This was one of the great points of tension, they spent about 25 minutes on it, then kicked it to the Common Council Organizational Committee. Part one with audio links is here. By the way, the building is locked, you have to knock to get in and someone has to come let you in, not exactly an open meeting. Also, this is the only time Bruer speaks during the meeting voluntarily.
Lauren Cnare (I think?) says the issue is that Council members want to have control over what committees they are on.
Satya Rhodes-Conway says that what council job description is and our role on committee will determine this – she thinks job description is important – she has thoughts of who should be on committees, but can’t talk about this if she doesn’t know where the group is on those things – the question for who appoints alders to committees hinges on what is alders role on the committee.
Steve King asks if we just did this, wasn’t there a review of committees thing? A Schumacher discussion on who makes appointments.
Tim Bruer says that there was not discussion, the discussion was at the 10K foot level, he says the question is who is mayor of this body, are we in control of our destiny? Should the mayor determine the role of council? They didn’t have a political will at the time, there was even a discussion about looking at how many committees and overall framework of the city and do we need a mayor or professional manager or ceremonial mayor and we ran out of time. They have been discussing this for 30 years, this council is different, there is more of an appetite realizing changes taking place, to really look at us as an organizational structure and leadership, to have a legislative agenda. It is an issue of who is mayor and not, who chairs our meetings, is the council its own independent body or not? (NOTE: State law makes the Mayor a member of the Council and says that the Mayor should chair the meetings if present)
Mark Clear says Rhodes-Conway asked an interrupting question, lets deal with that
Bridget Maniaci says she is in favor of tabling and having a bigger discussion at a later date, wants to move on to alder job description
Larry Palm says either way, a line in the job description will say serve on committees as necessary, it won’t go into committee work
Rhodes-Conway says they need to be clear on our role on a committee, what is our responsibility to the committee and role to council
Palm asks if everyone is not on a committee
Rhodes-Conway says they need to know their job on the committee, some have different ideas
Sue Ellingson wants to hear more about the job description
Rhodes-Conway says that 3 big pieces of job description – constituent service, city policy, committee service. She thinks that there are multiple roles on committees, and some of more important one are the ones we should at least articulate – it should be their job to know Roberts Rules of Order, to know legistar and how things go through the city process, appointees and staff don’t know that often., we can bring the process knowledge role. We can also be a liaison between committee and council, if you are sitting on committees and they are having a big picture policy discussion or suggesting big changes to ordinances, we should make sure the council knows that, and make sure committee knows your sense of the council. If its an immediate thumbs down and they are not talking about it, or yes we are on board and they can forward and get it done – the committee should know that. And then participating in work of committee and discussion – if everyone agrees that is the role, then we can go forward, but we need to check that everyone agrees
Matt Phair says they should table the appointment thing, he would love to listen to that discussion, all that stuff at orientation was not discussed, we learned about the staff but not that.
Maniaci says that committees have different roles, some are project based (ALRC or Urban Design Commission) which is different than housing where there is a policy base, topic discussion or reviewing plans. We need to deal with our own house first before get into committee discussion, they are not equal and tasks and charges are different, how do we handles these committees?
Clear agrees with Rhodes-Conway
Paul Skidmore agrees with Rhodes-Conway, when he got on the council, that was how he looked at the priorities, we should table and move forward with job description (This might be the only time he speaks too)
Lauren Cnare says this is a simple question, who makes our appointments, we can talk about what we do when we get to committees, do we want us to appoint alders to committees, its yes or no. The mayor had come quite specifically to talk about hits issue, we do need to do the other discussion but this is s different question that could be knocked off.
Bruer says that issue has gone on for decades, lets argue we have an agenda and its different than the executive branch. It could be the Overture or policy, whatever, but there is a separation of powers, let’s be real, council has an agenda and policies and how does this work. The Executive Brank appoints the alders, there is a trail of dead bodies of alders on or not on committees and we should be concerned about that. Are we in fact in control of our own destiny or influenced by the executive authority. The mayor has the responsibility for department heads and we all know depending on who is mayor, that job can be different like the TIF Coordinator, it depends upon how staff responds to alders and the priorities. He has been on both sides of this, if political issues between alders and different areas of the city the executive has the muscle. Is the Council in control of its own destiny, should leadership be one or two year, the fact of the matter is that the reason they didn’t take it on was fear of intimidating the executive branch or our own inability to tackle it. He thinks this is the council that can accomplish it. The bigger discussion is a yes or no question – do we want to be in that role.
Bidar-Sielaff says that what is the role – do we take it over and do it, it is not the only thing we can do
Maniaci asks how long to get to yes or no?
Cnare thinks they can get it done in 20 minutes
Bidar-Sielaff says that haven’t responded to Rhodes-Conway about if discuss or not, but the logic of what goes first – can we respond to that, makes sense to her
They vote about moving forward and its a 8 – 7 vote
Clear says they are almost done with the discussion
Rhodes-Conway says they should just deal with it – she will defer to Cnare, and is hoping it will only be 15 minutes – but in order for it to be productive, she needs to hear what the alternative is, we know the status quo, convince me why we are talking about a change and what are the options> So we can get away from the big picture at 100K feet of the legislative branch vs the executive branch.
