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HomeMy WebLinkAbout03251997 . . . PORT TOWNSEND CITY COUNCIL STUDY SESSION MARCH 25, 1997 The meeting was called to order at 7:10 pm by Mayor Julie McCulloch. Council members present were Jean Camfield, Bill Davidson, Kate Jenks, Ian Keith, Diane Peny Thompson, and Mark Welch. Ted Shoulberg was excused. McCulloch opened with a brief presentation of the agenda and purpose of the meeting. She also summarized council retreat notes of the past few years reflecting council priorities and noted they have demonstrated increasingly complex challenges. Tonight's meeting is a result of questions about how the city's basic organizational structure and function is geared to meet these challenges. She then requested each council member to list questions they would most like to have answered if an outside consultant were hired to make recommendations on the city's organizational structure. Welch stated his priority would be threefold: Identifying inefficiencies in physical structure, organizational structure, and communications structure (the way information and decisions are processed) Davidson noted his concern over the resignations of key people in the organization. He stated interest in trying to figure out what, in addition from personal reasons not related to work, precipitated these actions that is related to frustration or perceived problems in the city they thought they couldn't deal with. The city still employs many good people and he doesn't want to see any more leave due to situations that can be worked on or corrected. Jenks, Camfield, and Peny Thompson declined to state particular priorities at this point ofthe discussion. . Keith then noted he would suggest approaching the problem from the other end; rather than looking for what isn't working in the way we are operating now, start as though we were a group of people who are considering incorporating, and deciding how to organize the new city. What choices would be made on the assumption we are going to have a population of 12,000? He said it may be helpful to apply a useful tool used in site design process - not getting too specific too soon ( like "bubble" diagrams - noting how the spaces work together rather than placing each room and piece of furniture individually at the outset). He noted that part ofthe reason for this is what he has seen happen here in the past, i.e. a series of patch-ups and stop gap measures resulting in a kind of organic structure but not necessarily an efficient structure. He stated he would like the scope of work be as broad and unlimited as we can make it because if we say look at these particular things, whoever does this will look at those things and tell us about them without telling us that there are other things that don't belong or have no relation to each other. We don't want the assumption that because we have been doing things in a particular way, we Council Study Session Page 1 March 25, 1997 . . . should keep doing them in that way. Jenks then expressed concern about the time frame. How long should we take? How long might a consultant take to assess our situation? Keith said it probably wouldn't be necessary to watch people work but it would be necessary to talk to employees at every level. Camfield added the consultant would need to be familiar with the work that is being produced. Keith suggested the project might be completed by this fall; we've done a little piece ofthe work in the Public Works Department and that may help a little. McCulloch then asked council members to propose the questions they would like answered by the end of the study. Camfield said she would want a roadmap, something that examines not where we are but what works best - and in what context all of the things we need to do fit together to work best for the citizens ofthe town. How can the action can be implemented in increments, i.e,. at this state with a structure like yours, you can expect to accommodate a town of 9,000, but as you grow to 10000 or 15,000, these things will change most rapidly so as you structure to accommodate those needs, these are the things you need to do. Jenks stated a desire to know what level of commitment the council has to implement steps in response to the information received. If a study we commence raises difficult issues with difficult solutions, what are we going to do about that? Assuming the person who does the study does a good job, and we are pleased with it, there is beyond that a commitment. She stated she would not support spending a dime on something that turns into an internal "look see". Camfield stated it is really hard to do a self-examination and be objective when you're looking at yourself and you know how you got to what you are and all the different reasons. When someone comes from the outside they do not have that information. She believes the only way to get an objective view is to have someone who is not entrenched in the organization; after that, the question becomes whether the political courage is there to do what needs to be done. Jenks stated that if we initiate a process that results in change, will we then make a commitment to real change or not. What do we really think we will be able to do in the future. Are we studying to implement a change or studying for the sake of study? Davidson stated he would not feel good about studying the organization just for the sake of study - his hope is that if we recognize we can improve function by making changes, then he wouldn't be in favor of proceeding unless there were follow through and implementation of the recommendations. There is a big difference between this sort of thing being done in house as opposed to having an outside agency do it. The consultant needs be very well qualified and Council Study Session Page 2 March 25,1997 . . . highly credible so that a quality produce results to our satisfaction. It may take awhile to implement, but it is important that we review what needs to be done to start. Perry