The retreat the council held, according to the news, was going to be about punishing Brian Solomon, taking on the mayor and all kinds of sexy topics – but, none of that really happened. Instead, it was about a shared agenda, a job description and a short discussion on how alders are appointed to committees. Audio files are here (part one and part two). This is part one, the shared agenda.
I have to say, the four hours spent by the council was probably productive for them and a good bonding experience, but as far as news, it was a snooze. There are a few tense moments. The conversation will give you some insights into the council, when they are not discussing how they are going to discuss. This is the first 90 minutes of the discussion. Jill Johnson, Marsha Rummel, Brian Solmon and Joe Clausius are missing. Satya Rhodes-Conway was late, Larry Palm is a little later, Tim Bruer and Bridget Maniaci come in at least a half hour late, Mike Verveer misses most of the first half – he is the only one who says why, he was at the Bookless event at the Library.
Cnare says a few words, Guy VanRensselaer, the facilitator starts off by talking about the item they ranked the highest. Here are the other items.
• Council Operations
Strategic/Policy/Legislative Agenda
Method for CCOC and other Alder Appointments
Legislative Analyst Role
Developing a Code of Conduct
• Internal Knowledge Base
Decorum
Roberts Rules
Working with Mayor’s Office and Staff
• External Knowledge Base
Communication Techniques
Conflict Resolution
Best Practices
*Constituent service tricks and tips
*Facilitating neighborhood meetings
• Alder “Job Description” (expectations
Let the discussion begin!
ISSUES THAT ARE IMPORTANT TO ADDRESS
This is a brainstorming session with flipcharts, etc. So they are listing off things they want on their list.
Lisa Subeck doesn’t understand what they are doing, a plan to do what, can they define what they are doing?
Van Rennselaer says there was a desire to have a cohesive plan for the council? A work plan? A strategic policy? what issues and concerns that they will do if have a cohesive agenda?
Lauren Cnare – diverse group of people, trying to get 20 of us to say this is what we want to work on, they want a consensus of the council.
Shiva Bidar-Sielaff the real issue will be getting it done, execution.
Subeck says there are competing priorities.
Steve King says that they need a leadership structure longer than a year.
Satya Rhodes-Conway says they react to big things from outside the council, mayor, staff, the world.
Mark Clear says he wants to talk about time in general, lack of availability of time.
Sue Ellingson wants them to be on the same page as the mayor.
King disagrees, not necessarily want to be on the same page as the mayor sometimes, there is a complete and total resource imbalance between what we bring to the table and the mayor brings, one tiny legislative analyst won’t capture it.
Ellingson says if we want to get something passed, its easier if mayor is with us.
Steve King agrees
Rhodes-Conway says that get elected by district, they have parochial needs vs. city-wide needs
Anita Weier says something about how they spend a lot of time doing committee work.
Matt Phair wants good communications, they are 20 people with other jobs and other things to do in their lives.
Rhodes-Conway says the meeting format is an issue, they have gotten better at having discussion, we have to create that space, also meetings are public so hard to sort out priorities.
Subeck says that the question of IF we have to have a unified agenda is out there
Cnare is concerned that many things rely on money and budget, we don’t drive it, its a limited resource
Scott Resnick is concerned about how we use information from committees, they have lengthy discussions that get overlooked by all of use, they make a dedicated effort and we lose that by the time it comes to council
Subeck is concerned about the number of committees
Resnick – efficiency of decision making
Bidar-Sielaff says they need to address the departments
Rhodes-Conway says could be department heads worst nightmare
Bidar-Sielaff says they (department heads) may have a different agenda and different priorities than us and mayor’s office
Larry Palm (was late) and notes the parochial vs. city wide issues
Weier says staff drive what committees do, its rubber stamp in committees she participates in – that doesn’t seem right
Resnick says some alders are better at communicating with constituents, the people we represent sometimes have a communication breakdown
Palm is concerned about the allalder email he’s not sure why constituents send it to everyone when it is just for him, he can’t funnel people in a specific way, but how do we aggregate that
Resnick says he only responds to allalder email when it is in his district he responds and he assumes others do that too – he doesn’t check to see if alders follow up
Palm says they might not care
Clear says he is concerned with the alignment of their priorities with citizens priorities
Bidar-Sielaff is concerned with how they interact with county and other municipalities
Clear says collaboration with other levels of government
Subeck says the ever changing council, sometimes they are more cohesive, somethimes not, it changes every two years.
