The Best Practices Committee is charged to present draft recommendations to the City Council by December 4, so now is indeed the time for members of the public to submit their suggestions. Do so at the Best Practices Suggestion Box. As always thanks to Adam Cohen and the North Street Neighborhood Association.
Best Practices Committee Meeting of 10/23/08 from Adam Cohen on Vimeo.
Minutes (pending approval)
The Ad-Hoc Committee on Best Practices in Municipal Decision Making meet at the BPW Board Room at 6 PM on October 23, 2008.
Present were committee members David Narkeicz, Michael Bardsely, Lisa DePiano, Jim Palermo, Alex Ghiselin, Wendy Foxmyn, and Bob Reckman. Members of the public who were present were Ken Mitchell, Linda Heisinger, Susan Enz, Robert Aronson, and Laughlin Zeigler who videotaped the meeting.
The meeting began at 6:00 PM. Susan Enz spoke. Linda Heisinger asked the committee to look at the process of the Board of Public Works around the landfill expansion. Robert Aronson supported her concerns.
The minutes of the meeting of Sept. 25 were amended in a minor way and accepted. They will be posted as amended. Bob noted that the minutes of our Sept. 3 minutes had not been approved. He will circulate them again for approval at our next meeting.
There was a discussion of the committee decision at our last meeting not to have a forum at the Senior Center. Bob talked about why he thought it would have been a good idea. Lisa and Alex talked about the reasons behind that decision to cancel it.
David pointed out that we have 42 days until our report is due to the City Council.
Michael spoke in favor of setting dates tonight for future forums.
Ken Mitchell spoke in favor of better decision making in our City. He had hoped the committee would have done more with specific problems that were identified at the public forum in May. Bob said that he thought we were like a lightening rod. People who are not happy with a wide range of decisions look to us to make them right. That is not within our charge. He expects that our final report will include specific recommendations about steps the City Council might take to better our municipal decision making. Alex spoke about how carefully we had processed the information from the May forum. Linda spoke about the broad need for our committee. Michael said that we had talked about exactly this problem at our last meeting. He thinks that our actual recommendations will generate more public interest and response. He encouraged us to move ahead in drafting our recommendations and distributing them to the public. Ken spoke again about the need for better democracy.
Wendy spoke about need for more public relations outreach. Wendy offered to draft a press release for our next meeting. Michael said that we need to 1) do public relations work, 2) reserve dates and 3) venues and begin to draft the language. Michael, Wendy, JIm and Alex will meet to talk about how to proceed of the recommendations. Their meeting will be posted as a meeting of the full committee so that anyone can attend and contribute. They will meet on Nov. 12 and 24th. Alex and Bob will work on the dates and locations and other publicity.
Jim had to leave at 7:15.
Jesus arrived and suggested that we look 1) at the BPW meeting last night 2) a person who is not a member of a committee serving as it chair, 3) the regionalization of the landfill and 4) the strange amount of overlap in City government. He also thought that the City Council and BPW meetings should have better protocol with respect to the public.
The next meeting will be on November 5 at 6 PM in the Board room of the BPW. Our meeting on Nov. 19 will be at JFK. Alex will reserve a room.
The meeting was adjourned at 7:25 PM.
Respectfully submitted;
Bob Reckman
Best Practices Committee: Report Writing Working Group, 10/29/08 from Adam Cohen on Vimeo.
Highlights of the conversation:
8min:12sec: Which officialscan taplegal advice? The mayor controls which officials have access to this advice
9min:26sec: City council has no budget exceptfor their own stipends and their part-timeclerk
10min:30sec: Does the city councilhave a meaningful role inthe budget process anymore? The council can only wield the blunt tool of budget cuts
12min:00sec: City council had more input into the budget 20 years ago. What shifted?
13min:00sec: City council used to appoint the assessors. Treasurer was elected (not necessarily a good thing). There were other sources of executive authority beyond the mayor
14min:10sec:Several people haveconcern about thenumber ofappointmentsvested in the mayor. The city council isreluctant to veto these appointments. It's hard to turn down someone volunteering their services
15min:10sec: You could consider term limits for appointments, maybe limit appointees to two terms. You could also limit the number of committees a person could serve on, and which committees councilors may serve on
19min:25sec: The December 4 deadline for draft recommendations is drawing near. The Best Practices Committee maywant to ask for an extension
27min:15sec: Aspects of a good meeting include that it's accessible, you can hear, people are introduced, it has a clear agenda, it started on time, people were treated well, their questions were answered, the public had an appropriate amount of time for input…
31min:20sec: Members of the Best Practices Committee will be asked to bring their recommendations to the November 5 meeting so as to speed things along
35min:40sec: Now is the time for the public to get their own recommendations in to the committee.
Inreach Working Group (below-18 minutes):
The Inreach Working Group discussed the progress of their interviews with city officials. They are gathering information about how officials make decisions and involve the public, and how the decision-making process might be improved.
Best Practices Committee: Inreach Working Group, 10/29/08 from Adam Cohen on Vimeo.
