On Tuesday night when I expressed concern to a councilmember about the fact that the MOU issue was not pulled off the consent calendar, it was expressed to me that if they hadn’t read the Vanguard, they would not know this was an issue for anyone in the community. They didn’t receive any emails on it.
I have heard through others that the perception is that this is an issue for the ten people who post regularly on the Vanguard, but not for the rest of the community.
Against that backdrop is the fact that posters who rarely agree on anything shared various levels of concern for both the vote itself and the fact that the council did not pull it off consent. And some of the councilmembers now acknowledge that they erred in not doing so.
However many people you think are actually reading the Vanguard, part of the problem is that there was a perfect storm for this issue being downplayed. I don’t think it was an intentional conspiracy to hide the ball here – but there was no mention in the long-range calendar that the issue was coming up.
That meant that the first anyone would have known about it was last Wednesday when the agenda was posted – the day before Thanksgiving. I was already on the road to my parents’ house in San Luis Obispo. Thanksgiving is the only stretch of the year where I take four days completely off.
I found out about the MOU on Thursday or Friday from a text message and I considered a special commentary on Sunday, but I didn’t even have a laptop with me and I ultimately decided to run something on Monday.
We ran a special commentary on Monday morning that was heavily commented upon and read. The Enterprise didn’t run an article on it until Tuesday and its headline was “City Ready to Review Contracts with 4 of its Unions.”
This is, by the way, a completely misleading title – the city wasn’t ready to review its contracts, it had agreed to new contracts already and not one of the bargaining units were “unions.” The Davis Police Officer’s Association is the closest to a “union,” but it’s an “association” which is separate and distinct (and actually files under a different section of the IRS code). The others are not even officially organized and are simply considered bargaining units for negotiation purposes.
That digression aside, the bulk of the Enterprise readership would not have seen the article until they opened the afternoon paper when they got home from work, perhaps less than an hour before the council meeting began. No wonder the council received no email – the only people who really knew about it in advance were Vanguard readers who had already expressed their views on the Vanguard itself.
The Enterprise never ran a full story on the MOU issue post-meeting. They ran a story in their Thursday paper on the update to the roads issue and at the end of that short article there were two paragraphs mentioning the contracts.
The bottom line is that, if the council wants to know why they didn’t get a lot of email, it is because the issue didn’t get a lot of coverage. It was a perfect storm of people being out of town when the agenda came out, lack of coverage by the Enterprise, and lack of awareness by the public.
Does that mean people wouldn’t be angry about this if they knew about it? What is interesting is I have received a lot of angry emails and text messages this week from people who prefer not to post on the Vanguard but want to know what can be done about it.
One thing we are going to do is hold a special panel discussion. We will have the official announcement on Monday, but on Saturday, December 12 (a week from today), at 11 am at the library of the Davis Community Church, the Vanguard and Civenergy are holding a panel discussion featuring: Councilmember Brett Lee, Councilmember Lucas Frerichs, and Finance and Budget Chair Jeff Miller discussing the issue of the MOUs and the city budget.
It is a free event and open to the public. By the end of that, three of the four councilmembers who supported the MOU will have had a chance to address the issue on the record.
All of this begs the question: what was the rush? The MOUs were put on consent two days after the Thanksgiving holiday and yet they do not take effect until January. So what was the rush? Why not put them on the regular agenda at the December 15 meeting? That would have been plenty of time for the council to act and the contracts to go into effect for January 1.
Finally, one of our readers suggested that the Vanguard, if it wanted the issue pulled, should have requested it be pulled and discussed.
I have a lot of concern about that suggestion. First of all, I think that missed the point. My concern was that no one on council felt that an important and longstanding issue in the community should be discussed and explained on the record.
Second, I do not believe that it is the Vanguard’s job to request items to be pulled. Can you imagine Debbie Davis of the Enterprise coming down to council to ask an item on consent be pulled? I know people view the Vanguard and myself in a different light, but the notion is absurd. If the Enterprise ran their Sunday editorial criticizing the council, would people object that the Enterprise didn’t come down to demand that the item would be pulled? They wouldn’t.
