Ugh. I’m so frustrated. Live-ish blogged, with comments. This is the first meeting I’ve made it to and the city attorney did an overview of his version of our government structure. I was already annoyed when I looked at the description of the organizational chart and it went downhill from there. Here’s the video link citychannel had this one, so I didn’t live stream but its so much less interactive. And here’s the city attorney powerpoint presentation.
So, I blogged this during the meeting but as I listened I wanted to either cry or barf. For those who may not know, I did serve 8 years on the city council, 1 year as council president. This is what the resolution said when I was lost my election in 2009, in part
WHEREAS, Alderperson Konkel served on the Affordability Subcommittee (Housing Committee), Board of Estimates, Board of Estimates TIF Subcommittee, City-County Liaison Committee, Common Council Organizational Committee, Early Childhood Care & Education Board, East Washington Avenue Design Oversight Committee, East Washington/Capitol Gateway BUILD Steering Committee, Housing Committee, Inclusionary Zoning Advisory Oversight Committee, Landlord & Tenant Issues Subcommittee, Landmarks Commission, James Madison Park Property Planning Committee, Joint Southeast Campus Area Committee, Long Range Transportation Planning Commission, Mid-State State Street Parking Ramp Committee, Plan Commission, Section 8 Advisory Committee, State Street Design Project Oversight Committee, Tax Incremental Financing Policy Ad Hoc Committee and Transit & Parking Commission, and,
WHEREAS, Alderperson Brenda Konkel also served on various subcommittees or work groups of the CCOC or the Common Council including the Ad Hoc Committee on Security Cameras, CCOC Subcommittee to Review the Creation of An Elections Advisory Commission, CCOC Subcommittee on Legistar Issues, CCOC Chapter 2 Subcommittee, CCOC Subcommittee on Council Information Technology Issues, CCOC Lobbyist Registration Work Group, CCOC Subcommittee on Public Input & Process, CCOC Subcommittee on Committee Creation & Rules, CCOC Subcommittee to Review City Hiring Practices & Policies, President’s Work Group on Council Webpage Redesign, CCOC Subcommittee to Review Council Staff Position: Legislative Analyst, President’s Work Group on Council Website Policies & Guidelines, and the President’s Work Group on Improvements to the Budget Process; and,
WHEREAS, during her tenure as Council President, Alderperson Konkel held a series of Neighborhood Public Hearings to gather input from city residents on their experiences with city government, was involved in the implementation of the Legistar legislative tracking software, held discussions on creation of a Rafah Sister City and streamlined the process for appointing interim alderpersons; and,
and I’m pretty sure we missed a few committees . . . I really didn’t care at that point. I don’t remember who was council president and responsible for writing that at the time, but I remember thinking I served on other committees in the 8 years that weren’t in legistar and weren’t easy to find.
The resolution also said:
WHEREAS, she had a passion for including the public in the City’s public policy decision-making and worked relentlessly to ensure that local government was transparent and accessible to Madison residents and that the public was given equal consideration to moneyed interests; and,
and
WHEREAS, even those who disagreed with her respected her, because they could rely on her integrity, and they will miss her leadership and guidance in navigating City Hall; and,
The point being, I have a little experience in this area in addition to blogging about local government for the past 12 years and being the supplemental city channel for meetings they don’t cover for the last couple years when I have time (some on youtube, some just livestreamed on facebook). Not to mention all the agendas I’ve reviewed over the years for the city week ahead and all the city and county meetings I have attended as an activist. And the fact that I’m the primary author of Progressive Dane’s Local Government Guide (the only one of its kind for Dane County that I’m aware of) Apparently all that wasn’t enough experience for the mayor or council president Marsha Rummel to appoint me to this committee. I did apply. Ok, I’ll stop whining now. Grr.
Again, the point being, I probably had more experience with this than anyone in the room due to the fact that I’ve been around a long time and served on all those committees and have extensive background on how our city government works.
Unfortunately, I’ve also seen the erosion of our strong resident committee system, lobbying laws, attention to campaign finance and transparency under Mayor Dave, which I don’t see how we can ever undo. Process matters.
