Alders ask Madison City Committee Chairs to violate open meetings laws

April 24, 2020 11:19 am

I tried to tell them this at the CCEC meeting, but they didn’t listen. Sent out the request, and I pointed it out again, and now, they seem to agree.Ugh. Our elected leaders really need to learn their own rules of ethics, open meetings and other good governance concepts. I testified, I blogged, I emailed . . . don’t know what more can be done.

KONKEL TESTIMONY AT COMMON COUNCIL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

At the CCEC meeting on April 16th (follow along here)

I blogged about the which committees were important enough to meet, but didn’t do a recap. Here’s more information if you are interested.

when they were discussing this issue I said the following (starting at 1:37:50):

On the committee chair survey . . . if this was just sent to the committee chair, without our committee being able to meet, I would not be fully representing what the committee members want. “I don’t feel like there is a way without violating open meetings law or walking quorum” to get the information I would need to fill out the survey for the committee members.

The issues I raised were not addressed in the meeting.

Alder Barbara Harrington-McKinney agreed that all committee members should be given the opportunity to provide input, not just the chair.
Alder Sally Rhorer agreed she thinks they should talk about all members of the committee to give input.
Alder Grant Foster suggested the chair work through the administrative staff to reach out to members, one way communication to get ideas about what they thought we could do during COVID recovery. We want to hear those good ideas they might have that the chair might not think about.
Alder Patrick Heck says that the survey encouraged chairs to get feedback and we should modify it to say one-way communication.
Alder Arvina Martin agrees with Foster and we can tell committee chairs they can survey their members and compile the information to send back to us, and put it on the committee chairs.
Alder Keith Furman suggests that they gather more feedback via email about the survey contents (creating the same open meetings law violation I raised?) and he wants to give committee chairs one week to get back so they can get the information as quickly as possible.

When I blogged about the survey, I did raise the issue again.

Are they asking us to violate open meetings laws? “Committee chairs are encouraged to reach out to City staff, Alders and/or committee members to discuss this survey. ” Sure sounds like it.

EMAIL TO COMMITTEE CHAIRS

Greetings!

The Common Council Office is requesting your assistance providing information about the work and priorities of your committee with a brief survey.

Please ask your committee members to provide you with their comments on the eight questions listed below. As you reach out to members, we request that you have members respond directly to you as the chair and “do not reply all” in consideration of any open meeting law violations. It is important that the responses to this survey are reflective of the member body and not solely that of the individual chair. I am providing a template email text below that you can use if you so choose.
Once you have received feedback from your committee members, please summarize their comments and your own into one survey document by Monday April 27^th at noon using this link here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/NCW9LTT.
If you have any questions, please reach out to me at kkapusta-pofahl@cityofmadison.com

I hope you all are doing well.

Sincerely,

Karen Kapusta-Pofahl
Legislative Analyst; Common Council Office

[Optional template email text for committee members]

Dear [Name of BCC] Members,

The Common Council Office is requesting our assistance providing information on the work and priorities of our committee. Please send your answers to the eight questions below to me (remember DO NOT REPLY ALL when doing so), and I will compile a summary document to submit. Please send your comments by [date that gives you time to compile answers].

Sincerely,

[your name]

Survey Introduction: During the coronavirus emergency, City resources are limited from the perspective of staff members that assist BCCs and IT resources to make sure that meetings are accessible to the public. This survey is intended for BCCs to provide additional information to the Common Council and the Mayor’s office as we work to prioritize the resumption of BCC meetings during the coronavirus emergency. Note that the number of meetings that can be supported by the IT staff is currently limited. It is the intent of the Common Council that additional BCCs will resume limited activities in response to the pandemic and as recovery begins.

The Common Council recognizes that many BCC agenda items are related to referrals from the Council.

Statutory Responsibilities: To the best of your knowledge, are there typically agenda items that City Ordinances require your BCC to consider? If yes, give examples. (For instance, Plan Commission’s statutory responsibilities include consideration of zoning code changes, neighborhood and city plans, and development projects that require such review by City Ordinances).
Projects: If there are specific projects that your BCC has been working on other than typical referral items, very briefly describe them.
Work Allocation: If you have non-referred projects, what is a rough estimate of the percentage of your meeting time is spent on considering these items?
Outside Work: Do members conduct research or otherwise spend time considering committee matters outside official meeting times? If so, on average, how many hours each month?