Third, even if I had personally spoken and asked that the item would be pulled, that does not guarantee that the council would have done anything other than pull the item to take consent. But this does raise the issue that the council’s handling of consent items and public comment – a point I directly raised with the mayor some months ago – is inadequate and that does need to be addressed. Perhaps that issue I will raise at the retreat on Tuesday.
Fourth, I really don’t want to get into this, but I was actually not in a position to request the item be pulled. My wife had come down to public comment on Tuesday to raise concerns about the speed of traffic on our street and she brought the little kids with her. I had to take Jeremiah outside to keep him from disrupting the meeting, so I wasn’t even inside when public comment was occurring.
Finally, and this is a point many other readers made, I made the mistake (in retrospect) of assuming it would be pulled off consent. I was actually stunned when I looked up the numbers of the items pulled off consent to see that the MOU issue wasn’t one of them and that Robb Davis had simply registered a no vote. Again, I think this speaks to the inadequacy of the public process to allow the public to request items be pulled off consent, but, in the future, the Vanguard simply might have to, on a weekly basis, request items be pulled off consent. Again, I don’t think that should be our place and I don’t agree that the burden should be on us to do it.
Hopefully, this is an issue that can be addressed on Tuesday by the council and hopefully they can find a better way to do it.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
I want to reiterate and emphasize one point that David made that I see as having the potential to become a larger issue. With the Enterprise going down to three publishing days weekly, there will be even less opportunities for the public to become aware of upcoming events and issues. This will place a larger burden on the Vanguard to be proactive in getting information out to the public. I state this because I feel (albeit a very indirect and very small) sense of responsibility as a member of the VG editorial board for getting out information important to our community.
My hope is that the CC and CM will also recognize the loss of the daily informational source that the Enterprise has been for many years and will be very proactive in giving plenty of notice and providing informational outreach to the community perhaps in new and creative ways in order to fill this gap.
The complaints about the City Council over the years (and the reasons many citizens do not trust the City) boil down to a few repeated occurrences. First, taking tax monies raised for one purpose (parks, roads etc.,) and using them instead to increase employee compensation. Second, providing inadequate notice of important discussions (while meeting the ‘letter of the law), including late postings of staff reports and other information, such that citizens do not feel they have adequate time to prepare. Third, scheduling controversial discussions/decisions around known vacation times and / or late at night in an obvious attempt to reduce public participation.
The City Council did not want public participation in this decision and they arranged the agenda accordingly. The fact that they didn’t get any emails just demonstrates the success of their efforts. Had this been a regular agenda item I can guarantee that their email boxes would have been filled with missives, and the Chambers filled with people (some likely carrying pitchforks).
Is there any wonder why so many people do not trust the City (or this City Council)?
Well said
For the record, the CC received at least 2 emails on the matter: one from Matt, and one from me. I sent mine Monday night.
They actually received two from me, but in deference to Anon, I must acknowledge that I did not explicitly ask them to pull the item.
I’ve spoken to 2 out of the 5 of them. I think the other 3 may have blocked me. JK (my 11 year told me what that means).
The MOUs are the most significant–and almost irrevocable— things the council has done in months. The Enterprise put this issue on page 1 with above the fold with 2 column head.
No doubt, the lack of email to council was by design…I did not not “catch” its importance until Matt Williams (one of the Council watchers we are blessed to have) pointed it out to me. And no doubt the greater public is distracted by Gun violence / terrorism/ISIS, which has allow important but non-urgent local issues to seem small.
And its not even clear if city employees were over paid via the MOU compare to other cities…The process and deportment and transperancy of in actions of council majority seems to be at issue…a kind of Meta-Issue.
The Vanguard is doing a major public service focusing attention on this….at a forum next thursday.
But this issue, like the CFD for the Cannery (aka “Gift to the Developer”-Joe Krovosa), will come back to haunt us when the council says “trust us” as it advances an incomplete package for voter approval of Nishi Gateway project for an voter OK on the June ballot.
