The day began on a high note. First, Rochelle Swanson was sworn as a city councilmember by School Board Member Gina Daleiden. Then Tim Taylor, School Board President President had the honors of swearing in new Mayor Pro Tem Joe Krovoza.
Each councilmember was given about five minutes, some took more time, some less time, to make some comments about the upcoming term (we will likely cover these comments in full for tomorrow).
The public was then given the opportunity to weigh in with public comments. The public then by-and-large with some exceptions left the chambers to go to the party over at Bistro 33 while the council had a few items of business to deal with. One item, the item on Sister Cities was sent back to staff to work on more (again this is probably something we will discuss in a coming edition).
They then set the calendar for the year, only scheduling every-other week, which was passed 4-1 over objections from Councilmember Greenwald. I do have a problem with that schedule, because if we want meetings that go shorter, we are going to need the council to meet every week and also plan out big items so they are not stacked. If Mayor Saylor intends to deal with the issue of length simply by limiting comments by staff, council, and the public, I think first that is ill-fated and second it is simply not a realistic approach.
The big battle last night was over the appointments to the various bodies. Councilmember Sue Greenwald believed that she was given the short end of the stick both in terms of numbers and importance of the appointments. She made this objection rather strenuously. She first tried to put off the discussion to the next meeting, hoping to avoid confrontation however Mayor Don Saylor believed some of these appointments needed to go into effect immediately. So eventually after some machinations, they did go over the appointments line by line.
In the end, there were some changes made with Sue Greenwald being given a few additional appointments. I will confess that I have not had a chance to go over the proceedings prior to publication. I have decided to post the initial appointments. I do believe that particularly with the Interjuridictional appointments and the Active Council Subcommittees that Sue Greenwald did have disproportionately fewer appointments than she should.
As you view this, bear in mind, that in a lot of cases, being the alternate (a) is not equivalent to being the regular (R) – councilmembers are not absent very frequently.
I think if we tally these up by group it would be accurate in terms of the original appoints. While Sue Greenwald did voice strenuous advocacy that she be on a couple additional liaison to commission positions, particularly BEDC and Finance and Budget, in general I think the liaison position to be less important. They are not supposed to have a policy or functional role other than conveying the position of the council to the commission and conveying the position of the commission to the council.
In terms of numbers, Joe Krovoza had originally one regular and three alternate appointments, Sue Greenwald had 4 Rs and 5 As. Mayor Saylor explained that he had been inclined not to remove her from any current commissions, although Councilmember Greenwald pointed out she was conflicted out of the Historical Resources Commission. Don Saylor received one regular and four alternates, Stephen Souza 5 regular and 2 alternates. Rochelle Swanson got five regular and 2 alternates.
In terms of the two-by-twos, Councilmember Krovoza got two, Sue Greenwald two, Don Saylor one, Stephen Souza two, and Rochelle Swanson three. I believe that Sue Greenwald also gained an appointment to the Yolo County 2 by 2.
The two biggest imbalanced were the interjurisdictional appointments and the city council subcommittees. Joe Krovoza had two regular and 7 alternate appointments, Sue had two regular and two alternate appointments, Don Saylor three regular and two alternates, Stephen Souza had five regulars, and Rochelle Swanson had four regular and two alternate appointments. Stephen Souza offered Councilmember Greenwald a couple of his appointments. She also received the appointment to the Transit District which was one of the her top picks.
Finally, Sue Greenwald was not offered any appointments on council subcommittees, I believe she ended up with one, the homeless subcommittee. One thought there is that Don Saylor gave himself four appointments despite the fact that he will only be on the council six months.
In the end, I think Councilmember Greenwald was given a few additional appointments, I also do not believe she was satisfied. I think the process by which this occurred could have been more fair from the outside, on the other hand it was a bit too contentious in how it was handled.
The big question is going to be whether this council functions like the old council, which I do not believe anyone in this community wants, or whether the council members can find a way to promote equity and common ground. That is going to be a big question going forward.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Sue misunderstands her role as a liaison to commissions. She tends to take over the meetings and talk and talk and talk. She gets in the way of productive work of any commission. She is supposed to sit there quietly listening and offer up advice or directions ONLY WHEN ASKED. She ignores this and feels that she has a right to fully participate in and guide the direction of every meeting she attends. This is why she should not be appointed as liaison to the commissions.
We can see how she does. In six months, the appointments need to be done again (new mayor, new council person) and changes can be done at that time. If she has been disturbing the flow of commission, 2X2 or task force meetings, then it is up to the new mayor to remove her from those appointments for the benefit of the City.