Maniaci says the council can take it on, Dave gave us a ranking sheet, we picked committees and he pieced it together, the good former alder form 20th was pulled off all committees for political purposes
Rhodes-Conway says she said she didn’t want to serve on them
Maniaci says that if they do it on the council, more in-house, there will be not a lot of acrimony that can happen.
Much uproarious laughter!!!!!!
Cnare is checking in with the mayor and whispering back and forth.
Palm says he had an issue with Cieslewicz, but he doesn’t trust this body would be better, we would have done the same to Pham-Remmele. Unless you have a policy of every alder get their top pick, its still political, still alder vs. alder, we are not then trudging into our own jungle of our own making. He says that even if you don’t like the committees you get, you still work with the mayor on citywide issues.
Bidar-Sielaff says that we have a discussion and ability – mostly discussion is with mayor’s office, whatever format – but it is that way. We have to have a discussion among us, even if the process is the same, sometimes I’d like to say you’d be good on this committee cuz of your skills, and we should create a process for the discussion. New alders, unless really involved, go into the committees blind. She is looking for ability to discuss among themselves to balance it out and see who wants what, if someone wants it really badly, maybe go to the mayor and say that is what she wants.
Weier favors the mayor making the appointments, how about some ground rules about number of appointments
Resnick says the ground rules are that we switch, that process has worked out, its a double edged sword, can have those discussions. As rookie alders he watched the other senior alder and their actions took precedent. Its different watching Mike at the Downtown Coordinating Committee or Mark at Economic Development Commision. That is how he determined his role and whatever packet they were talking about that they got when they were new, he never read or saw, if you want to continue writing it go ahead, but that is the truth. He is not saying Mike or Mark were wrong on how they guided that discussion, but how many years that would it take to correct that if they are wrong. It could have impact 4 – 6 years down the road
Sue Ellingson wants to hear from mayor
Mayor Paul Soglin says the mayor should make appointments, in making the appointments he sayse that for himself, there is a lot of balancing that needs to take place, for example, different parts of the city being represented, advantages of tenure and institutional knowledge vs. new people opportunity to serve, diversity in geography but also gender, race, etc,
Mike Verveer shows up – he was at the Bookless event at the library.
The mayor says that people trading, its fine except will it result in in balance, they try to accommodate everyone’s issue and look at citizen and other appointments to get balance
Cnare agrees with the mayor and they are important, any of those tenets could be followed by the council, trading is not that easy, there are plumb committee assignments and the committee no one wants, we have to negotiate with each other on issues, why not learn to negotiate about where you want to be at the committee level. We have the ability and it will enrich our relationships and will lead to greater discussion – the mayor’s office might ask who will be on the committee with you, we as a group should forward a slate of recommendations to the mayor. You know if it fits your schedule, we need to take stronger role, we are masters of our destiny, we can use the knowledge of each other, not about the mayor, maybe eliminate the trading that needs to go on.
Channel 27 shows up, but after they interview the Mayor and Cnare and find out they are not talking about Brian Solomon, they leave.
Lisa Subeck says that it all sounds lovely, but highly impractical, as a new alder, between the time elected and when appointed will we learn what we need to know to have that council discussion – some of us came in with knowledge of committees, but its very unrealistic to think we would make those decisions that don’t exclude newly elected first time alders
Rhodes-Conway agrees with balance, in her committees she learned things on committees she didn’t want to be on. We do, however need to think about new alder training, the info is about departments and not what our job is, she doesn’t care where end up, there are other more important things to talk about in committee structure – changing who makes the appointments won’t make a difference in the committees and a rationale process
Phair says that the elephant in he room is politics, if we do it, there will be politics and its not bad to say that out loud
Maniaci says she likes the Cnare compromise, we get first crack, and we have to approve it in the end and if it is out of line we will have the ultimate say. If new mayor, think about those two weeks to get your administration in place, they won’t need to chase us down too
Bruer says that 1000 pound gorilla will not be taken on, there was very much interest in this, this is not about Bauman, Cieslewicz or Soglin, he suggests that CCOC or a workgroup work on this. They are not only looking at what others do, and see what options and alternative are out there and come together with a framework and then with getting input and feedback, if you don’t think this is about politics, he has been on both sides of the sword, he has more faith in institution of council to vet the diversity and representation, that is where his vote is, he hopes that if agreement they can put time and energy into it to do this right, let us have the discussion, and let us move this forward so we can agree to itPart
Rhodes-Conway says we did this this already.
Bruer says they did not
Rhodes-Conway says we had a work group – we talked about it, we declined to take it up
Bruer say no, this is different, its a different feeling with different council, we talked about it and decided not to move forward
Weier asks for s straw poll
Maniaci doesn’t know what they are voting on
Bruer says take it to CCOC – that would be most constructive use of time and energy
They agree to do that.
Part three coming.
