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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAgenda Packet - 2009-12-16 Specialos LFK[ os Jti wfo CITY COUNCIL SPECIAL MEETING MINUTES December 16, 2009 CREGON Mayor Jack Hoffman called the special City Council meeting to order at 4:15 p.m. on December 16, 2009, in the City Council Chambers, 380 A Avenue. Present: Mayor Hoffman, Councilors Jordan, Hennagin, Moncrieff, Olson, Tierney and Johnson. Staff Present: Alex McIntyre, City Manager; David Powell, City Attorney; Robyn Christie, City Recorder 3. EXECUTIVE SESSION Mayor Hoffman recessed the meeting at 4:15 p.m. to Executive Session pursuant to ORS 192.660 (2)(i) for Charter Officer Evaluations. Mr. Powell reviewed the Executive Session parameters. 4. RETURN TO OPEN SESSION Mayor Hoffman reconvened the meeting at 6:25 p.m. Councilor Jordan moved the following Charter Officer compensation recommendations: City Attorney — 2% salary increase, $5,000 annual contribution to deferred compensation, $105 per month cell phone allowance, and ability to cash out up to four weeks of vacation; City Manager — 2% salary increase and an additional $1500 increase in annual deferred compensation for 2009 (pursuant to his contract); Municipal Court Judge — 2% salary increase. Councilor Johnson seconded the motion. A voice vote was taken, and the motion .passed, with Mayor Hoffman, Councilors Jordan, Hennagin, Moncrieff, Olson, Tierney and Johnson voting `aye.' [7-0] STUDY SESSION 5.1 Goal Setting Preparation Mr. McIntyre gave a PowerPoint presentation on what goals were and were not. He described a goal as providing leadership and direction for things above and beyond the baseline services. He spoke of a goal as setting an expectation or a standard that was not currently being met. He indicated that it had a definite time frame that was achievable and measurable. He commented that a goal stated an objective as opposed to a value or a philosophy. He indicated that while initiatives were often multi-year, goals fell within a year and set benchmarks for multi-year initiatives. He pointed out that goals set in a calendar year were typically funded on a fiscal year basis. He described the six-month gap in Lake Oswego between setting goals and funding them as an alignment problem that they needed to recognize and perhaps correct. He stated his strong belief that the City was a service organization; the only reason it existed was to provide services. He discussed the concept of the `baseline' in a service organization, or the services that the organization would provide, regardless of whether the Council set a goal to do that work or not. He listed several City services as examples of services that they provided because the community expected those services to be provided. City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 1 of 5 December 16, 2009 He discussed how that the baseline could change as the City added new services or products, such as economic development or the LOIS project. He pointed out that while economic development might never go away, the City would complete the LOIS project in two years. He discussed the concept of priorities and tradeoffs. He indicated that the City had sufficient resources coming in to do all the baseline work, but not much more. Therefore, adding anything new required a conversation about adding the resources to do the new work or deciding what to trade off and not do anymore in order to do the new work. He emphasized that while he could trade resources between departments, he could not trade employees, as a police officer could not do an engineer's work, and vice versa. He stated that the City had to be an organization that could balance its resources. He spoke of aligning the resources with the goal in order to achieve success. He emphasized accepting the idea that something had to fall off in order for something new to come on the list. He spoke of accepting the sacrifice in a trade off in order to complete the identified goal. He mentioned that the goal had to be doable, or something that staff could measure and achieve. He noted that his personal intent as City Manager was that staff would always provide a top quality product or service to the standard expected in Lake Oswego. He described success as definable. He mentioned that he did not see either sustainability or doing a budget as goals. Sustainability was a value or a philosophy that was not measurable, while doing the budget was part of the baseline. He noted that the Council could set budget goals or articulate sustainable efforts that were doable, achievable, and measurable. He reiterated that the baseline was work that the City would always do, such as quality public safety. He commented that providing that service cost money, and management would always keep an eye on providing the service as efficiently and expeditiously as possible, yet it was part of the baseline. He confirmed to Councilor Tierney that the Council could have a goal within a baseline service, such as creating a SWAT team or identifying initiatives and tasks associated with planning that the Council would like to accomplish. He reviewed the goal setting schedule that would culminate in the February 2010 Council adoption of its goals. COUNCIL DISCUSSION Councilor Jordan asked for a list of the baseline services. She commented that before the Council started talking about new initiatives, it would be interesting to see what the City was already doing and what the Council wanted it to keep doing. The Council could then identify what areas within the baseline services it wanted staff to focus on in the coming year. Councilor Olson concurred. She mentioned her discussions with Mayor Hoffman and Mr. McIntyre about working into goal setting a three -tiered system for evaluating City services. She gave an example of listing everything done in the Parks Department, and then identifying which items Ms. Gilmer would do no matter what, which items had