I also feel like city government used to be on the cutting edge and took chances and we were progressive leaders in the nation. And then we got pre-empted, but at least we tried. Don’t get me wrong, staff and the mayors office didn’t make it easy for us, but it was possible. Now policy makers are just told no – and they just accept it. I think there is tremendous opportunity for progress if we have strong leaders who will break through the “no”.
And that is why as I heard the city attorney’s version of how local government was structured I wanted to scream. The culture shift in the past 12 years is alarming and now we have the city attorney that helped make that happen staffing the committee to further destroy our robust and public friendly local government. The printable versions of some of what I was screaming in my head will be in pink/purple. Here we go.
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They started the meeting – the chair (Eileen Harrington) is on the phone which is the oddest thing I have ever seen. There are multiple people absent. John Rothchiled, Jerry Vang, Sarah Eskrich, Paul Skidmore, Rebecca Kemble and Maggie Northrup are present, Eric Upchurch also joins them. The chair hands the meeting over to the Vice Chair. There is no public comment. There are (I think) 7 city staff and (I think) 5 members of the public here. More members of the public join us, but by the end of the meeting there are only 2 people (me and one other person) who are not staff to or members of the committee.
They move on to the powerpoint presentation. City Attorney Michael May starts off. The start off by talking about municipal law and the authority and restrictions the city has. They will talk about the different options of forms of government. Cities are creatures of the state. They can only do what the legislature has given them the authority to do – its Dillon’s rule – it is strict and narrow construction. If you can’t find the power in the state law to do something, you don’t have that power. In Wisconsin, cities were incorporated by charters before 1923. In the 1920 they adopted the general charter law (chapter 62) and the rules applied the same to every city in the state. There are exceptions for 1st class cities – and there is only one – the City of Milwaukee. That started back in the 1920s. In addition to the charter law, in 1924 the constitutional home rule amendment was passed and the people gave the power to the local government subject to laws passed that were of statewide concern and applied equally and the constitution. A second thing was statutory home rule that gives the council many powers – unless the state takes it away elsewhere. This changed Wisconsin from a Dillon rules state to give the local governments power. This has been gutted over the past 100 years – only twice has a case been won to overturn and give the local government power. More recently the state supreme court has narrowed it even further. Both Dems and Republicans have taken away local powers over time – doesn’t matter who is in office. There is also federal pre-emption. So, given this, what is left? Not much. 128 different times the state legislature has pre-empted local governments in the past years, the courts are taking away powers and we don’t have much left of local control. Part of what we have to look at what structure will be best in this environment. Wow. I won’t deny that its difficult, but there is sooooo much local elected officials could do if they wanted to and had staff support . . . but if this is what elected officials and committee members are told, and no one is trying to help them find the possibilities and path forward, we really are doomed. We need some brilliant legal minds challenging this trend at every turn – not Eyor. We could just stop here. Until this attitude and culture changes, it doesn’t matter what the committee does or says. And if the staff to this committee continue to spout this crap, the committee members will just be sucked into the gloom. This presentation should have been talking about the charter ordinances and the local government bully pulpit and clear authority that our local government still has and the ways we can be challenging in this world of Walker and Trump – even if its hard, even if we lose some times. If we don’t at least try, nothing will happen. As much as I sometimes I hate our local government for the dumb things they do – I still believe in it. We have to.
Eskrich asks about 1st class cities – how do you become them. May says be of a certain population (Madison is), say that you want to do it, and you have to change the ordinances. May says that every mayor asks this question – because the mayor would have line item veto in the budget. They wrote a 50-60 page memo to see what we would need to do – one of the key factors is that a first class city is also in charge of the schools. And that’s a bad thing why? The lack of transparency is the worst at the school district level – and the administration has control over the elected officials like no other local government in Dane County. The city system would be an improvement. Tell me more! I have a sneaking suspicion there is more to it than that – I remember bumping into the issue when I tried to figure out why the school board campaigns are run by the city, through the city clerk’s office and why there isn’t a school board clerk. Somehow we created or gave up the school district responsibilities at some point but I’m not recalling that all at the moment. Attorney May will send the memo to anyone who asks. (mmay@cityofmadison.com – I requested it this morning and will link it here if I get it) He says that Fitchburg shouldn’t exist, but they got to use the Milwaukee suburb city laws since the City of Madison looked like a first class city, but the laws have been changed since then.