We as a city need to work together to solve our financial problem, and Nishi might be part of the solution, but council has certainly signaled by its actions it have more important concerns than transparency…or a mature discussion about the city’s long term financial health.
Sorry wrong day in my previous post for Budget Forum: :
Vanguard forum with Council Finance Committee re: Employee Salary MOU
WHEN: Saturday, December 12 (a week from today), at 11 am
WHERE library of the Davis Community Church,
SPONSOR:: theVanguard and Civenergy
DETAILS: Panel discussion featuring: Councilmember Brett Lee, Councilmember Lucas Frerichs, and Finance and Budget Chair Jeff Miller discussing the issue of the MOUs and the city budget.
Well said, David. The fact that this turned out to be something discussed only on the Vanguard is not something the City should be proud of. Had they done their job, it would have been discussed widely. The Vanguard is to be commended for bringing this issue to the people’s attention. I for one very much appreciate it. And those are three very thoughtful comments I see above mine — thanks to the authors for those, too.
The “urgency” David, is for Finance to fix the payroll system, for the contracts to go into PRACTICAL effect come Jan 1, given that Dec 24 to Jan 1, inclusive, the CH is closed. Yes, you can approve contracts retroactively (been the norm for many years now), but the bookkeeping, etc., frustrations involved, additional efforts needed by “payroll” staff is not trivial. Not sure they’ll even be “up and running” by first payroll in January as it is. BTW, the way the computer system works, if you miss a pay period where a salary increase happens, the computer default is that the “retro” payment is seen as a “new normal” for tax withholding. For the pay period when the retro appears.
Ideally, the City should have started negotiations sooner, and acted in early November. it is what it is.
“...but, in the future, the Vanguard simply might have to, on a weekly basis, request items be pulled off consent. Again, I don’t think that should be our place and I don’t agree that the burden should be on us to do it.”
So the Vanguard concedes it could have pulled the item from consent. The burden is on anyone who wants to pull an item from consent to ask. We’ll have to agree to disagree on this one, and I tend to be a stickler on process issues.
I concede that I could have spoken during public comment on the item, I’m not sure that that would have precipitated it being pulled from consent.
Blaming the VG for this item not being pulled is like blaming a pedestrian in the crosswalk for getting hit by a drunk driver.
The item should not have been on consent, no one should have been put into the position of having to ask that it be pulled.
I am not “blaming” the Vanguard, just pointing out if it wanted the item pulled from the Consent Calendar, it could have asked, which even the Vanguard concedes it could have done.
Once again you are ignoring facts that have been presented several times. Only a City Council Member has the power to pull an item (though the City Manager effectively has as well). All a member of the public can do is request it, but nobody is required to respond to that request. In fact, the purpose of the consent calendar is to deal with issues of low interest so that the Council’s time can be best spent on the more controversial items.
The burden therefore, is on the Council to not put controversial items on the consent calendar in the first place.
Two separate issues. Once the item was on consent, the burden would be on whoever wants it pulled to at least ask that it be pulled.
That is a separate issue as to whether the item should have been on consent in the first place. That was a judgment call on the part of the City Council – and one is certainly free to argue s/he feels the City Council’s judgment was wrong for putting it on the consent calendar. You heard one City Council member’s reasoning – 4 were in agreement and if the one dissenting City Council member wanted to pull it from consent he could have and didn’t. If I were to hazard a guess, putting an item like this on as a regular agenda item is difficult, because what is said behind closed doors in labor negotiating sessions has to remain confidential. In other words, City Council members would have to be extremely circumspect and could not be all that forthcoming about what they could say. So question, how many times have results of labor negotiations been placed on consent versus put on the city’s agenda in the past, ballpark? Almost never, half the time, more than half the time?
Over the last 30 years, I believe the MOU’s were on the consent calendar (not sure on the ‘imposition’ ones) 100% of the time, but several were pulled at the mtng. Always by a CC dissenter(s). SOP (suspect more people know what MOU means than SOP).
Over the last 30 years, I believe the MOU’s were on the consent calendar (not sure on the ‘imposition’ ones) 100% of the time, but several were pulled at the mtng. Always by a CC dissenter(s). SOP (suspect more people know what MOU means than SOP).