a lower priority, and which items were no longer necessary and could be eliminated. She argued that the Council would need that kind of knowledge in order to make decisions on what had to give, if it intended to hold the line. She suggested considering a goal of holding steady with no net increases or new FTEs in light of the PERS situation. She mentioned her desire to discuss during goal setting this year the possibility of setting the Council goals and aligning them with the budget year, acknowledging that there would be a six month gap this year. But once the Council aligned the goals and the budget, then it could do goal setting differently next year. Mr. McIntyre brought up the idea of Council goals becoming rolling 18 -month goals, measured 18 months out from the time that the Council set them, rather than 12 months out. He mentioned the City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 2 of 5 December 16, 2009 issue of Council cycles. He wondered whether new Councilors would be willing to continue for six months the goals that they inherited from a previous Council. Councilor Olson commented that since a new Council always inherited work items from a previous Council (citing the LOIS project as a neutral example), she doubted that that would be an issue. Mayor Hoffman reviewed the goal suggestions that he heard from the Councilors. These included the Comprehensive Plan update, finding a solution to the West End Building that shifted it to the baseline, working on the Transportation System Plan or a Parks & Recreation plan, continuing to move forward with the streetcar in Foothills, and finishing secondary dwelling units, infill, and sensitive lands. He noted the resources available to the Council, such as property taxes, and fees and charges. He mentioned the issue of the $900,000 allocated to the library in 2009/2010. He commented that it was challenging to try to keep the same number of FTEs, and yet have all these planning efforts. Councilor Johnson raised the issue of meeting management. She argued that the Council could move through its goal setting meeting more efficiently and take less time than it normally took, especially with the framework provided by Mr. McIntyre. She suggested discussing the larger, policy -type issues, such as sustainability, financial policy, or meeting management in general, separately from specific Council goals. She spoke of perhaps holding the goals discussion on the first day, and the larger policy and philosophic Council issues discussion on the second day. She suggested setting time allotments for specific topics in order to make sure that the Council had time to discuss all the topics that it has been postponing to goal setting. Councilor Olson commented that that was a good idea, although she thought that if the Council could first agree on some philosophic positions, that might influence its goals. Councilor Tierney suggested keeping Mr. McIntyre's spot-on framework in mind during the January goal -setting. He asked what the Council wanted to do with respect to the Comprehensive Plan and sustainability, agreeing with Mr. McIntyre that they were not goals in and of themselves. He spoke to identifying outcomes for these sorts of activities that were initiatives rather than goals. He commented that while there was a lot going on, he did not think that the Council had many actual goals that were unique and met Mr. McIntyre's standards. He mentioned other activities, including initiatives that the staff might want to hear direction on, things that came up during the year as surprises, and housekeeping items, such as meeting management. In asking what steps the Council could take to do better in a given area, he used the Council's relationships with the Boards and Commissions as an example of something that the Council wanted to do better. Mayor Hoffman commented that in that example, the goal would be to improve relations with the Boards and Commissions. He defined that as all Council liaisons had to attend every Board or Commission meeting, or get their alternate to go. He mentioned other examples of goals, such as improving or repairing every pathway in Lake Oswego in two years or eradicating 80% of all non- native invasive species in every natural area in five years. He noted that those were also resource issues involving dollars, as opposed to the Boards and Commissions goal, which was a time issue for the volunteers. He commented that what he heard was that the Council should set a goal with metrics in order to measure success. Councilor Olson mentioned that while she did not know the dollar amount, she would like to see the City set an example by doing more restoration and improvement of its scenic and natural areas. Councilor Moncrieff agreed with Councilor Tierney's remarks. She indicated that she shared Councilor Olson's goal to maintain the City's open space, such as completing the Cook's Butte Phase 2 trail restoration for $75,000 and maintaining the two FTEs for natural open spaces. She wondered whether a measurable goal would be to have a sustainability expert evaluate every part of the Comprehensive Plan as part of the update, or to take into consideration green construction practices as part of the Community Development Code upgrade. City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 3 of 5 December 16, 2009 Councilor Jordan noted that the Council could decide that it wanted no net increase in FTEs for the next year, but it would then, in looking at different initiatives, have to consider the tradeoffs in current FTE work assignments. She commented that doing so would be a challenge, as the Council in the past has not considered those kinds of tradeoffs. She referenced the issue about inheriting things that a Councilor might not necessarily agree with or want. She recalled that the previous Council had not said that it wanted a LOIS team but rather it suggested that the best way to manage this major project would be to assign a group