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HomeMy WebLinkAboutApproved Minutes - 2009-04-20 Specialj4i CITY COUNCIL SPECIAL MEETING MINUTES April 20, 2009 Mayor Jack Hoffman called the special City Council meeting to order at 4:35 p.m. on April 20, 2009, in the West End Building, Santiam Room, 4101 Kruse Way Present: Mayor Hoffman, Councilors Jordan, Hennagin, Olson, Moncrieff, and Tierney. Councilor Johnson was excused. Staff Present: Alex McIntyre, City Manager; David Powell, City Attorney; Robyn Christie, City Recorder; Jane Heisler, LOIS Communications Director; David Donaldson, Asst City Manager; Jordan Wheeler, Management Analyst. 3. STUDY SESSION 3.1 Building Trust through Public Engagement — Dr. Henry "Budd" Kass Mayor Hoffman introduced Dr. Budd Kass, professor emeritus from Portland State University. Dr. Kass gave a PowerPoint presentation. He recounted an anecdote illustrating the role that customer service could play in causing someone to lose his/her confidence in government. He discussed the stakes of the game, which were trust and confidence in government. He explained that the basis of trust or confidence in the government was 'positive reliability,' which meant that one could count on the government, period. He recounted an anecdote from his own experience, in which the Lake Oswego Police Department handled an emotional and confrontational situation superbly, as he had expected them to do. He pointed out a paradox: the more reliable that someone was, the less anyone appreciated it. He observed that reliable people did not get kudos, even though being reliable provided the foundational basis for service. He held that the highest compliment someone in public service could receive was that he/she had been reliable. He cited examples of governmental corruption and lack of reliability in other parts of the world to illustrate the importance of reliability. He said that the public relied on the government to do the things that it could not do, did not want to do, or did not do as well. He mentioned the dispute over what fell into those categories. He indicated that in looking at the history of government, the two fundamental things that people wanted from government were security and citizen autonomy. He commented that given that expectation, it was astonishing how few governments actually provided security. He described the Chinese Empire, the Roman Empire, Britain and other European countries as remarkable because their citizens could count on law and order. He noted that people would give up a great deal for security; the more insecure a government became, the more people would go to any lengths to secure their security, including giving up many freedoms. He discussed how the concept of individual autonomy, or making one's decisions for oneself, instead of allowing the government or the church do so, rose up in the middle end of the 17th century and changed the face of the world. He pointed out that the founding fathers of the United States, being aware of England's struggles, put in the autonomy of the citizens as one of the most important features of the Constitution and attached the Bill of Rights. City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 1 of 9 April 20, 2009 He observed that Americans liked the idea of autonomy because of their heavily individualistic view of people. He cited his dislike of the Mountain Park Homeowners Association ordering him to address a situation on his private property as evidence of this preference for autonomy. He indicated that a high expectation of autonomy led to a libertarian government, which also meant giving up a good deal of security. He gave an example of wanting one's home protected by the police but not intrusive policing. He noted that a high expectation of security led to a willingness to give up rights and freedoms. He pointed out that autonomy taken to the extreme led to anarchy, while security taken to the extreme led to a totalitarian state. He commented that officials trying to build trust and confidence in their government had to deal with finding a balance between those two concepts, which was not easy. He observed that in America, the people wanted a socially secured autonomy. Since the government delivered that the people have come to expect that they would have security and the maximum possible room to make their own decisions and do what they want to do. He pointed out that this created an incredible tension. He commented that it was better to live with that tension than to have chaos or a prison state. He indicated that if a government failed to maintain a healthy tension between those two poles, then the people lost trust and confidence in the government. He mentioned the failed state, which had neither security nor autonomy. He defined three terms: confidence, trust, and calculation. He defined confidence as relying upon someone or something as a matter of course. He defined trust as involving taking a risk. He used the Bernie Maddoff scheme as an example. He explained that Mr. Maddoff built the confidence of his early investors by delivering on his promise of a high financial return for their investment. Later investors took the word of people they trusted that this was a good investment, and risked their money in investing with Mr. Maddoff. He pointed out that those who had had confidence in Mr. Maddoff were lost and 'freaked out' upon the exposure of the scheme. Their world had turned upside down. If the general populace lost confidence in the City, then that was a profound failure in reliability. He commented that the City of Lake Oswego has done the opposite in building a solid foundation of confidence on the part of its citizens. He commented that the person who had trusted the advice of an individual regarding investing with Mr. Maddoff got mad at himself for taking