Northrup asks if Madison is similar to other cities. May says there are 8 – 10 cities that are like us, blue in a Red State – Austin TX, Jackson Ms, etc that are like us. At the other end of the spectrum you have very powerful cities – Boston, San Fransisco, New York – they have much more freedom. We can look to them, but they are very different.
Eskrich asks about other 1st class city issues have come up – Kemble helps the city attorney by suggesting transportation funding, then May says employee pensions, water and waste water utilities. Somehow his lackadaisical attitude here is not giving me comfort. The sheer effort of going through the ordinances would be very difficult and it would likely be challenged.Sounds like its just too much work and he doesn’t want to do it if you ask me. This should be a serious public debate with decent information provided by staff, not just blown off.
Eskrich asks about the difference between city and county powers. May says there are cities, villages, towns (what’s left if there is no city or village). City and villages have many of the same powers. In some areas Towns can only take action at town hall meeting. Counties are a mix. They don’t have the broad powers, but in some areas they have more powers – mental health and social services issues. They have some statutory authority, but not constitutional authority. They have corporation councils as well as district attorney’s. There are other special types of local government – like development authorities, lake districts, Brewer’s stadium and others. There are 20-30 types of these that have their own statutes and sets of rules.
In city government you can have a mayor-council system, city manager system or commission system. You usually have a city manager with a commission system or you can have a mayor and council with a city manager. In other places a mayor is more political in nature and doesn’t do the city manager function. We used to have 4 wards and 3 alders per ward. The city still has the mayor-city council structure. We now have 20 districts with 1 alder per district. Under the state law, you have 2 alders per district. Local governments can change this by ordinance. He thinks they might want to look at this. You might just want to read about it more here, maybe I’m biased but I think its more helpful.
John Strange (also city attorney’s office) talks about the roles of the mayor, council, etc. He says the Mayor is the executive branch, the council is the legislative, we have the municipal court and a 4th branch – the committees and commissions. I’m feeling very uncomfortable with this interpretation – I’ve never heard it described this way and its being described in a way to separate it and make it seem optional. Honestly, I think some people – including the mayor – want to do away with this and the city attorney is doing the mayor’s bidding here.The mayor is a member of the council, has veto power, breaks ties, chairs the meetings, sponsors ordinances and resolutions, etc. State statute and ordinances talk about the powers and duties – elected every 4 years, (Ahem, anyone want to mention that the mayor would only be elected every 2 years, but we’ve chosen to do that differently? is the chief executive officer for the city, in Madison they have 4 deputy mayors. The mayor appoints all the committees unless otherwise specified. (Ahem, can we also make it clear that this is also within their power to change. The mayor is the head of the police and fire departments by statute, but its different because they don’t hire or fire. As the chief administrator the mayor makes sure the department heads perform their duties. Madison has 28 department heads and 8 division managers. Some are more external (Parks, Streets, etc) and others are internal (city attorney, etc). Some have a mix of internal and external functions (Civil Rights, Community Development). Some departments are interacting on a daily basis and others are not. Part of the mayor’s duties is to appoint department head (5 year contract) with approval by council. Some department heads have ordinance descriptions of duties, or they might be in state statute. Otherwise they report to the mayor directly. He shows the powerpoint that describes the departments and how they are authorized. He also notes that police and fire are subject to the police and fire commission and are a little different.
Harrington asks if the PFC rule is different for 1st class cities. May says that the Police and Fire Commission has more authority to create policy in Milwaukee. Local governments can’t change it. I’m unhappy with that limited description – it’s not complete, especially given the efforts of the council to change policy recently that have been successful. I think Attorney May does this committee a huge disservice glossing over that issue.
Strange talks about the locations of departments – most think of downtown, but they are spread across the city (think Madison Metro) with offices and outlets to sell tickets. He shows the “government tree” (i.e. organizational chart). He says that it is interesting how it is put together – some have the people on the top of the chart.Hell yeah. We should too. I’m real curious who did this organizational chart. It makes it seem that the council reports to the mayor. The council should be on its own like the municipal court. It’s curious in how it treats police and fire as well. I also thought at some point they had the Finance Director as the head of the admin folks, but I could be wrong.
