The most emotional item on the City Council’s agenda next Monday may be a reassessment of the precise responsibilities of City Hall advisory commissions that sometimes like to think of themselves as fiercely independent.
Councilman Andy Weissman explained the history of the process this morning.
A little more than two years ago, just before they were term-limited, former Councilmembers Steve Rose and Carol Gross brought a recommendation to their colleagues on the dais in Council Chambers.
“They suggested that that our commission structure conform to our new city manager-form of government,” approved by voters in 2006, Mr. Weissman said.
“But the suggestion by Carol and Steve was tabled at the time, mostly because the various commission representatives — and at the time I was one of them — were perturbed they were not part of the process. They were not aware of what the recommendations were, they said, and they did not have an opportunity to look at the recommendations.
“And so the usual complaints were made: ‘We didn’t know this was going to be on the agenda.’ ‘We haven’t had a chance to review it.’”
When a new edition of the City Council was installed in April 2008, the makeup was turned upside down because three of the five members were freshmen: Chris Armenta, Mehaul O’Leary and Mr. Weissman.
Holdover Councilman Gary Silbiger and Mr. Weissman were appointed to a sub-committee to study the advisory commissions. “We met at least three times with representatives of every commission, Civil Service, Parks and Recreation, Planning and Cultural Affairs,” Mr. Weissman said. “We have reached a point where recommendations will be coming forth, perhaps, as soon as Monday.
A Re-ordering of Bosses and Roles
“In addition to the subcommittee meeting with representatives of the commissions, the City Manager at the time, Mark Scott, also appeared before the Parks commission and the Civil Service Commission to give them his take on what the roles and responsibilities of commissions are.
“The problem for the Civil Service Commission, more than the Parks commission, is they are unwilling to recognize that under a city manager-form of government, the Council has little, if anything, to do with personnel. That is the City Manager’s responsibility. To the extent we are going to maintain a similar system, they are going to be reporting to the City Manager. Three members of the commission have a problem with this. One does not like the way the commission’s role is being circumscribed. The other two are concerned there is going to be a lack of City Council oversight, that the Council is going to be completely dependent upon the City Manager and only will know what the City Manager tells them.
“As a consequence, these two maintain, they need to be part of the process to keep the City Manager honest. They never used those words, but they think this is like the fox guarding the henhouse. I am not sure the Civil Service Commission is authorized to do what some of them want, to set up a kind of inspector general-type of position, an investigative authority. At a minimum, they want to have the opportunity to review personnel actions so they can determine whether there are any patterns, whether anything looks amiss so that they can advise the Council.
“Part of this goes back to a position taken by the City Attorney’s office. For decades, the Civil Service Commission would adjourn to Closed Session to review personnel actions and probationary reports. Nobody knows exactly how that came about. This was just something the Civil Service Commission always did, though there doesn’t seem to be any authority for it. Eventually, the City Attorney came to the conclusion that there is no legal basis to adjourn to Closed Session. It is not something the Government Code section permits.
“That is what set the Civil Service Commission off a couple years ago. All of a sudden, their role was to deal with discipline, appealed discipline and termination. They thought their role ought to be broader than that.
“What never happened, when the charter was approved four years ago, no one ever looked at or changed the civil service rules for the municipal code to conform the process to the city manager-form of government.
“That, essentially, is what this is about,” Mr. Weissman said. “The Council makes policy. The City Manager implements policy. We don’t involve ourselves in administration.
“Also, the Parks commission had to be redirected because they frequently liked to get themselves involved in administration. They want to weigh in on hours of the park, how many staff ought to be there, those kinds of things, which are less policy and more administrative.”
Fare Thee Well
It should not be overlooked that Monday’s Council meeting will be the final one for Interim City Manager Lamont Ewell, who concludes his unanimously commended four-month emergency assignment one week from Thursday, on July 29.