The Common Council Executive Committee is also exploring processes and structures to create focused discussions on broad recovery policy areas related to COVID-19. They may include Housing, Homelessness, Food Access, City Budget, Public Health, Small Businesses, Transportation, and Unemployment.

Of these broad areas of recovery policy, list those that your BCC could assist with.
If you had to choose, which would be the primary recovery area for your BCC?
Explain how your BCC would contribute to a primary recovery area. [For example, through connecting with impacted communities, identifying and constructing specific policy, gathering stakeholder expertise, etc.]
Other than those listed above, are there additional broad recovery policy areas that your BCC could assist with? Explain how.

MY EMAIL TO PUBLIC SAFETY REVIEW COMMITTEE

The City Council has sent out a Survey asking the following questions in blue. I would like to invite your feedback on the answers I have drafted below in black. I have a feeling I left something out, so please let me know if I missed something! The red is where I really need your input! Feel free to give me input on all the answers. I have to fill this out by Monday at noon, so please get me your answers by Sunday evening at 6:00.

Side note: I am a bit concerned that we may create a walking quorum by communicating about this. However, this is what we were instructed to do:

Please ask your committee members to provide you with their comments on the eight questions listed below. As you reach out to members, we request that you have members respond directly to you as the chair and “do not reply all” in consideration of any open meeting law violations. It is important that the responses to this survey are reflective of the member body and not solely that of the individual chair.
Once you have received feedback from your committee members, please summarize their comments and your own into one survey document by Monday April 27^that noon

Statutory Responsibilities: To the best of your knowledge, are there typically agenda items that City Ordinances require your BCC to consider? If yes, give examples. (For instance, Plan Commission’s statutory responsibilities include consideration of zoning code changes, neighborhood and city plans, and development projects that require such review by City Ordinances).

These are our duties per the Madison General Ordinances (MGO 33.22:

Duties . The work of the Public Safety Review Committee shall be advisory to the Mayor and the Common Council to assist them in the performance of their statutory duties regarding the police and fire departments. The role of the Public Safety Review Committee shall in no way interfere with the lawfully prescribed powers and duties of the Common Council, the Police and Fire Commission, the Mayor, or the Chiefs of the respective Police or Fire Departments. The Public Safety Review Committee may, in the performance of its duties:

(a) Review service priorities and capital budget priorities of the Police and Fire departments;

(b) Serve as liaison between the community and the City on public safety issues;

(c) Review annually and make recommendations to the Mayor and the Common Council regarding the annual work plans and long-range goals of the departments.

Additionally, we are mentioned in two ordinances that require us to:

1) Get a report from the municipal court by January 31 of each year on truancy and has habitual truancy. (MGO 23.45)

2) Have hearings and on revocation, suspension or nonrenewal of secondhand article dealer license, secondhand jewelry dealer license, secondhand textbook dealer license, pawnbroker license, precious metal dealer license or secondhand article mall or flea-market license. We have final decision making authority subject only to review wby the court. (MGO 9.24)

Projects: If there are specific projects that your BCC has been working on other than typical referral items, very briefly describe them.

We were:

– meeting jointly with the City-County Issues Committee to discuss issues around criminalization of homelessness

– getting presentations about police department attrition to discuss what our recommendation on staffing needs for the 2021 budget

– getting a report on a 10th fire station from the Fire Department

– we discussed what it would look like to have an Office of Emergency Management

– Mental health ambulances

– Looking at the MPD report on the ad hoc police policy committee report when it gets created

Additionally, our list of issues for future meetings included:

– Budget

– Amigos en Azul Presentation

– Downtown Alcohol Density Report

– 9th Ambulance

– Resji Training

Work Allocation: If you have non-referred projects, what is a rough estimate of the percentage of your meeting time is spent on considering these items?

Our agenda has been packed with referrals. We had a special meeting with the City-County Homeless Issues that was 100% not referrals. We have been working on reviewing our mission, discussing what we want to prioritize on our agenda, how to manage the many issues now coming to us, what we want to see in police and fire reports. We have been only addressing referrals in our regular meetings and scheduling separate meetings for non-referrals.

Outside Work: Do members conduct research or otherwise spend time considering committee matters outside official meeting times? If so, on average, how many hours each month?