Look at it this way, Davis is a “municipal corporation”, by state law. The CC is the Board of Directors, chosen by the investors/stakeholders (voters). The CM is the CEO/CFO. Do corporations hold meetings with stakeholders with a discussion item on employee compensation?
In 2014 the city went to the public and asked them to pass a sales tax to help pay for basic infrastructure cost. 18 months later they approve pay raises for city employees. Given these circumstances I think pulling the item from consent and explaining their reasoning to tax payers, and the people who helped get the sales tax passed, is a realistic expectation.
Corporations that pay out more in compensation than can be justified by revenues do not remain corporations for very long, and CEO’s who negotiate such deals with their labor force do not hold on to their jobs.
A note, most people have no idea what “MOU” stands for. So when they see a title like, Council Approve MOU’s, they probably don’t have any idea what it means.
Agree. They should say “pay raise” instead of MOU. Most people know what that is.
COLA sounds like employees are getting 3% more soda to take home.
If you don’t like MOU, try ‘Contract’. Not technically accurate, but far closer than ‘pay raises’. Also, fewer letters… traditionally important in journalism (print media).
Don’t see why MOU is anymore difficult than BFF, FWIW, OMG, etc.
LOL
TNX
Following CC or school board meetings is like being a faithful viewer of a soap opera. It’s hard to know the full context of everything (like what MOU stands for, and what kind of budget issues have been in play) when first starting to watch.
Wouldn’t hurt to put everything in plain English though!
Agreed. But jargon will always creep in. I think that’s where elected officials can play a helpful role, in connecting with their constituents, in monitoring that. I have seen some elected officials be more effective in that area by interjecting, “MOU, or Memorandum of understanding.”
So that is what MOU stands for. Now can you explain a memorandum of understanding is…..:-).
My daughter used to use ‘greement’ as a noun. As in, “my brother and I came to a greement.”
A MOU in the business world is a two-party “pre-agreement” or a light-weight agreement. They are defensible is court, but can fall short of the strength of a more robust standard language agreement or contract. MOUs tend to not be seen as legally enforceable and tend to be covered with rules for arbitration outside the standard court process.
Another version of an MOU is a Statement of Work (SOW). Both are basically a letter or memo format signed document that covers the details of what one party will give/provide and the other party will get and provide in return. But they are typically lacking in all the legal mumbo jumbo of a contract.
Thank you. I learned my something new for the day.
Thinking about this last night, and reading the VG today, I am developing a theory that Davis’s demographics are such that the CC isn’t too worried about the five of us and other “knowing and caring” fiscal responsible people in town.
That demographic is largely public-sector employees, public-sector retirees… both in support of fattening the wallets and bank accounts of those poor victimized public sector workers… and students that are not interested enough to care or vote.
That then leads me to ask why we would waste any time making a scene about it?
Really… for the CC to make this move in light of the several formative years of consistent barrages of complaints against it… from the almost 100% VG opposition… it tells me that we are a weak minority from a political perspective.
We could write letters to the Davis Enterprise to try an reach a larger audience to embarrass the CC members, but I doubt it would result in outrage that impacts any off them politically.
In fact, I have to wonder if Robb Davis is going to be damaged politically for doing the right thing?
We could try and get the young people riled up, but their baby boomer educators have already filled to capacity their agitation over social justice words and imagery that makes them feel “unsafe”. How can they be convinced that their economic futures are being more fully trashed when they are already agitated with so much emotional trauma and pain?
We could try to get real fiscal conservatives elected to the CC.
Maybe a better strategy is to work to help the city race to the bottom so it’s budget finally crashes and then can be rebuilt. Once the decision for those pension payments are in the hands of a judge, it will turn a few heads.
All those in favor of supporting giving the firefighters a raise to hasten this race to the bottom, say aye!
Nay…
and on this topic, factual comments, not specifically supporting the MOU terms, should not logically be deemed “opposition”. You, David, others seem to want to take that logical leap. I know I have not opined, but have pointed out facts. You have no reason to know whether I support/oppose/am ambivalent, or just don’t care.
