Below are the members of all of our boards and commissions. Some of these are seats are appointed by the Council President. It's my understanding that our Council President gave each council member an opportunity to have a conversation about their interests, ideas, and availability. I met with him and we had a great conversation about what my role might be in various areas and what I had time for overall and my ability to learn about a topic. Others seats are council elected.
Ad hoc seats are all Council President appointed. From my experience these ad hoc committees give us a place to have conversations, they aren't agenda driven. The committee has a general "agenda" or a goal, and members come prepared with research, insight, information, ideas, and questions.
For example, the rental inspection committee. Each of us will be researching this topic, bringing in views from residents, from our own experience, and information about policies and the implications of decisions. All of this information comes together in a mess of dialogue that evolves as the we all share and listen. Then a few ideas rise to the service to be further looked into and considered. Each member goes back and gives these ideas more thought, consideration, and research.
Creating agendas and minutes and posting them are not always appropriate and certainly are more work on someone's desk. I'm not saying they are of value and I'm not saying that the cost of them is exorbitant. I am saying that collectively that work isn't always nominal either.
And getting a second opinion right now is perhaps, tho the quote was off the top of someone's head from a previous statement, I'm not sure we know they exact cost of that, but I'll surmise that it's probably not exorbitant either. What I'm looking at is the overall cost in time and finances when there isn't just cause at this moment for that expense (in time and dollars) at this moment. We have clarification from a previous council and the consensus from council members is that there isn't sufficient evidence at this time that we need to allocate staff time and city money in this direction right now.
If a council member has concerns about the committees a good place to start is to address his or her specific concerns with clear, collaborative, respectful, communication, probably starting with the Council President: Good skills for effective leadership.