of staff to work only on the LOIS project. She pointed out that when the LOIS project finished up, that Council would inherit an FTE that could be used differently. Councilor Tierney commented that he did not think that the Council should discuss FTEs, but rather it should discuss resources. He argued that how something was accomplished was Mr. McIntyre's decision. Mr. McIntyre agreed that the Council needed to stop having the FTE conversation. Mr. McIntyre agreed with Councilor Olson that a more appropriate discussion in a goal setting context would be broad financial goals, such as did the Council touch the reserves, did the Council want to budget half the PERS expense next year to even out the impact on the budget, or did the Council want to hold steady and not do something if it added something else. Mayor Hoffman commented that the Council could say that it wanted a full effort on the Comprehensive Plan update; it then fell to Mr. McIntyre to say how the City would accomplish that. Mr. McIntyre concurred. He explained that it was not a question of a warm body doing the work, but rather it was a question of the cost for that warm body to come and do the work. He emphasized that it was not about FTEs, but rather what services did the Council want, and at what level. He commented that he could lay out options for investing resources in order to achieve a desired service level, yet ultimately it was up to the Council to approve any staff recommendation. He expressed his hope that the Council would trust staff enough to manage the organization and to look for the best way of providing the service. He commented that Councilor Tierney's question was asking if there was another way to provide the service that did not look like an FTE. He remarked that he struggled with staff to quit using the FTE language, as it was not about bodies; it was about getting the work done. Councilor Johnson reiterated the need to make sure that they effectively managed the goal setting meeting. She suggested that all Council members give any specific goals to Mayor Hoffman and Mr. McIntyre a couple of weeks in advance of goal setting in order to receive staff feedback on them and to improve the meeting productivity. She spoke of organizing the meeting into sections discussing one topic at a time, such as financial policy, completing the discussion of the specific topic, and then moving on. Mr. McIntyre informed the Council that the department heads team would attend the Friday meeting to serve as a resource, but he was not asking them to attend the Saturday meeting. He encouraged the Council to send him their thoughts or comments about specific goals as part of initiating a dialog about the goal, including figuring out the metrics for measuring its success by December 31. He indicated that he needed to hear loud and clear from the Council whether it was willing to look at the sacrifices involved in tradeoffs, and about whether staff could suspend certain efforts in certain areas. He referenced his conversations with Council members individually about his intent to present a revolutionary recommendation at goal setting regarding a suspension of most planning initiatives in light of the upcoming Comprehensive Plan update. He spoke to re -phrasing the terminology around the update from something that the City was legally required to do to asking what the community would look like in five years. He said that he needed to hear from the Council about what it was willing to stop for a while and what it was not willing to stop because that would lay the groundwork for moving forward on other initiatives. City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 4 of 5 December 16, 2009 Councilor Olson commented that the Council needed the baseline list in order to determine if there was staff work or services that it could suspend if it set a financial goal of not increasing the budget or using reserves. Mr. McIntyre indicated to Councilor Olson that he needed to know where the Council was drawing those lines in order to know where he had flexibility. He gave an example of if the Council took on a broader new initiative in planning but it did not want to suspend any planning work, then he had to find general fund resources somewhere else to fund the initiative. This meant squeezing one of the departments funded by the general fund. He reiterated that he could not interchange employees; he would have to lay off, for example, a finance person in order to hire a new planning person, or he could shift Planning priorities and re- assign planners from work that no longer needed to be done to the new initiative. He emphasized that that was the tradeoff concept that achieved the net zero cost. He said that he would keep the Council informed. Mayor Hoffman indicated that it would be fine for Mr. McIntyre to talk to Council members one-on-one about the balance that the Council wanted to see. 4. ADJOURNMENT Mayor Hoffman adjourned the meeting at 7:10 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Robyn &risiie City Recorder APPROVED BY THE CITY COUNCIL: ON J,-muary 26. 2010 Jack D. ffman, Mayor City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 5 of 5 December 16, 2009 CITY COUNCIL SPECIAL MEETING AGENDA Wednesday, December 16, 2009 4:00-7:00 p.m. Council Chambers 2009 City Council City Hall Jack Hoffman, Mayor 380 A Avenue Donna Jordan, Council President Roger Hennagin Also published on the internet at: ci.oswego.or.us Kristin Johnson Contact: Robyn Christie, City Recorder Mary Olson E -Mail: rhristie@ci.oswego.or.us Sally Moncrieff Phone: 503-675-3984 Bill Tierney The meeting location is accessible to persons with disabilities. To request accommodations, please contact Public Affairs at 503-635-0236, 48 hours before the meeting. 1. CALL TO ORDER 2. ROLL CALL 3. EXECUTIVE SESSION (4-6 p.m.) Pursuant to ORS 192.660 (2)(i) for Charter Officer Evaluations 4. RETURN TO OPEN SESSION 5. 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