Subeck also adds the political nature of the job, they are elected on priorities we value and constituents value
Subeck asks again if they should even have an agenda
Palm says that Phair is completely different than his predecessor and Subeck different than here and if he didn’t know better, he’d think the entire district moved and new people moved in. There is a question of how right an alder is in representing a district, we all sometimes don’t align with our districts, that goes back to who we represent and how, they are different alders and different on the political scale – were they right or are you right or do they just represent a segment of the district.
Tim Bruer comes in half hour late
Clear says he has to ask if we have covered concerns of citizens on this list – he has lots of constituents, neighborhood, service providers, organizations like Downtown Madison Inc, Chamber of Commerce etc, they sometimes have more or less voice than might be right – how do they balance the “other voices”
Rhodes-Conway says that worth asking would citizens in general appreciate if we had a unified agenda, probably yes, the prominent news coverage is that all we do is fight with each other or the mayor, while sometimes true its not true the majority of the time. We are proactively saying this is something we have come to consensus on and that is something they might appreciate
Palm says sometimes its the other way
Rhodes-Conway says good to think about what is best for city instead of their districts
Subeck says that people will think we already decided what they will do if we just come out with an agenda
Rhodes-Conway says that they are not saying they will pass these policies, but work on these issues
Phair says they can pick 5 general issues
Cnare says 2
Bidar-Sielaff says that resources are an issue
Clear says during the citizen budget process everything was a top priority, that is not a recipe for effectiveness
Subeck asks what happens if we disagree in the end, there is a risk of failure, what if we pass something just to get it done
Rhodes-Conway says it could be a good thing, cuz the items we put on the agenda are big and important for the city and we should try to work on and solve – if we put it out there we have accountability – poverty we’re not going to solve it, but at least we would be under pressure to solve it, currently we are not under that pressure
Bridget Maniaci shows up 35 minutes late
Bidar-Sielaff says there would be pressure to do something, once we have an agenda people expect you to address it, same with parochial issues
Subeck says pressure to vote a certain way is her concern
Rhodes-Conway says that it will be up to the front line staff that have to implement it. We need to remember that it is part of the policy process and make sure it is feasible and that they are roughly on board with it, once we pass it, is it actually going to be implemented all the way through
Clear says execution is an issue for us and staff.
Subeck asks how to make it realistic, is it feasible, they need staff input early on
Resnick says sometimes it about our expertise and experience and how they do or do not mesh with theirs – technology issues for example – how do we interact with city staff
Van Rensselaer draws circles that intersect and overlap in a small area.
Clear says there are more circles and smaller overlap
Bidar-Sielaff says staff are worried about things being politicized
King says something about the staff – but I missed it, it was likely snarky – as he seems to be the King of useless snarky comments.
Clear says sometimes it is more about more about mayor political ambition vs. good of the city
Maniaci says she talks to city staff, they nod and say “ok” and I say I want to do something and when I get out of the office there is no follow through, their staff are working on what they need, I’m just one of 20, there are 19 more alders and the mayor, how do we fit within how they delegate staff and resources. I can understand where there is a turnstile of alders coming in, and I understand what the agency big picture is for the year or couple months. I need to have a sense of what I can realistically ask of them or what is too much.
Subeck says question is how to make it mesh
Phair says if we had priorities it might work
I took a little break 45 minutes in and missed some.
Van Rensselaer says that the staff often says that the alders and the mayor’s office are the transients
Palm says that we are just verbalizing priorities that are already out there, question is, does it benefit the city to codify these in a way that we are really focused on legislative solutions, we’re not going to come up with something new that’s not already there.
Subeck says have to be cautious that this agenda is not the thing that everything that gets checked against, like they do at the state with Walker “but they said they were going to focus on jobs”. She does that in her day job, but doesn’t want that every time we do something outside the agenda, people will be able to ask why not focused on that –
agenda can’t be limiting.
Clear says that they are different than Walker, they say they have an agenda and then they do something else
Palm says it is a caucus agenda, not the agenda of the legislature but the party in power, that is different
Rhodes-Conway complains that they have spent 45 minutes spent talking about why not to do it
Maniaci says committees have things they want to have happen and that they are expressing and working on and it is a matter of how and if to bring those agendas forward to the council level, maybe the Common Council Organizational Committee (CCOC) could have regular reports from committee heads – she says Landmarks is sitting on rewriting their ordinance
Rhodes-Conway says that is the alders job to introduce it
Maniaci says they are not ready yet, but working quietly in committee
Clear says power dynamic between committees and council is an issue, some want more authority and some want more direction from the council
Subeck says not just committees, but staff, mayor and us, we need to think about that – how do we share power – needs to be same across all the players
Alders want to move on, the facilitator doesn’t want to, points out there are issues they haven’t discussed, like the mayor’s office.