Kemble asks about the statutes saying there can be 4 deputy mayors but we have 5. Also, the department of Transportation will change. May says there was a change in title without the change in duties by statute. They are wondering if Nick Zavos is a deputy mayor, no one seems to know, including Zavos. They literally asked him, and he doesn’t know. What the . . . Nick Zavos doesn’t know if he’s a deputy mayor or not? Neither does the city attorney – that seems highly unlikely. Or pathetic and incompetent. Sometimes it hard to tell which.
Esckrich asks if we need authority to have different forms of government, can we just make that decision as a city. Strange says that we can pick, but then we have to follow different statutes. Ok, where’s the memo on that?
Eric Upchurch came in about 10 minutes ago – but I forgot to note it.
Eskrich as if it is state statute that the mayor is a member of the council. They say that is state statute. May says that the statutes are sloppy and sometimes when they say common council they mean the alders plus the mayor, and sometimes they mean just the alders. He says that there is a mix of legislative and executive power in the mayor’s office.
Eskrich asks about the department and division heads being appointed, is that state statute? Strange says that is the city’s choice. Come on, the city attorney’s office should be giving better answers than this – more examples and explanations. Or at least handing out the one page that describes all this. If you want to read some of it yourself its partially “>here. I feel like I could do a better job staffing this committee at this point. I feel like they are either withholding information or again, incompetent. Strange is highly regarded by many for his work, so I’m guessing its not incompetence.
The council has 20 alders, 1 per district, elections every 2 years, president and vice president have one year terms. The president is acting mayor if the mayor is out of town. He talks about the council staff (chief of staff, and three more). Alders are part-time. Part of the reason this task force was created was to look at if alders should be full time. They discussed pay as well. They considered the president being full-time.Again, they failed to note that half the alders could be elected every 2 years and they could serve 4 year terms – why? I feel like the options are being selectively shared with the committee. Here‘s more info on that.
Rothschild asks about the redistricting after the census, what happens with the large annexation we are going to do. Strange isn’t sure. He says that we will need to assign it to a ward and aldermanic district, most other attachments are small and its not a big issue. They have not looked at that yet for when the Town of Madison comes in. WTF? Seriously? I’ve come to the conclusion that this dude is just lazy. Picture my head exploding. This isn’t true is it? May says that the process is such that if the census is done in 2010 we don’t get the numbers til 2011 and then we build the wards and the county and state come after. It takes til 2012 to get the work done. We have to try to get the districts equal so there is one person one vote and that gets skewed over time. He thinks we just have to live with the problems in the meantime. He thinks? Sometimes it would better if he just said, let me look that up and get back to you. This spitballing the answers thing is a real problem with him.
Harrington asks if there has been a difference in the number of voters each alder represents over the years. He doesn’t answer the question – but it is yes. In my 20 years we used to represent about 10,000, then it was 12,000 and some are up to 15,000. With this new redistricting it will probably go up again. More constituents = more work. If alders are on too many committees and have too much work as part time alders and we value diversity – then why not add more, not less. Plus it would make it easier to run because candidates would have to raise less money and knock on less doors and could talk to a larger percentage of their consituents. Win-win-win-win-win.
Kemble says that part of the structure is the common council executive committee that is appointed by the president. Strange says that is the organizing committee of the council. Kemble says that it is with the powers of the council instead of like the other committees and boards – its internal to the structure of the council itself.Sigh . . . the council just had this debate and just made these changes and it was kind of significant – and it’s also getting blown off?
Upchurch asks about the membership of the Executive Committee – May says it is one of two committees that are all alders and they work for a year and they have a very broad charter – to do things about the organization of the council and anything else they want to send there. He says if varies depending upon the council president.There’s something that should be looked at, what powers does the council president have. When I was council president, I made sure I found out the answer and used the powers probably more than most. Not for evil, but to increase public participation. I probably could have done more, but they kept trying to intimidate me and prevent me from doing things like holding the public listening sessions.