Thompson asked about setting limits, that is, if the person says we have to build a whole new facility, how do we deal with that? Can we say, given the physical limitations, staff and financing we have, what is the best thing we can do and how can we do the most effective limited changes? Davidson agreed the scope of work should include constraints. Welch stated that in looking at the product, he sees it almost like another element of the Comprehensive Plan, a sort of government element. He suggested there be public process, and believes much insight about how we function as a government can be gotten from the people we work for. Establishment of goals, policies, and an action plan would be very similar to the Comp Plan process. Camfield reiterated that what we need is something that can be phased into; obviously we are not going to come in one morning and change and everything will be fine. Weare limited by physical structure, working agreements, etc., a lot of things that do not make it easy for change to happen; however if you are really dedicated and have a good product that will lead you to what you need to have to make the organization work, every small piece gets you closer to the ultimate goal; for example, instead of trying to house everyone together, you may find that certain employees need to be housed together in order to communicate better to make the organization work - then we can look at what is available to fulfill that need - it would be necessary to have someone with enough experience in government structures enough to know the possibilities and limitations. Jenks noted her opinion that the first appropriate items of discussion would be who does the work and how do we select them. Perry Thompson stated that the question of whether or not the work should be done is first - if there are not questions, we wouldn't be doing a selection. Keith agreed with Welch's earlier statement that the selected goals affect what choices will be made about what kind of organization we have. For example, if efficiency is the goal, then we would need rigid requirements for everything. An approach might be to write goals we should have, i.e. if we were organizing a new city with these goals and values preeminent, how would we do it? McCulloch suggested a goal that the city operational structure should be as a service organization for the operation of programs and operation of projects (ie infrastructure) - she noted that we have become much more project oriented than in the past, and it is a stage of growth and development we haven't quite grown into. What we find lacking most often is a project manager. She also asked whether we have the needed tools ( enough personnel, personnel Council Study Session Page 3 March 25,1997 . . . organized appropriately, enough space, and the proper technical tools like hardware and software). Welch stated that a statement of values takes that one step back and creates a filter for ideas to pass through. We want a government that functions physically and economically, but which also has a heart. Camfield agreed that without the heart, and responsiveness to citizens, we would lose a lot in the name of efficiency alone. Our roadmap needs to fit Port Townsend and not be one you could put on a freeway anywhere. Jenks noted her desire for a consultant who is not heavily invested in a residual file of boilerplate, who is willing to look at us in a unique fashion. She added this will be difficult whether you are inside or have other organizational experience. She attended the County Commissioners' retreat this week and was again reminded of the people's general distrust of consultants; this reinforces the need to hire a consultant who is truly working for you. She suggested that all seven council members participate in the selection process as well as the mayor and that elected officials interview the candidates and that the consultant report to the council. McCulloch then posed the question of what we would like to see as a result one year from now. What would you like to have achieved based on the purposes described. Keith referred to Davidson's original comment, and said the work satisfaction of employees, and improvements in responsiveness, effectiveness and flexibility of the organization - both internally and externally. Jenks stated she would like to see us cut down on the time we spend on false starts; for everything we spend time and energy doing that doesn't get anywhere, what else could we have been doing that would have been more effective, more responsive, and more real. She summarized the concept in terms of less energy misdirected and inappropriately timed. Keith stressed the need for having an effective way of doing a first cut evaluation of whether this is a promising route to go to the next level on; not scrapping things without looking at them thoroughly enough and not spending excessive time on something that is a dead end we should have recognized early on. Jenks added that another aspect is who should be the players in various processes. Who evaluates? Who scraps? Who talks? How are these decisions made? Perry Thompson expressed her hope that everyone may be pleasantly surprised with possibilities that haven't been considered before; we need to be receptive to the process and open to all possibilities, especially new ideas. She believes the consultant should be able to talk to staff members at all levels and that everyone's input continues in the process. Council Study Session Page 4 March 25,1997 . . . Jenks expressed her feeling that the proposed project is a luxury, but this move is taken as a necessity. Her concern is that there are so many things going on already, it is hard for her to be excited about taking on yet another. Keith stated his fear that is we wait until we have time to do it, it will be too late and in the meantime we will have lost more people and wasted more effort; there may never be a "good" time to do it. Camfield agreed there is no easy way to go through a process like