Bidar-Sielaff says that they said that right in the beginning
Subeck asks if they should ask them what they think since they are here (The Mayor, Anne Monks and Katie Crawley were there)
King says we are not there yet, we only brainstormed issues, we haven’t given them anything to react to
Subeck wants to hear from the mayor
King says he does not want him to veto something before they get going
Subeck wants to hear their opinion about what has been said so far
Van Rensselaer says to undertake something and do it successfully it is predicated on the understanding it well – to not hear issues and concerns of others puts you in a position where you are not aware of the entire playing field – so issues can be addressed
Cnare asks who is really in charge, who gets to say we work on this agenda, there could be a council and mayor who agree, but what if Scott Walker was mayor, imagine the conflict, we should think big about this, staff could not do what we want
Subeck says that what if they had Jed Sanborn and Thuy Pham-Remmele there instead of Subeck and Phair – they wouldn’t come up with an agenda
Palm says that he wants to know everyone’s issue- this is a catch 22, unless someone comes up with Madison wants a moon colony in 8 years, most of the agenda items are done in a piecemeal way, he can’t see outside the big ones, poverty, jobs, economy, sustainability, lakes, transportation – there are only so many policies we could work on and not many this mayor’s office wouldn’t want to get behind, the real fight is later. The lakes plan is a $110M plan and that is going to be an issue, not that they we should keep our lakes clean
Maniaci asks who is really in charge, Steve, you have a PhD in political science, that is why you have an executive and legislative branch, the mayor in charge of agency heads, APMs, agency heads answer to him not us, but if you want to figure it out, he is the executive, so agency staff kick to him
The facilitator asks them to move on to more issues.
Rhodes-Conway apologizes for being late, but they are saying the same thing over and over again, this is sufficient if we are not done. She needs to know if they are making a decision today
They say no.
Rhodes-Conway says then we should move on, what we are starting to do is get into what we should or shouldn’t do – I think you asked us 20 times and what we are coming up with is things that are on the list
Weier says they missed taxpayers – not citizens
Clear asks which citizens are not taxpayers
Maniaci says renters in my district (ARGHHH, seriously?! When renters pay rent, they are paying for the taxes)
Weier says that is different
Mayor Paul Soglin speaks up and says that the staff have had hours of dicussion on the 4 c’s – citizens, constituents, customers or comrades, who do we serve, each has a different definition, but we are serving people in the community, ones who are here permanently or a few hours, don’t go into that debate
BRAINSTORMING OVER, NOW WHAT
Van Rennselaer says we’ll move one, anything else missing. Are we making a decision, no, but what is the next step, what is in box and not, what do we have capacity to do, one approach for one or two to put some flesh or legs on this, to bring to another body to – energy or willingness to sit down and think about what this might look like and what are the boundaries
Clear clarifies – if there is an agenda, how to do we it
Rhodes-Conway says not a subcommittee thing – we need to ask if want one or not
Cnare asks for a straw poll
King says he is negative about it, wants to hear arguments about why – we have beaten it to death in a negative way, he sees a myriad of things against it, nothing positive, so many issue structural, political, cultural, so its near impossible. He wants to talk about why they go ahead and do this before say if we want do it
Palm has talked about it for years himself, we need to have the conversations, whether they get to goals is another topic, but we need to figure out how we can collaborate. Sometimes I see something introduced and think its a good idea but I would have done it different, if we saw areas others were interested in we could share brainpower and resources, there could be a coalition to cure x y and z that are big issues, like downtown parking, and a group could work on that together, thinks its a good idea
Van Rensselaer says they are not there yet
Rhodes-Conway says that is what they asked for – do we want it or is it good discussion
Palm says they are already doing it, there is a broader agenda, why not collaborate on it. He says every time a new alder gets a folder and are told what the council vision is and he has been here 6 years and he has never been part of vision discussion, it was done before his time. Every council should think about the vision and objectives and goals, unfortunately they are a year in, this should be done a month in and then on a 2 year cycle, that is what we work with until we change to 4 year terms, this is not about not stop signs, but more jobs, broad level goal – not piecemeal, alder by alder, but citywide, alders together
Maniaci says yes committees in inefficient fashion and if not unified agenda it is a problem. She is beating her head against table with the downtown plan, this is the 3rd transportation committee she sits on where they are discussing it, they say the same things over again, we can use all the committees that we spend time more efficiently, we can limit to biennial issues – often policy initiatives drag out longer than people have energy for, we should create a calendar on how to address issues, committees have the same conversation over and over. Urban Design Commission and Landmarks meet together sometime – there should be more shared dialog on committees and the conversations happen in a vacuum, we should use the committees in a more concise fashion and then wouldn’t feel so burned out if goes to common goals or purpose if you know what you are working on, trick will be to find issues that he majority of us want to work on
Ellingson says it is a compelling message to citizens, its a big picture thing they get, it talks to her, she spends a lot of time on stop signs and that is not all she wants to accomplish, she wants to have a big vision where we make a difference, something that grabs us and makes us want to do the best for us, constituents and the community.