The duties of the council are from the legislature – primarily health safety and welfare of the public. Of course, subject to the limitations talked about earlier. Again, with the negativity instead of “yes” attitude that we started off with – they sure like to make sure this point is made over and over again. They do ordinances – which are law and affect all residents. Resolution are primarily policy of the city – and they can range widely from a policy statement to creating a task force or purchasing a bus. They are not a law. This is an area that should be explored more by the alders – I was often told to do something by resolution and then it becomes lost – ordinances are the only things that remain permanent. There needs to be a better system for finding old resolutions that impact policy for the city.Council confirms mayoral appointments and adopts a budget. Ahem, no mention that they could also make their own appointments . . .I’m growing increasingly uncomfortable about what they are choosing to present or not present.There is the rule of 11 for anything that passes, there are also super-majority votes that take 2/3 or 3/4 votes. May says the rule of 11 is different than other bodies, for example, right now there are 8 people here and 5 people can pass something. At the council they need 11 which is a majority of the 20 – no matter how many people are present – that is by state law. Hmmm, not sure I agree with this reading.
Strange says the council is relatively large. The alders represent fewer residents than other similarly sized cities. I’d like to see the data on that!They can change this. Oh, now they are choosing to point out things that can be changed, hmmm.There can also be at-large seats. The structure of the council can also affect minority representation. This is the highest number of people of color ever that have been on the council.
Upchurch asks about what at-large seats would look like. They would sun city-wide instead of for a district. You could have some of both. Like the Madison school board – they don’t represent a part of the city – they are given a number but they are elected by everyone. One of them says that the at large person would be president of the council. He says they would have to spend some time on what they might mean if they are interested in that. Again, a strange amount of detail here where they glossed over details in so many other areas . . . I really question the motives here because what they are picking and choosing to share is strange to me. I don’t feel like this is a balanced presentation by any means. I can’t tell who’s motives they are representing, but perhaps the mayor’s since the Mayor is responsible for May’s 5 year contract?
Strange says that an ordinance or resolution needs a sponsor, it gets introduced to the council and then referred to committees for comments and then comes back to council for adoption. Each one has their own ID and you can find the information under that ID. Again, strange lack of detail here. It’s more complicated than that. Kemble is on it.
Kemble asks for the exceptions – he says the plan commission can sponsor ordinances, and there are some others that can do it. Public Works items, and city attorney can do ordinance changes to clean them up for compliance. Transit and Parking Commission can do it as well. Ok, a little better, but oddly there is a lack of detail here. Is that intentional?
Strange says some ordinances require public hearings, others do not. That is subject to the ordinances and statutes. Such as . . . plan commission, liquor licenses, public works, transit and parking changes, etc. Again, lack of detail is disturbing. Some are by state law, some are by council ordinance.
There is a separation of powers between the Mayor and Common Council – there is a memo about this written in 2017 about how this applies in the context of municipal law. The issue was if the APM (administrative procedure memorandums) apply to the council. Would they have to pass them to have them apply? (I also requested this and will post the link if I get it.)
Strange talks about boards, commissions and committees – he says this is the residents branch of the government. There are 102 committees, section 33 has some key definitions for differences between committee, commission and board. Most of the committees are permanent, in chapter 33. Not all are there, some are ad hoc done by resolution – they are temporary. He says that is how many that are in legistar. He says there are 825 people who sit on these board (let me say, if he only looked in legistar, he is missing committees) He says there are about 500 people who fill those 825 seats – they got this number from the number of statements of interest. He says many people serve on more than one committee. A board or commission have some final authority or independent authority. Committees don’t have those powers and just make recommendations to other board commissions or committees or the common council. For those who make final decisions, there are appeal processes to either another board commission or committee or the council and then those can be appealed to the circuit court. AGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! I don’t even know where to start. If they only looked in legistar they missed a whole bunch of committees. It would have been nice for them to explain why there are legistar and non-legistar committees. They really glossed over the work of the committee I was on and our attempt to put ordinances in chapter 33 – and May staffed that meeting and could have gone into more detail. The issue of the committees, commissions and board names is very interesting in that we were told we couldn’t change the names of the Board of Estimates (which now is the finance committee??) or Board of Public Works because they were in state statute. We did change all the others over the objections of people. As far as I know, if they have independent authority they are a commission, if they don’t they are a committee and if its a board that is because of state statute. I’m also frustrated by the “only give recommendations” diminishment of committee work. This is just a gross explanation of what committees can do. Committees can propose ordinances through their alders, they can write reports, and they can advocate for their positions. Committees can be very powerful even if they can only “recommend” things. Perhaps this is why Mayor Paul is reluctant to appoint me to a committee, because he knows I know they CAN have power and they can use it – and they don’t want people to know that.
