First, in establishing each of these commissions, the Council enacted ordinances that specified that the commission would act as an “advisory body” to the Council on matters within their purview. This means that the commissions are intended to provide a channel of communication and advice not simply rubber stamp the views of staff or consultants. They are charged with providing that advice to the Council, not staff, not a department head, not to the Office of the City Manager but to the Council.

The Commissioners are told in the city’s Commissioner’s Handbook that they should think of themselves as “the eyes and ears of the City Council” and to advise the Council after in-depth discussions at meetings where public input is encouraged.

Second, each commission has a staff liaison who, in consultation with the Commission chair, creates the agenda for Commission meetings. This means that the Commission chair has an important if not dispositive role and, for example, may object if staff suggests that an agenda item is for “discussion purposes only” (which insures that nothing will result) and insist that, where appropriate in their judgment, items be for direction and recommendation to Council.

Finally, the role of the staff liaison is to provide “administrative support”. That means that the staff liaison support, not direct or control the work of the commission.

In current practice, some commissions do not fulfill this advisor to the Council role. Staff tends to control both the agendas and functioning of our commissions which often precludes any independent voice or channel of communication. In practice, commission advice is stifled. Unfortunately, through inertia or feeling of powerlessness, the commissions simply let this happen.

As a result, the commissions do not fulfill their proper role. Members of the commissions often are frustrated and become disaffected so neither the purpose of generating knowledgeable advice nor the purpose of creating a feeling of engagement is accomplished.

I have two suggestions for improvement.

First, the commission chairs should be more aggressive in providing input for their meeting agendas to ensure time for meaningful discussion and to permit discussion of advice and direction, not only discussion. In short, put their big boy or big girl pants on and insist on taking an appropriate level of control.

Second, at the initiative of either a commission or the Council, commissions should provide advice in the form of written reports on appropriate subjects or issues to the Council. Solely by way of example, the Public Works Commission could provide a report regarding the status of the Cabrillo “reservoir”; the Traffic & Parking Commission could provide a report on the “permit parking” program. These reports could be drafted by an ad hoc committee of commissioners, not staff, and then submitted to the full commission for discussion and approval before submission to the Council.

At present, too few residents are applying for open Commission positions. I suspect that changing the operations in practice of the commissions to make service more meaningful will attract more applicants.

What do you think?

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Neighborhood “Associations”

I have often felt that one of the things that has been missing from discussions of significant projects is meaningful and accurate input of a true sense of the residents of various neighborhoods over things that affect the neighborhood directly.

From time to time, issues arise that stimulate somewhat uniform comment from a substantial number of concerned residents. But what we do not have are truly representative associations that study issues of special concern to the group. We do not have neighborhood associations that have substantial memberships, perhaps charging nominal dues, that elect a leadership and then formulate positions that represent a true consensus. Instead, what we have is self-appointed individuals or small groups who purport, without any principled basis, to speak for a large number of residents. Often, these self-appointed “leaders” come to Commission or City Council meetings and ask for substantial additional time to make their views known. Generally, these requests are denied in part because there is no way to determine that these individuals speak for anyone other than themselves.

Notably our councilmembers are elected at large, not by districts. This is entirely appropriate for a small city that does not have diverse groups where a small majority could control or diminish the impact of distinct minorities. Our current councilmembers are from the “Flats”, the Hillside and the Southeast so not every area is covered.

There are times when the special concerns and knowledge of residents of a particular neighborhood would be valuable input into Commission’s or Council’s decisions.

It seems to me that there is a better way than to have nothing more than the voices of self-appointed individuals whose “association” meetings occur in front of their own bathroom mirrors.

OK, call me “pollyanna” but hear me out.

That is, that residents of various areas of the City, from Trousdale to the Southwest get together and create truly representative associations that can form and communicate a consensus on behalf of the residents of their area.

If the Commissions would play their intended roles and if we had truly representative neighborhood associations, we would have a better informed Council. And that would be a good thing.