[i]”… Councilmember Greenwald pointed out she was conflicted out of the Historical Resources Commission.”[/i]
So who will the new council liaison be for the HRMC? Most recently, Don Saylor has been our liaison. However, as liaison he never attended any of our meetings, save once for 10 minutes to tell us about the UCD Centennial.
[i]”(A council liaison) is supposed to sit there quietly listening and offer up advice or directions ONLY WHEN ASKED.”[/i]
Speaking for myself as a commissioner, I would much rather have a liaison who showed up at the meetings and participated than one who never ever came. I also think, because commissions exist to help the council, it would benefit the commissions if their liaisons advised them in the sense of, “You guys need to be doing more of this … and maybe less of that.”
One thing that a member of the council like Don, Stephen or Sue can bring to a commission meeting that a lot of commissioners lack is historical policy context. For example, when a commission, say the Safey & Parking Advisory Commission, is thinking of ways to solve a problem with an existing dangerous intersection or ways to prevent a new problem from arising, the experienced member of the council (as well as an experienced staff liaison) can help out the commissioners by noting ways the city dealt with other, similar traffic problems in the past.
Yet an even greater benefit of having the council liaison present, at least once in a while, is so that member of the city council can hear the discussion. If perhaps there are new ways to address traffic problems that Davis has not implemented but other cities have, the commissioners who are experts on this sort of topic can bring that expertise to the discussion and the council liaison can benefit greatly hearing that, once the topic comes to the city council.
At the HRMC, for example, when we deny an applicant’s project and the applicant appeals to the city council, it would help the council if its liaison could quickly explain the basis of the decision, whether she agreed with it or not. (Most of the time, commission minutes are inadequate in this regard.)
Ryan Kelly: “Sue misunderstands her role as a liaison to commissions. She tends to take over the meetings and talk and talk and talk. She gets in the way of productive work of any commission. She is supposed to sit there quietly listening and offer up advice or directions ONLY WHEN ASKED. She ignores this and feels that she has a right to fully participate in and guide the direction of every meeting she attends. This is why she should not be appointed as liaison to the commissions.”
Sue Greenwald has been a City Council liaison to the Davis Senior Citizens Commission ever since I have been a commissioner (last 6 years). She has never gotten in the way of productive work on our commission. On the contrary, we have enjoyed her presence, and found her comments extremely helpful.
rich rifkin: “So who will the new council liaison be for the HRMC? Most recently, Don Saylor has been our liaison. However, as liaison he never attended any of our meetings, save once for 10 minutes to tell us about the UCD Centennial.”
I realize City Council members are very busy, and cannot make it to every commission/commission meeting they are assigned. But it would seem if they are assigned to a commission, they ought to make an effort to show up once in a while…
“Sue Greenwald has been a City Council liaison to the Davis Senior Citizens Commission ever since I have been a commissioner (last 6 years). She has never gotten in the way of productive work on our commission. On the contrary, we have enjoyed her presence, and found her comments extremely helpful.”
Elaine, The point is that she shouldn’t be commenting at all. The Commission should be addressing issues for the entire Council. The Council Liaison is there to represent the entire Council and maintain communication between the two groups (the Commission and the City Council). She shouldn’t be adding her own personal opinions to the discussion or be guiding the Commission toward any resolution, regardless of how much you enjoy her participation.
“The point is that she shouldn’t be commenting at all…. She shouldn’t be adding her own personal opinions…”
Says who? Is there some job description for commission liaisons? I think each council member will fill the job as he or she sees fit.
The City Council has determined that Council members should not lobby
commissioners for particular votes. However, Council members may request that commissioners consider certain issues during their deliberations.
Each member of the Council is assigned to serve in a liaison capacity with
one or more city commissions. The purpose of the liaison assignment is to
facilitate communications between the City Council and the advisory body. The liaison also helps to increase the Council’s familiarity with the membership, programs and issues of the advisory body. In fulfilling their liaison assignment, Council Members may elect to attend commission meetings periodically to observe the activities of the advisory body or simply maintain communications with the commission chair or staff liaison on a regular basis.
Don, this is the city’s official policy on this question: [quote]The City Council has determined that Council members should not lobby commissioners for particular votes. However, Council members may request that commissioners consider certain issues during their deliberations.
Each member of the Council is assigned to serve in a liaison capacity with one or more city commissions. The purpose of the liaison assignment is to facilitate communications between the City Council and the advisory body. The liaison also helps to increase the Council’s familiarity with the membership, programs and issues of the advisory body. In fulfilling their liaison assignment, Council Members may elect to attend commission meetings periodically to observe the activities of the advisory body or simply maintain communications with the commission chair or staff liaison on a regular basis.