Paul Skidmore asks if the Police and Fire Commission decisions can be appealed to the council. dear lord, when Skidmore feels compelled to correct the city attorney and he’s right, this is a problem, who woke him up for this part? I couldn’t quite hear the answer, but I believe May says that is a case where it would not be appealed to the council but right to court. Kemble says that Transit has some rules that are different as well. May says there are a few instances where we tried to change things with committee names and got a lot of push back so it might not be exact with these definitions.That’s just not right . . . grr. It might be a good thing I’m not on this committee, the meeting would have been 4 hours long.
Municipal court is by statute and must be in the city government office but can move some functions into the community. The municpal judge is elected every 4 years,Again, we made that choice for it not to be 2 years they decide municipal ordinance violations – they can issue fines or foreitures, but they are not criminal courts. They also do the 1st OWI by state statute. May says that the forfeitures stay with the municipality. So, decriminalizing things through tickets is good for the city that needs money . . . and good for the person who doesn’t need a record – win. win.
Attorney May talks about the budget. It is the key policy document for the city. There are two budgets, operating and capital budget. Capital is to borrow money to build things that will last a long time. There is a deadline that it needs to be approved in November to meet the law and so the tax bills will go out.Actually, I don’t think that is true either . . . I remember pushing for not passing the budget and we could push it into December if we needed to – legally The state limits what we can collect. The statute? ordinance? (I think he said ordinance) says the mayor proposes it, the council makes amendments and approves or not, and the mayor does not have line item veto. seems like they have driven that point home for some reason He shows the areas the city spends its money on. He says the largest part is public safety and health – 41%, next highest is public works and transportation and then the debt services. The library has its own budget. The council and the mayor’s office are the smallest part of the budget. Really, nothing about this process is mentioned? If its the key policy document for the city – shouldn’t there be some discussion of how the budget is done, how the public participates, how the amendments are made, etc. etc. etc. What if we changed this structure to have the committees make amendments in their areas like the county does? This is HUGE. But again, glossed over. This is where the power is . . . so they aren’t going to tell you about it, I guess.
That is the end of their presentation.
Harrington says that she was interested in the public participation in committees and commissions. She says the primary way for citizens to participate is in the committees – and she doesn’t see that on their schedule until the fall and she is wondering if they should move that up.
Upchurch says that in thinking about civic participation is the boards commissions and committees is really the only opportunity for participation. How much of this can they make recommendations on, is it just the board that are there? He wants to know the scope.🙂
May says that he would have to look at the resolution, but it is broad enough to look at it all – you could look at fewer or more residents, more or less board – every meeting requires public comment – he thinks it is all on the table.Again, I’m suspicious of the options he’s throwing out there, and the one’s he is not. Had I been sitting in his chair you would have heard something entirely different and this concerns me.
Northrup asks if anyone actively recruits to be on boards. May says there is a mix, there is a full time employee in the mayor’s office to fill the committees. She tries to get people to apply, calls them and finds out they aren’t interested. Alders are also active, we could probably do some of that better. Barf. So, again, this is where my brain melts down. There are “rules” here, and then there are “rules”. The mayor has many, many unwritten rules that I discovered while trying to get appointed to committees prior to this one – First I was told there were too many people from the 2nd and 6th districts appointed. Then when I pointed out people from the 2nd and 6th district getting appointed there was always an excuse. Then I was told that it was because I was a former alder, but many former alders get appointments. Then I was told it was because I lost my election and so I couldn’t be appointed. Of none of that unpleasantness was discussed. Instead you get this . . .
Skidmore says that over the years alders try to find people who are interested and some committees have perpetual vacancies. Ahem, I could find plenty of people to fill those seats . . . if they could get appointed . . . there is a power dynamic at play here that is being glassed over. My theory is that the mayor does his best to appoint people who won’t rock the boat or use their power unless he can control them. Just my theory after watching the guy for 20 some years.
Eskrich says it would be helpful to learn more about the other forms of government authorized by state statute to know the options. This was a great start, but she’d like to know more. Eskrich says that the difference in power of committees makes a seat on the committee more or less valued and people might not want to be on ad advisory committee that gets ignored. Which of the commissions have independent powers would be good to get more information on. See above, committees have power if they appoint people who know how to use it. Largely those people can’t get appointed.