Rhodes-Conway says the council needs a legislative agenda, we govern the whole city, on a day to day basis we forget that, it promotes collaboration within council and others, gives us a focus and it will bring our minds together on the issues we choose. It is proactive in a body when 95% of the time we are reactive, it would be good for city as a hole to have a focus, to identify issues, and say that these are issues that we need to work on, we can’t promise you success but we will try, we need to grow up as a council, be more professional and collectively set goals and promise to work together.
Cnare agrees with everything they said, she is in favor of an agenda or strategic plan, she says the more we collaborate the more we leverage the good ideas, we behave better. We will work better with staff and administration and we will grow as a group and as individuals. Sometimes stuff comes to table and I think I wanted to be part of that she when something comes to the table, this is how we do business, not one person in a dark office whipping up a new thing, bring people together as a group, that doesn’t destroy a political group – its just synergy
Clear says that not everyone will participate in every item, if 4 things are chosen and he is not interested in #4, he might sit out, but that doesn’t diminish it, we can all talk about it with the 4cs and say this is what is being focused on, even if I’m not working on all 4.
Bidar-Sielaff says then council leadership has a role, council leleadership becomes project manager
Schmidt says that the word agenda might be too restrictive in the discussion and it might be causing trouble – we need targets we measure against, instead of topic areas, maybe not making enough use of the discussion format and facing each other. In council discussions we are all facing forward and have no eye contact and the interaction that we have in this format is better, otherwise we will be asking how to tackle poverty, housing and jobs
Maniaci says to remember when we sat different on overture and how different the dialogue was
Resnick says its a 2 year terms, long term goals are different, we need to be nimble and think about something in district, like the southwest safety initiative, if we have a unified face, are we doing justice to constituents in our own district if he is not 100% behind it
Rhodes-Conway says have to think about what an agenda means – she thinks we came into office thinking we would work on policy more than we do, she has a long list of policy things, there was a long list 5 years ago and she has not done many o them, they spend a lot of time reacting and working on speed bumps, trash etc – the advantage to having a list, that affect all districts, which should be a short list, she can think of 10 examples, not sure how pick 3, but she does not want it to be things that don’t affect your district at all, to be successful it has to affect all districts. While some check out and we can’t all be the be lead on everything, but we do need to be involved some way because they should be things that affect the whole city
Rhodes-Conway urges them to move forward.
They do a straw poll and a few hands go up immediately and the rest slowly raise their hand, minus a few.
VanRennselaer asks what are the next steps. More discussion with the whole group, send it to Common Council Organizational Committee, do they work on it in a small group or kick it to leadership.
Rhodes-Conway says we have to decide how to make a decision to do it or not, there is some energy to do it, but not unanimous, not sure they will get to unanimous, if we are serious enough we need buy in – maybe next step is a discussion at the end of which there is a vote on if we do it. Step 2 is what are the issues, that is another discussion like this or on-line brainstorming to get out what would be on the list, eliminate overlap and rank and discuss
Subeck ask are we moving forward, she didn’t raise hand, not because not against, but no compelling need to move it forward, but she is not really against it. She also thinks they need a process for how to reach the items, feels strongly that anything on that list should require unanimous consent – consensus, true agreement, everyone should be comfortable with it. Everyone needs to agree, maybe its not everyone’s top priority, uncomfortable saying it is the council priorities if everyone doesn’t agree
Palm says we should have a pool of ideas, and people can veto a priority
Rhodes-Conway says what you are tlaking about is consensus, unless someone blocks and item, you are ok with it
Palm says that our position for the analyst includes that the common council agenda will established annually, how do they do the job if we do not tell them what to do
Maniaci is ok with majority of colleagues on this, she would hate for one alder to consistently vote against everything and end up with no agenda. We should think about this in the long term, it should be a 3/4 vote, so room for some folks to not agree
Subeck says it would be disingenuous to say that we are doing this if not everyone agrees.
Cnare says next question is the process – do we want people in a corner, are all of us going to discuss this.
Rhodes-Conway asks about ccoc agenda
Cnare says ccoc, workgroup, there are other ways
The discuss more, they decide to work on it at CCOC
Palm says ccoc can’t add another meeting, and in April the members will change
Rhodes-Conway says they are overthinking this, if you care and show up, let’s move on
They do, watch for parts two and three.
