City Council “agenda setting”
City Council’s long-awaited “agenda setting” retreat (the sequel to the abandoned “visioning” process) is tomorrow morning (Saturday, July 19) from 8 am to 1 pm, at the Municipal Services Center.
Like all City Council meetings and work sessions, this is a public meeting; I have no idea how much “public” we will see.
We’ve been getting a lot of input from citizens who have ideas about what the City’s agenda should be, and I hope we’ll have time to discuss those ideas (plus ideas of our own). The agenda looks like it might be heavy on facilitation and DVDs, and a bit light on interaction (I do hope I’m wrong about that):
8:00: Welcome and Opening Comments
8:15: Introduction: Who Raised the Bar? Driving forces Creating the Turbulence. Sandy S. (facilitator)
8:45: Feedback from Council…Emerging Themes from Council Input {Open Discussion}
Break:
9:30: Group Decision Making Process and “The Abilene Paradox” brief DVD
10:00: The Growth Curve…a model for understanding the stages and phases of change as applied to:
• The Community
• City Staff
• City Council Leaders
Group discussion on “where we are” before discussing “where we are going.”
11:00: Break
11:15: Leaders as Change Agents “Mission Critical” DVD Lessons from NASA for Oak Ridge {Group Discussion}
12:00 Lunch
12:45: Where do we go from here?
• Remaining focused amidst 27,000 customers
• Determining our priorities
UPDATE (August 11, 2008):
We’ve had two agenda-setting sessions now (the one on July 19 was followed by a second session on August 2), and we’re still not where people wanted to be (another session will be scheduled), but progress has been made.
One thing that Council members seem to agree on is that we don’t have nearly enough opportunities to discuss. Open meetings laws prevent deliberation on city business outside of announced meetings and work sessions, and interactions during formal meetings and work sessions are inhibited by various factors. At meetings those inhibiting factors include long agendas, parliamentary procedure, the physical layout of the courtroom where Council meets, and the presence of TV cameras. At work sessions, interaction is limited due to the fact that most of the scheduled time is devoted to formal presentations — there’s seldom enough time for everyone to ask all of their questions about the topic, much less discuss it among ourselves.
As a result of the realization that we all want more discussion, in October we will try out a new procedure of having a pre-meeting work session (Mayor Tom Beehan is calling it a “caucus”) one week before the regular meeting to discuss the items on the agenda for the following week’s meeting. The first such session is scheduled for October 13, 2008, one week before the October 20th meeting.
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Is something more going to come out of extra discussion? What citizens hear many times are the discussions of what interests them at that time.
This extra work by city staff and the city manager can be costly yet could be a breakaway for garnering more public interest. I would hope discussion can create better decisions, but I’m betting many decisions are already made before discussion. I just do not see many open minds on our council. For example; CDBG being used to pay for dog parks and not a Senior Center, building a high school in the center of town where we want retail business, chasing citizens out of their respected spaces to expand local government, and installing cameras under a city cloak of safety.
Some things are worth discussing in our city, but only outsiders are allowed to speak.
Comment by Ray Kircher — August 13, 2008 @ 9:15 pm
I think that extra discussion by City Council will be beneficial. As things stand right now, Council seldom has any discussion of an issue before the meeting where we are asked to vote on it. Under the prevailing interpretation of the open meetings law, two or more Council members cannot talk about a matter of city business outside of a public meeting (meaning that the meeting has been scheduled and announced at least 48 hours in advance). The effect of that is that we don’t talk with each other about most issues before Council meetings, although we might individually discuss the issue with the city manager, other staff, and numerous individual citizens. By the time Council meets to vote, Council members’ minds are usually made up, so it’s too late for discussion to have much of an impact. If we meet a week before the meeting to talk about the topics on the agenda, I think there will be much more genuine deliberation than occurs now.
I don’t know what you mean about “CDBG being used to pay for dog parks and not a Senior Center.” Oak Ridge’s Community Development Block Grant funds currently are mostly allocated to (1) housing rehabilitation and (2) paying off the bonds that were used for expansion of the Scarboro Community Center. I don’t know much about the proposed dog park, but I think it was going to be paid for by private donations and membership fees. I don’t believe a project like that would even be eligible for CDBG funding.