Skidmore says that over the years many people have commented on the number of committees and the last time we created a commmittee to end committees and in the end we actually added some. I served on that committee and that’s not true. We may have eliminated one or two, but we didn’t create any. May says that in many cities they don’t have resident participation. Again, do you find it odd this is what he chooses to point out? The other government bodies (state, etc) would only have legislators on there. But if you think alders are busy now, think about what it would take to do that. Most cities have 7 – 10 committees. They are more limited. Hmmm. Again, I actually don’t think this is true based on my work on the local government guide, I guess I’m going to have to do some work to point out all these alternative factsIs this a good idea, or not? Some people believe this is what makes Madison great, others will say that we are nuts. They should get public input on that. I don’t like this pre-defining the issues that is going on here . . . I hope the committee doesn’t fall for it
Vang asks about limitations on how people can participate. May says they do allow people to participate by teleconference, they are not comfortable having the entire committee do that explain please, who isn’t comfortable and why? some people think if not in the same room but maybe we have the current technology, that is something for the committee to look at.
Eskrich says that another piece of information is that if we could get data on vote counts and proportions – but the nature in democracy you are representative when elected – others are appointed to represent a population. She asks for votes by district. Vang asks about committee appointment information.
Upchurch asks if there is a structure that is amenable to a continuous form of flexible community engagement. Is there a structure of organizing cities that supports community engagement as a continuous thing. May say a lot that seems discouraging but then says he doesn’t see anything legal that would limit that.
Strange says there is academic research that shows there is ways to get input without having people sit on committees. Wow, it seems like they are really pushing to get rid of committees and the city residents that sit on them. Committees create resident experts and candidates – so it makes sense that to control who runs you wouldn’t want people on committees – again my cynical view of things.
Rothchild says a lot will come up again, this will be an ongoing discussion. he clearly wants this meeting over with
Kemble was raising her hand but was ignored. When she is finally acknowledged he asks if they could get a historical timeline from when we had 4 wards to when we had 20 alders and how many people the alders represented. May isn’t sure they can get that. Oh bullshit. We actually used to have 22 alders at one point. Someone in city hall should know this – they mayor would know this. May says they were supposed to tell them what it is right now – they didn’t want to get into the options. Seriously, except when they wanted to and did?
A woman raises her hand to comment, Skidmore immediately jumps in and says “no”. Rothchild is more amenable to comments. The woman gets up to leave after arguing with them. They then discuss how they will change this in the future.
Upchurch asks if they can suspend the rules as a group, do they get to decide as a group? Rothschild says they could do that if someone made the motion. The next item will address this. Way to go Skiddy . . .
Harrington takes the chair back. There is a hand out – with not enough copies for the public. In fact, they don’t even try to hand out the information to the public. They talk about when and where they will meet in the future. Apparently the paper has a schedule for the rest of the year. She says that in order to have the meetings video taped they have to be in the city-county building. They are exploring audio recordings and having podcasts. Eskrich says that they do have video recorded meetings outside of the city-county building and maybe that is part of the budget discussion. May says that it is difficult, but they didn’t say can’t. He says there isn’t sufficient staff and they can’t do several of those meetings at a time.
Upchurch says that some of the barriers aren’t necessarily the ability of someone to be here, but to navigate the availability of information, but also access the language being used. amen He would invite us to think about ways to guard against the possibility of misunderstanding. For instance, the clarification just made was very important to understanding what is going on. The ability of the woman to speak was missed because of how quickly things move we missed that opportunity and she left. We may subtly support barriers to civic engagement. Nicely done! I couldn’t agree more and that was a perfect example!!!!!
Rothschild says they can have people speak to the specific item – May says normally we take speakers at the beginning but that is a rule you can suspend. That is just total bullshit, normally people speak on the specific item and it is rare that people just speak in the beginning, what the hell is he talking about?
Northrup asks about skype or calling in for residents. May says it is subject to the technology. One of the things we have never been comfortable with is having people testify by phone. giggle, I bet, since they don’t want the public to pay attention or comment and take up time. Is he suggesting there is some legal issue here? He says that would be difficult. oh yeah, why? Northrup says maybe they could just listen in.