Council members are not participating members of the commission, but are there to create a linkage between the City Council and commission. In interacting with commissions, Council members are to reflect the views of the Council as a body.[/quote]
OK David:
Here is the sum total of the appointments given to me by Don Saylor (alternate positions have never really counted–liasons aren’t sick very often):
Commissions: Senior and Social Services (The council is always trying to combine them into one given the budget crunch), the Bicycle Commission (which is scheduled to be rolled into Mobility, with Krovoso as liaison), and Historical Resources, which I am conflicted out of (which Don knew).
Inter-jurisdictional: Yolo Transportation Board, the Downtown Business Association, the Yolo Visitor Attraction Bureau, and Unitrans (which meets once a year, so I not counting it). The last two have done little in the way of policy in recent memory.
Subcommittees: Zero.
There were 56 regular positions assigned, and Saylor had appointed me to 5 regular positions, assuming social services and senior remain remain separate. This includes one or two commission laison commissions, depending on whether Senior and Social services are conflated, and 3 interjuridsictional entities which meet more than once a year, for a total of 5 out of 57 positions, assuming senior and social services remain separate.
None of my initial appointments dealt with the major growth, land use, fiscal, water or council policy issues. Yolo Transportation was the only major policy-making position.
I should also add that there are no currently scheduled closed sessions with which to deal with the city attorney issue, even though the firm will be out of existence by the time we return from break.
That means that the subcommittee of Don Saylor and Rochelle Swanson will be effectively empowered to determine the city attorney issue.
Folks were complaining about a lack of transparency on the city attorney issue. Now we even have lack of full council participation.
Looks like many of you may be soon looking back fondly at the good old days of the Asmundson council.
Please excuse the second typo. I was assigned to 5 our of 56 regular appointments (not 5 out of 57).
I guess the honeymoon is over–didn’t last long.
Seriously though, no one on the Council (and very possibly no one anywhere) knows more about Davis’ budget issues than Sue. Putting her on other committees is a waste of her talents and hurts Davis.
This blog has spent a lot of time talking about process and many (including me) have chimed in on the poor process. The most important thing is to get folks on committees who know what is going on. It would be nice if everyone also sang kumbaya after each meeting but I’d settle for a knowledgable committee. Having a subcommittee or other committee that is not up to speed is a recipe for poor process. Better to have people who know what is going on like Sue.
Not all committees are created equal. I am quite sure Saylor knows that.
Sue Greenwald: Hope you’ll be able to deal with this, and other matters, in a way that allows you to operate more effectively with the new Council. Look to a future where you might be on the majority side of issues that are important to you and us. Don’t sweat the small stuff–and personalities and power fights are included in the small stuff for our City Council.
Don Saylor: When the whole city was looking to this meeting as a fresh start for the Council, WHY would you take the opportunity to “get even with” and bait your colleague? You told the[u] Enterprise[/u] that you plan “to serve for mayor for six month focusing on issues such as the budget, water, and [u]improving communications between council members[/u].” What a great start! It’s also reported you feel you “owe it to the voters who elected him to the Davis City Council to stay on until he is sworn in (as County Supervisor).” It’s a mystery why you don’t see that saving $250,000-$300,000 on a special election is the biggest contribution you can make to Davis at this point since you’re headed for the County Board of Supervisors.
[quote]He (Saylor) also said that he thinks that having three members of the council departing at the same time would be problematic.[/quote] Not as problematic as having you continue one the path you’ve chosen. You should reconsider: Resign sooner rather than later.
“She is supposed to sit there quietly listening and offer up advice or directions ONLY WHEN ASKED.” Is this really what you want from the commission liaisons, Ryan? I’m with Rich on this one. Joining the discussion, with respect for the role of commissioners, seems to be what the city policy seeks. Did Sue get reassigned to your commission(s)? If so, hope you can work out your problems with her methods.
Just Saying: I certainly haven’t given up. It was just an excruciatingly disappointing and painful start.
The appointments are not just “power” or “personality” issues. Because of the Brown Act hich allows us to talk to only one other councilmember outside of meetings, the appointments tend to determine who talks with whom about the big issues.
For example, Don Saylor has appointed Rochelle Swanson to work on all matters involving economic developement with him, meaning that that she will have a hard time getting any other councilmember’s perspective or analysis other than those of Don Saylors.
Given Don Saylors stated intent to cut down on the number of meetings and to strictly limit councilmember discussion time, who is working with whom on committees and 2×2’s will have a huge impact of whose perspective and analysis is heard.