As for building a high school in the center of town, that’s where the high school has been since 1951…
Comment by Ellen Smith — August 16, 2008 @ 6:51 pm
A work in progress, I hope you see that also about our city council.
What it represents and how budgets get so large making tax payer funded projects hidden with a simple title. I hope this discussion can clear what our city is paying in community projects. I bring in the Senior Center because CDBG is a source of funding for our Senior Center. The CDBG is now a debt repayment tool and the mayor’s funding for Highland View while the whole city is using more in sub recipient programs. Where does that go? Is there an overlap of this program? Including with this grant is a codes enforcement office. That is surely an overlap if the grant is used to correct blighted homes. Surely we can be using this grant for what it is intended for, and not paying for issues that current property owners should be doing. Basically this grant is being used to make some citizens happy our city is doing something about the blight, but in reality these people are putting back the same type of prospect community, low income. A restructuring of the CDBG is needed and must include a Senior Center if we are to break this animosity city council thinks they are hearing.
AS for the high school, in a city where retail is important, our city center is filled with city owned property. Not exactly what I call a business friendly city. Now if a deal was struck, ultimate hindsight never selling the property to Nat Revis and using it for city structures like a high school), we would have a city center property that would have sold for a much larger price tag than what Nat was asking for his property with a city bond going to the high school and not to the developer. Of course, it is all water under the bridge now, but thinking of business is not like thinking of what is needed for our citizens. Businesses will always pay less for something they really don’t want, and they will always pay more if it is in competition for market share. This thought model should never be brought into city capital funds.
I do not believe our previous council members ever thought of business first, and now that city center is filled with city buildings, we are going to have to pay more for a location even the businesses believe to be inconvenient; this leads to the next goal our city should be looking at: new single family homes located in an annexed area like Claxton or Oliver Springs, out East beyond the train tracks or in the strip of land behind the warehouses, or out West where flood plains and sinkholes make building interesting and costly.
We can get out of this business crunch, but it takes citizens to open the eyes of businesses, not free money like using city bonds to bring in a retail store where our high school could have been built to benefit our city.
Comment by Ray Kircher — August 17, 2008 @ 11:58 am
A correction in response to just one of your points, Ray:
The city is not using any CDBG funds to support the senior center. Some communities do use Community Development Block Grants for senior centers, but Oak Ridge is not using CDBG money for that purpose.
Comment by Ellen Smith — August 17, 2008 @ 1:27 pm
Yes, I have seen the CDBG budget. It is partly being used to cover debt for the Scarboro Community Center. The rest of the fund overlaps itself. And the Sub Recipient portion $45,000 is unlisted as what it is used for.
The Highland View portion of the CDBG is $35,000. And that is where single family homeowners can take a grant of up to $2400 for home repairs. That would be nice if $2400 can do anything these days, and many homes in Highland View do not qualify for this help because of a mother/daughter home style situation. Is this a real effort for our city?
$68,000 is used for a codes enforcement officer, doesn’t this position already have an office in our city? Are we using this fund to cover city costs, and not help low or fixed income citizens? Do many of these codes really need to be enforced by this fund?
There is a lot of overlap that I see in our CDBG, and there is a large portion of low/fixed income citizens who could use the help of the CDBG funds. These citizens are our largest population by age; they are our senior population.
What is confusing about the CDBG is that it isn’t working for what it was intended for, our low/fixed income population who already live here. It is being used to build more low income homes that replaced low income homes. How is that progress? We are inviting more and more young low/fixed income citizens while disregarding a population of older low/fixed income citizens who already exist here?
I cannot help to believe that when discussion of the CDBG is presented, an overtone that it must be used to fix blighted areas is present. Well for one, I am tired of hearing the city needs to fix blighted homes. That is the homeowners’ responsibility, and the city can help by allowing many projects and not burdening them with delays. What action can be brought about TIFs for residents who completely remodel their primary residence?
I hear continually the businesses that exist here are having trouble with upgrading or promoting their business because of city ordinance. Maybe we need to change our ordinances to fix our blighted state of homes and businesses. At today’s costs, no grant will fix someone else’s or our city’s problems.
Comment by Ray Kircher — August 18, 2008 @ 2:31 am