My comments are going to end here so I can get to work, the rest is live-blogged without proofreading
Harrington says that she has facilitated meetings where people have been all over the place and its been really effective and we can be more flexible as long as its not a violation of open meetings laws.
Harrington asks if they are done with the item, they seem to be. Kemble says that she hopes the schedule is not set in stone because she has conflicts with 75% of the meetings. It makes it sad for her to think she could only make 4 more meetings. May says they should vote. They can’t plan they by doodle. Rothchild asks if its a matter of time or day. Kemble says she has other meetings scheduled. Rothchild says the city attorney has asked for a motion so he asks for them to make one. Upchurch respects the need for structure and to plan ahead, but in their last meeting they did talk about setting two meetings that they agreed to schedule and then using that to give them an idea of how frequently and when they need to meet. This kind of schedule would be premature. Most of the days don’t work for him – generally Tuesday and Thursday. He shared that but here we are. He says we should just chill with the two meetings and then use that information to make an educated decision about how to schedule the rest of the meetings. Given what he has seen so far, things that are not in stone are perceived and become pseudo barriers to real work. We should just stomach the anticipation until after we decide the work we need to do. Kemble agrees, should there be work groups established or do public engagement in smaller groups. Voting on the schedule right now is not a good idea and she would vote against it. Skidmore says that the many committees make it hard to get to them all, its triage and he was missing plan commission tonight and that is where Alder Carter is. Vang asks if they could meet just once a month so they have to find less days. Perhaps the alders could propose some dates. He would like to get the dates as soon as possible. May says that the correct motion might be to refer to Friday. Kemble does. She will send staff dates that she is available. Northrup says that her husband just rearranged his schedule to accommodate the schedule and care for the kids. Harrington says that if they postpone the scheduling – could everyone do what Kemble suggests. So, they postpone.
They talk about city funds for the task force work. She asks for guidance from the city attorney. May says they have $30,000 and they used some money to reserve rooms, childcare, food or hiring people to get input from people without the city being there. If they have ideas they should propose it. He put it on the agenda to have a discussion about it. Rothchild says that a majority vote by this body would spend the money if its legal, is that right? Eskrich says she doesn’t want to discuss this until after Friday’s discussion. Vang asks about videotaping and phone lines, is that part of the budget. May says no, its just IT expenses. They move to refer and it passes.
Harrington says that this agenda item is so they can put the language on all of their agendas so they can suspend the rules and allow public comment. Then they could allow public participation at any point in the meeting. Rothchild asks if that is a correct interpretation. May asks if they want to do this for all items or some items. May says they could do it for any item without the language, but it is more for the public. He wants to know if they want to do it for all items or only specified items. Rothchild says they should say “may” and indicate for specific items so they can have their cake and eat it too? Kemble asks her opinion. Harrington says that they should indicate which ones they intend to do it but allow it at any time. Eskrich says they can just instruct staff to do it, they don’t need a motion. Eskrich says that alders often feel this uncomfortableness and that they don’t usually address this at the beginning of the meeting – perhaps they should explain how they will run the meeting. She asks if that is something they could do as a standard procedure. Kemble says they did that for the Police and Community Relations and they could do that language. May says he thought there should be an agenda item that is an overview of the meeting. Harrington says she runs a lot of meetings and she has never run any that is this restrictive. Skidmore asks if this is intended to allow members of the public to participate in discussion. Rothchild and Kemble says that they would have to suspend the rules and go back to restricting it. Eskrich says that it is important to set the expectations. May says they will just add the language for 2 agenda items for future agendas.
They discuss future agenda items they want to see – May says that they asked to regularly include an item to create work groups or subcommittees. Eskrich asks about presentation by RESJI staff on Friday – she wants to know if others have suggested other models from the public. Upchurch says that there would be a proposed agenda and then people could make suggestions about it and after the meeting he suggested to allow for the sharing of the community knowledge here about public engagement models. He’s not sure where that is at, but he would like to do that at the next meeting. May says that members of the committee or public might have additional items at the next meeting since anyone can comment. Eskrich asks to make that clear on the agenda. She would like it to say presentations from others. She asks the agenda to be re-worded to be explicit. There will be an amended agenda for Friday.
They adjourn.
