Mayor Dave and I Agree.

For those of you who think that Mayor Dave and I can never get along, I thought you might want to see this. (Warning: My memo is a little detailed and wonky in order to make my point, you can skip some of the details. Mayor Dave’s response is below.)

DATE: June 11, 2007
TO: Mayor Dave Cieslewicz
FROM: Ald. Brenda Konkel, District 2
SUBJECT: Legistar

It seems to me that there are increasing problems with staff errors in entering information into Legistar. This week is a perfect example of problems that occur every week with meetings being improperly noticed or information not being available. These issues result in illegal or canceled meetings, which seem to be occurring more and more frequently. This week’s issues are as follows:

Meetings on the Weekly Meeting Schedule but with no agendas available
Monday
– 8:00 a.m., Madison Metropolitan Sewerage District – This meeting is not in Legistar or on the Additional Meetings Schedule, so there is no agenda available.
– 4:00 p.m., TIF Policy Committee – This meeting is listed on the schedule, but I don’t think they are scheduled to meet. If a meeting is occurring, there is no agenda.

Wednesday
– 5:00 p.m., Board of Police and Fire Commissioners – This meeting is not in Legistar or on the Additional Meetings Schedule, so there is no agenda available.

Thursday
– 5:00 p.m., Contracted Services Oversight Subcommittee and Ad Hoc Funding Subcommittee – This meeting is not in Legistar or on the Additional Meetings Schedule, so there is no agenda available.

Friday
– 7:00 p.m. Inclusionary Zoning – This meeting isn’t at 7:00 p.m., it’s at 8:00 p.m., however, that decision was made on Friday, and I believe you will be getting an update from staff on that.

Meetings with agendas in Legistar but which are not on the Weekly Meeting Schedule
Wednesday
– 8:30 a.m., Pest Management Advisory Committee (however, there is also no agenda available).

Thursday
– 5:00 p.m., Equal Opportunities Commission.

While I have everyone’s attention, here are some additional problems so far this month with items in Legistar:

Additional Problems
June 1 – 8:00 a.m., Inclusionary Zoning – A meeting is listed, but there is no agenda because there was no meeting.

June 4 – 4:00 p.m., Tax Incremental Financing – There were no attachments for items which had handouts. Some of those were sent to the committee ahead of time.
– 4:30 p.m., Landmarks Commission – There were no attachments.
– 4:45 p.m., Solid Waste Advisory Committee – The meeting was listed twice with no agenda.

June 5 – 1:00 p.m., Board of Assessors – There were no attachments.
– 4:30 p.m., Platinum Biking City Planning Committee – There were no attachments.

June 6 – 4:30 p.m., Board of Public Works – The Legislative File ID numbers are on the agenda but are not hyperlinked to the files.
– 5:00 p.m., Economic Development Commission – There were no attachments.

June 7 – 12:00 p.m., EOC Employment Committee – There were no attachments.
– 4:30 p.m., Library Board – There was only one attachment. All the other attachments were missing.
– 5:00 p.m., CDBG – There were no attachments.

June 8 – 7:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., Inclusionary Zoning – There were no attachments.
– 5:00 p.m., Economic Development Commission – The meeting appeared on the Weekly Meeting Schedule, but there was no agenda.

June 11 – 8:45 a.m. and 2:30 p.m., Early Childhood Care and Education Board Subcommittees – There are no attachments.
– 4:00 p.m., Sustainable Design and Energy Committee – There are no attachments.
– 6:00 p.m., Regent Street-South Campus Plan Steering Committee – There are no attachments.

June 12 – 5:00 p.m., Public Safety Review Board – There are no attachments.

June 13 – 10:00 a.m., Garver Feed Mill RFP and Surplus Property Committee – There is an agenda with nothing on it.
– 5:00 p.m., Affordability Subcommittee of the Housing Committee – There are no attachments.
– 5:35 p.m., Community Services Committee – There are no attachments.
– 6:30 p.m., Board of Park Commissioners – There are no attachments for some items, and there are some other issues with fonts and formatting.

June 14 – 4:00 p.m., Community Development Authority Long Range Planning Subcommittee – There are no attachments.
– 4:30 p.m., Community Development Authority – There are no attachments.
– 5:00 p.m., Equal Opportunities Commission – There are no attachments.
– 5:00 p.m., Zoning Board of Appeals – There are no attachments.
– 6:30 p.m., Alcohol License Review Commission – There is a Legislative File ID number with no hyperlink and no attachments.

In short, it appears there is some need for additional staff training. If you ask me, we really need someone to give staff a pep talk on why Legistar is important to good, clean, open government and to create some higher expectations. I am hoping your office will encourage this to happen sooner rather than later. Thank you.

cc: Members of the Common Council Organizational Committee
Maribeth Witzel-Behl, City Clerk
Dave Faust, Information Services
Sarah Edgerton, Information Services

And Mayor Dave’s response was as follows:

To: Ald. Brenda Konkel, District 2
From: Mayor David J Cieslewicz
Date: June 14, 2007
Re: Legistar

Thank you for your very thorough memo regarding you concerns with Legistar. I have also been briefed on the related discussion that have been taking place at CCOC, and discussed them as well with IT Director Dick Grasmick earlier this week.

I share your belief that Legistar is a critical tool for the promotion of open government in the City of Madison. It is also the means through which we conduct the public business of the City, so it is important that the system contain accurate and complete information. While it is my understanding that a planned upgrade for Legistar may alleviate some of these problems, I would agree with you that this is primarily an issue of training and proper use of the system. To that end, I have asked Dick Grasmick to oversee the following initiatives from IT staff:

• Meeting with Common Council members to address Legistar issues of concern to them
• Creating policies and guidelines for Legistar users, which would be implemented in conjunction with the release of the new version of Legistar
• Investigating the possibility of offering a thorough training program in conjunction with the release of the new version of Legistar.
• Providing an online training manual, which would be specific to the City of Madison, and would integrate Legistar policies and guidelines.

Beyond that, I will put the issue of proper Legistar use on the agenda for our next Department and Division Heads meeting on July 11.

Thank you for your work on this issue.

DJC/lll

cc: President and Members, Madison Common Council
Maribeth Witzel-Behl, City clerk
Dick Grasmick, Information Technology
Dave Fause, Information Technology
Sara Edgerton, Information Technology

More important than Mayor Dave and I getting along, is the hope that the information in Legistar will become more user friendly and that we will have better information available for the public.