There has been non-existent facts and logic explaining how we can afford the new MOU terms, so I cannot get my arms around that soft and fuzzy acceptance of position neutrality from facts and logic that only cover the justification side.
The opposition side is not city-employee-hostile despite the fabricated claims of those having a vested interest supported by painting it so. The opposition side is simply one that says WE CANNOT AFFORD IT. (sorry, I had to shout it.)
Frankly
“The opposition side is not city-employee-hostile despite the fabricated claims of those having a vested interest supported by painting it so.”
That is a little hard to believe coming from a poster who has made frequent comments implying that public employees are not as hard working, dedicated, engaged….as are private sector employees and stated his opinion that public sector unions should not exist. From the point of view of an individual with no stake in any union, it does not seem that the hostility was “fabricated” but rather all one needed to do was to follow your own previous posts to see plenty of hostility.
Frankly said … “Thinking about this last night, and reading the VG today, I am developing a theory that Davis’s demographics are such that the CC isn’t too worried about the five of us and other “knowing and caring” fiscal responsible people in town.”
I spoke to one of the Council members after Tuesday’s meeting and he/she very clearly stated that “the ten commenters on the Vanguard were not representative of Davis as a whole.” The implication (not explicitly stated though) was that disregarding the ten commenters was good governance.
Thanks Matt. It is confirmed.
I used “five” and you used “ten”, but I think there are maybe twenty or so Vanguardians consistent in their opposition to spending what we don’t have.
Demographics matter don’t they?
And with this point, maybe we should stop blaming the CC and start blaming the voters.
I was just thinking about my neighborhood. More than half of the population of working or retired adults around me are public-sector. And none of them blog… a few might read the VG, and most of them do read the Enterprise… but I suspect that they just keep their opinions on this topic to themselves.
I have a good friend in North Dakota that retired at age 55 from his federal government job with a six figure pension. We don’t talk politics. And he keeps his political view cards very close to the vest where he lives.
The funny thing is… he knows that his lot in life is lucky and unsustainable in the long run. But he still votes for those politicians that promise to perpetuate the spending.
I guess that makes some sense… people vote to protect their livelihood.
What irritates me though is the lack of consideration for future generations.
What a bunch of selfish adults we are.
It would be one thing if we all owned and operated a business creating jobs and employing people to share in the wealth from production. But government does not produce. To fund it we have to take from producers. So those that keep voting for more spending to pad the pockets of government workers are selfish indeed. And I think they often adopt a victim mentality to help satiate the rising guilt they would otherwise feel.
So, back to my idea to help all the selfish adults expedite the race to the bottom so we can clean it up.
This may well be true, but a good portion of those ’10’ were strong proponents of the sales tax increase last time around, yet are now questioning the wisdom of repeating that decision. What is going to happen to the next tax measure if a similar proportion of the Vanguard’s silent readership follows suit?
A surprising number of my not very politically involved forty-something mom friends were reluctant to vote in favor of Measure O, although ultimately I think most of them did. When they hear that council decided to give employee’s a raise, they may not do so the next time a tax measure is put on the ballot.
My guess is that council can present a reasonable argument for why they went along with the 3% increases in pay, that would reassure future voters that they are not frivolously giving our tax dollars away. What I don’t understand is why they didn’t choose to do so last Tuesday. They are all pretty smart, it’s hard for me to believe they thought this was going to go quietly into the night.
Michelle… you may know about measure O more than I do, but thought O was a special tax… funds not co-mingled with GF, per se. Therefore, if I’m correct, you should be more concerned about compensation/existence for employees dedicated to Measure O activities, and the amount of “internal service charges” (Finance, IS, CM office, etc.) apportioned to that funding source.
To clarify, I’m talking about the Measure O sales tax that was on the 2014 ballot. Not the 2000 Open Space Measure.
Got the clarification… thanks… didn’t pick up on the correct referent…
Matt
“The implication (not explicitly stated though) was that disregarding the ten commenters was good governance.”
