was joined by Rochelle Swanson, ultimately she failed because the Mayor and Stephen Souza opposed reconsideration.
While Mr. Souza shares some blame here, ultimately this falls on the shoulders of Don Saylor, who was orchestrating his first regular meeting to make the trains run on time. He put the item on the agenda, he failed to do his due diligence and he has stood by the side of the road, allowing the train to go off track without saying a word.
At least Mr. Souza has put himself on the line here. Don Saylor has just watched his colleagues get run over by the train.
When Don Saylor was on the school board he was a fierce critic of Superintendent David Murphy and Chief Budget Officer Tahir Ahad. He scrutinized their contracts, their language, their policies. He held them accountable when he could muster the votes.
But since he has been on the city council, he has lost that voice. He is an apologist for city staff. He is an apologist for the unsustainable contracts. His agenda to rush through the meeting, combined with his lack of scrutiny on the contract, allowed this to happen and for that he is the councilmember ultimately to blame.
You have city staff putting out a memo to the public that is in contradiction to the contract and the Mayor of the City of Davis has not said a word. Not one word.
In the meantime, as Rich Rifkin wrote in his column last night, the city has done nothing under Mayor Don Saylor’s watch to prevent the city from potentially going bankrupt.
Don Saylor got the trains to run on time that one day on the 27th of July, 2010 and the city has already paid a huge price for it.
There is a reason why democracy is necessarily slow, tedious, and cumbersome. Debate is a necessary component of the public process because it forces one side to defend its positions, and in the process it produces scrutiny by the public and the office holders to find and correct mistakes.
On July 27, 2010 the Davis City Council failed in their duties to the people of Davis. Since that time, city staff has exacerbated the problem by failing to correct deficiencies in the contract and misleading the public about the nature of the agreement.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
[quote] Democracy is the worst form of government…except for all the others. Winston Churchill[/quote]
Having set through a number of City Council meetings (in other cities) that have gone long past midnight I am sympathetic to Saylor’s wish to keep things expeditious, but not at the expense of process. If Saylor wants meetings to end early he can Table a discussion until a future meeting. In general I don’t think its a good idea to vote on something that CC members have not had time to reflect on. I suspect most folks thought that the zipcar contract was a minor issue and they didn’t want to spend too much time on it. And yes…I am sure one can cut some of the more ceremonial aspects of City Council meetings.
AS far as Saylor, my experience with him is that he has a contempt for many citizens in this town who do not share his views on development and other issues. Having Saylor serve for six months is just a bad idea, not just because its Saylor, but because 6 months is not enough time to grow in the job and because he seems to already have the County on his mind.
THis would not be such a big deal if zipcargate was not indicative of so many other issues we have seen with our City staff and Council. The CC spent 20 minutes on this. Many bloggers on the Vanguard (myself included) have spent far more time on the zipcar issue that that and, of course, it has given Dunning plenty to comment on.
I couldn’t watch last night til the end (early at around 10) so what if anything happened with the zipcar issue?
dmg: “It failed because, instead of the city staff fixing the problems, they attempted to paper them over by creating a deceptive Fact Sheet that said things were in the contract that in fact were only oral understandings that were not binding by law.”
I’m not buying the “oral understanding” excuse. The Fact Sheet said exactly what was written in the contract, a contract that was BINDING on the city, their disingenuous and self-serving protestations to the contrary notwithstanding. For the city to now float out there the concocted story that they meant something else other than the printed words on the page just defies credulity. The fault here lies squarely with a city attorney/city manager who failed to do their jobs in properly vetting the contract in the first place and permitting what amounted to an “adhesion contract” (one-sided contract) to move forward for the City Council’s consideration. Where the City Council failed was in trusting city staff – City Council failed in their fiduciary duty as the ultimate decision makers – the buck stops with the City Council. I thought so at the time, and I have not changed my mind. There was not much in the way of questions posed by the City Council that night, and there should have been. But what little was asked certainly gave me pause to feel strongly that Zipcar was a very bad idea.
Just as a side comment, I believe this contract was not more fully scrutinized bc it was a politically correct solution in search of a problem. This town has become so determined to bill itself as “green”, it will jump on any passing bandwagon and buy any snake oil solutions hawked as cures for “global warming”. Many solutions like Zipcar are not true solutions to reducing pollution if you more closely scrutinize what they are all about. Too often you will find they are nothing but a gambit to make some company billing itself as “eco-friendly” a bit fat profit at everyone else’s expense.