this. McCulloch noted we must scale the study to what we can afford; her first look at experts in this field reveals a cost that may be about $1,000 per day; for that reason, targeting specific areas of inquiry may be very valuable. Camfield asked is there is a city our size which is generally viewed as operating well and efficiently and doing a good job for its citizens, and highly regarded by the people served. Keith stated that the A WC annual conference might be a useful place for inquiry. Davidson stated that Port Townsend is unique and it would be hard to find a comparable city with the same type of size, infrastructure, etc. Jenks recommended going to the academics also, for example the school of urban planning at the University of Washington. When and if we determine the budget, the areas of concern must be scoped in some way. Perry Thompson supported Welch's idea of a process modeled somewhat after the comp plan - a . . mIcro versIOn. Welch stated that before hiring a consultant, some external input might be good, in the same way PT 2020 initiated the comp plan process. Jenks speculated we might go to the unexpurgated notes for PT2020 and go the comp plan draft, and pull things from there that are related to the subject - that could be a starting point. She noted that with all the involvement, no one was really looking at things from this perspective at that time. That may be a preliminary task to accomplish for the next refinement of this discussion - to look and see what the citizens of the city want from their government. McCulloch noted that there is one firm which focuses on government responsiveness - it becomes strictly a look at how the community views government; however this is different from what we are talking about which is the organization itself. Perry Thompson added that when the comp plan process was started, we trusted that what we needed was in that report; probably new surveys aren't needed. The information we have is specific yet broad enough to base some general assumptions on. Camfield said she is not sure if citizen surveys would help us if the organizational structure is our Council Study Session Page 5 March 25, 1997 . . . identified need. We probably wouldn't ask citizens how government should be structured. Keith added, however, that structure should grow out ofa clear idea of what the goals of the organization are. This could be the source of an idea of what those goals are; if they are defined clearly, it's a start toward telling someone what we value in the structure. Welch said that establishing those goals, principles and values is a balancing influence - that having basic underlying principles will pull us back from extremes. Jenks stated that maybe we do need to take a survey when talking about organizational structure which is internal. She suggested asking every employee a series of key questions. She went on to say it is their organization and they have to work in it every day; we need feedback from them and in a way which they feel free to respond and not feel threatened; ie they are the "citizens" in this case, talking about the city and how it works. This would be a preliminary step which could be developed with some help in putting the survey together - that could then be presented to the consultant as data and we wouldn't have to pay him/her to do it. Camfield added that there are a lot of things we want to provide for them, i.e. how we are structured now and how it is supposed to work. Jenks added that accurate information about the flow of funds would be essential. Citizens feel that they want money spent efficiently and the system is understandable to the citizen. Camfield agreed that all the information we can provide will help to reduce the cost ofthe project. Camfield then proposed a straw vote on the following proposal: We as a council have decided that we want to pursue or investigate going forward with hiring a consultant who will look at our organizational structure through information that is furnished to them and an on site evaluation of what we have now. There were no objections to this statement. Camfield then noted that more time is needed. Welch agreed another meeting should be scheduled so the members can articulate their vision. Davidson added that each should come to the next meeting with goals in mind that will be appropriate to work toward. McCulloch asked whether the group felt they had fully fleshed out the purpose tonight and will work on goals next time. Jenks does not want to close out the purpose phase until there is more time to talk about what we come back with next meeting. McCulloch distributed information about two possible consulting firms on the list of consideration for the engineering group analysis. Council Study Session Page 6 March 25, 1997 . . . Jenks stated further necessary decisions include the selection process. She is concerned that this person be completely fresh in scrutiny ofthe city, and not have many connections to the existing governmental structure of the city or area. She also is interested in further discussion of what type of information that can and should be provided to the consultant, and who will gather or generate that information. She suggested that the council president be involved in every step of the way, if she feels she can find the time, working with the mayor and city administrator to be a constant liaison with the council. McCulloch asked if members wish to set another meeting to continue talking. Jenks noted she will be gone from May 11 to June 5. The next study session was set for Wednesday, April 23. Jenks noted it would be appropriate to put off other priority listing until then. Jenks mentioned she does have a sense of urgency about one of her priority subjects, the issue of methamphetamines. It was decided a video on the subject would be presented as a priority presentation at the May 5 Council meeting. The meeting was adjourned at 8:56 pm. e~ cp( ~- (!t*, C {.e-t L Council Study Session Page 7 March 25,1997