Obviously I cannot speak for any member of the CC, however, I would point out to your that this is your inference of what was being said. It may not be the implication at all. What if, having had the awareness of the contents of their own inbox, which you presumably do not, the council member knows that the vast majority of their mail is supportive of their position. Would that suggest to you better governance since they are paying attention to what the majority of their constituents are wanting ?
Or what if they, as members of the CC, have knowledge to which we are not yet privy. If they are simply waiting for matters to further unfold but have not yet chosen to share their information with you, could that not indicate better governance than you are inferring from the comment ?
I certainly do not know that any alternative scenario is true. I only remark because I think that you may be seeing this through the too narrow perspective of “they are ignoring what we are saying ” which may or may not be accurate.
Tia, your alternative scenario and what ifs are indeed possible, but given the body language and intonation of the speaker’s voice, I believe my inference as originally stated, and quoted by you above, is highly likely to be on target.
As is my wont to do, I have done some research on the subject in the days since Tuesday’s Council meeting. If you go to November 17th Council meeting video at and click on the Meeting Begins link, the video jumps forward 10 minutes to the point where the meeting begins and after the approval of the agenda, at 11:30 Mayor Wolk states, “Item number 1 is Closed Session. There were two items in Closed Session. There is nothing to report out of Closed Session.” The first of those Closed Session items was
Given the Mayor’s words, how would any Davis citizen/resident have known that any agreement about the MOUs had been reached by the parties and/or that the MOUs would be an item in any form on the December 1st Council meeting agenda? The very first bit of information that any Davis citizen/resident would have had on this item would have been when the Staff Report of the Consent Calendar item was published on the City website. In order to achieve the “vast majority” of your alternative scenario enough citizens/residents would have have had to (1) read the MOU Staff Report, and (2) be inspired to send the Council members an e-mail about the Staff Report. How many people (other than Jim Frame and me and the Chair of the FBC) do you think actually took both action (1) and action (2)? I suspect that the answer to that question is “Significantly less than 10 citizens/residents.” Do you agree?
Well, for the sake of argument and because everyone here assumes some kind of malfeasance/politiking/conspiracy-to-fleece-their-fellow-citizens, or whatever, yes, I do think this is a non-issue for most people except the ten regular posters who love to second-guess every.single.decision. by the CC.
It is just possible that between (1) the current fiscal climate of caution (yes, I think the CC “gets it”) and (2) really low employee morale due to generalized hostility toward public employees and (3) what may actually be a good working relationship with the current city manager who the CC trusts to negotiate tentative contract agreements that are fiscally sound, doable and fair, there is no reason to make a big deal out of it.
Of course, I reserve the right to be righteously indignant as most of y’all are if it turns out they’ve given away the store and will eat my crow lightly browned and stewed if and when I have to.
Better save your appetite.
Not only am I not worried about that, but I think I’ll go ahead and have another BIG piece of Aunt Bee’s apple pie.
Tia Will: ““The implication (not explicitly stated though) was that disregarding the ten commenters was good governance.”
Obviously I cannot speak for any member of the CC, however, I would point out to your that this is your inference of what was being said. It may not be the implication at all. What if, having had the awareness of the contents of their own inbox, which you presumably do not, the council member knows that the vast majority of their mail is supportive of their position. Would that suggest to you better governance since they are paying attention to what the majority of their constituents are wanting ?
Or what if they, as members of the CC, have knowledge to which we are not yet privy. If they are simply waiting for matters to further unfold but have not yet chosen to share their information with you, could that not indicate better governance than you are inferring from the comment ?
I certainly do not know that any alternative scenario is true. I only remark because I think that you may be seeing this through the too narrow perspective of “they are ignoring what we are saying ” which may or may not be accurate.”
VERY WELL SAID!
Anon, gazing into your crystal ball, how many e-mails do you think the Council actually received that dealt with the MOU agenda item? As I said in my response to Tia’s hypothetical alternative scenario, that the number of e-mails sent to the Council members was by “Significantly less than 10 citizens/residents.” Do you agree?