Correction: “biG fat profit”
[quote]”The Fact Sheet said exactly what was written in the contract, a contract that was BINDING on the city, their disingenuous and self-serving protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.”[/quote] Elaine, I you misspoke here. In earlier discussions, you compared the contract wording with the various articles and postings that claimed the contract meant something different than it said.
The Fact Sheet came later, and David is correct in his description of the purposeful deception. Everything else you’ve observed is correct, in my opinion. I think the contract said exactly what it was intended to, that some involved planned to carry out the provisions [u]as written[/u] while others involved just hadn’t cared enough to read it.
When the stink started, I think someone panicked, didn’t think it through–and tried to get away with, “Oh, you’re just misinterpreting what we’re doing here.” Once they realized that the contract was sitting out there with very clear language contradicting everything they said, It was too late.
So, now someone’s scurrying back to the Zipcar lawyers, begging them help maintain the fiction that some things need to be “clarified.” The alternative–that we meant to have a contract that says, in some cases, the opposite of what is written–is just unbelievable. A poorly designed coverup is more likely.
[quote]Just as a side comment, I believe this contract was not more fully scrutinized bc it was a politically correct solution in search of a problem. This town has become so determined to bill itself as “green”, it will jump on any passing bandwagon and buy any snake oil solutions hawked as cures for “global warming”. Many solutions like Zipcar are not true solutions to reducing pollution if you more closely scrutinize what they are all about. Too often you will find they are nothing but a gambit to make some company billing itself as “eco-friendly” a bit fat profit at everyone else’s expense.
[/quote]
Elaine: I agree with you here and this is yet another element of zipcargate which bothers me. The folks at zipcar suckered us, plain and simple. In a larger city the concept probably makes sense but not in Davis, esp since we already have zipcar on campus (and it appears there is already sufficient capacity to meet most of the demand).
Perhaps they should advertise that their cars run on snake oil (but not firewood!).
Correction: “Elaine, I you think misspoke here.”
Corrected correction: “Elaine, I think you misspoke here.” Sigh…
To Just Saying: Good catch – I did mispeak! Thanks for the correction. What I should have said was: “The Fact Sheet allegedly said “exactly” what was written in the contract – when that was not what was in the contract at all – an extremely one-sided contract that was BINDING on the city, the city’s disingenuous and self-serving protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.”
Just Saying: “So, now someone’s scurrying back to the Zipcar lawyers, begging them help maintain the fiction that some things need to be “clarified.” The alternative–that we meant to have a contract that says, in some cases, the opposite of what is written–is just unbelievable. A poorly designed coverup is more likely.”
This is how I see it. And not to put too fine a point on it, how stupid does the city think citizens are? Do they really think we would buy such a whopper as the city pushing the CC to sign a binding one-sided contract that the city didn’t really mean? Come off it…
Dr. Wu: “I agree with you here and this is yet another element of zipcargate which bothers me. The folks at zipcar suckered us, plain and simple. In a larger city the concept probably makes sense but not in Davis, esp since we already have zipcar on campus (and it appears there is already sufficient capacity to meet most of the demand). Perhaps they should advertise that their cars run on snake oil (but not firewood!).”
Love the “snake oil” analogy! LOL
Did you mention the most important issue that had taken most of my time: The workshop on choosing which $100 million dollar wastewater treatment plant option to pursue — an issue with monumental implications. We were under huge pressure form the mayor to end this unwisely overpacked meeting very early. Immediately upon the 8:30 ending of the meeting, the mayor wrote an op-ed piece boasting about how efficiently the meeting had been run.
Some definition of efficiency!!
I’m wondering:
Do city council members get packets long enough ahead of meetings to allow for careful individual reading and research?
Do they get to follow up with staff report writers to ask questions before the meetings?
How often are packets incomplete, with handouts provided during the meeting?
Is it easy to pull consent calendar items off for discussion?
Is it easy to reconsider rushed decisions the following meeting if significant, new information develops?
Are “big deal decisions” (like $100-million construction) scheduled for “information presentations” one meeting, then follow-up discussion and voting at a following meeting?
Sue Greenwald: “Some definition of efficiency!!”
Point well taken. My hope is newcomers Jo and Ro will now be more cautious and join you in slowing things down, and making sure there is proper time to vet the issues and to get all your questions answered. Ultimately the buck stops with the City Council and each of its members to speak up and look critically at each and every issue. One lone voice on the City Council that is outvoted just doesn’t cut it. The other City Council members must take responsibility for a failure to act…
JustSaying: “Are “big deal decisions” (like $100-million construction) scheduled for “information presentations” one meeting, then follow-up discussion and voting at a following meeting?”
I would argue this should happen for any decision the City Council makes.