the risk. He explained that trust came in when someone wanted to do something new or change course or there was a problem, and he/she had to take a risk on someone. He gave an example of confidence in business: it was based on the fact that the business has always delivered its product. He noted that risk came in expanding the business or trying a new product. He said that the same was true at the City. When the Council took on a new initiative or made changes in its current procedures, the people took a risk. He pointed out that when people said that they did not trust the government, they usually meant that they did not trust a particular unit of the government, as opposed to rejecting the City as a whole. He commented that trust was crucial because it provided the opportunity and the possibility to get support for change. He defined calculation as determining the cost benefit in a potential relationship with someone in whom a person did not have confidence and did not trust. He commented that while almost all governmental decisions should be made on this basis, the reality was that that took time that was not available and effort that most citizens were not willing to make. Consequently, governments fell back on trust. He discussed what happened in a situation of distrust, in which the citizens had inadequate confidence in the government, were not willing to risk trusting the government, and would not bother calculating the government's reliability. He described distrust strategies, such as close monitoring, constraining regulations, and contract management. He pointed out that citizens City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 2 of 9 April 20, 2009 became resentful when they had to spend a lot of time (that they did not want to spend) monitoring the government. He indicated that there were three reactions in a situation of having to rely on a totally unreliable government. The first was powerless and faithless. He gave an example of a business owner concluding that all the cops in town were crooks and keeping a shotgun behind the counter as his remedy. The second was powerless and cynicism, that the cops never saw anyone doing anything wrong. The third was corruption, someone taking advantage of corrupt cops to bribe the cops to look the other way. He emphasized that distrust was a serious situation. He described how distrust in just one department was tantamount to a cancer that could spread throughout the whole government. He recounted an anecdote of a county government that he had worked with once, in which a county commissioner told a building inspector to leave certain contractors alone. Eventually the rot spread throughout the organization. He discussed how a government lost trust and confidence. He asked the Council members to write down one instance in the last five or ten years in which he/she lost trust in the government. Councilor Olson mentioned losing trust in the prior City Council of Lake Oswego when it bought the Safeco building. She explained that she lost trust because of the process that was used, in which they suspended their own financial policies to accomplish the purchase, and they did not ask the people for a vote until two years after the fact. Councilor Jordan mentioned losing trust in the federal government when it went to war in Iraq for less than honest reasons. She indicated that the reasons were manufactured. Dr. Kass mentioned that transparency went along with honesty. Councilor Jordan indicated that she had felt ashamed when it came out that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. She said that it did not feel like the government with which she had grown up. Councilor Hennagin recounted an anecdote in which a City employee in another state gave his daughter misinformation, which resulted in her not being able to go on a vacation. Dr. Kass commented that misinformation was difficult because it was easy for government employees to lose track of, not understand, or never have been told about changes in policies, when dealing with a complex body of law and regulations. He pointed out that the community development department in any city suffered from misinformation more than other department because of the complex nature of community development laws and regulations. He asked what common threads the Council members saw in these examples. Councilor Hennagin mentioned lack of confidence. Dr. Kass pointed out that only one example logically led to lack of confidence: Councilor Jordan's statement that the government did not feel like the government with which she grew up. He recounted an anecdote of his father having lost confidence in the stock market during the Great Depression, and refusing to invest in it ever again. Councilor Jordan observed that an action like suspending the financial procedures sent up flags to people. Dr. Kass discussed the distrust strategy that governments used. He said that an important paradox was that distrust strategies gave a 'safe place' in which to build trust with citizens. He indicated that 'procedures' were one thing that provided that 'safe place.' He acknowledged that citizens often found procedures cumbersome; yet, procedures provided certainty that a government could not do something because it was the law. Dr. Kass stated that if a government intended to suspend procedures, which it might have to do upon occasion, it was important to tell people why it was doing so. Councilor Tierney commented that not asking for a vote at once might indicate fear on the part of the decision makers. Dr. Kass concurred. He pointed out that often Oregon state legislators used the direct referendum to send things to the people for a vote that they really should decide on, since that was why they were elected. City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 3 of 9 April 20, 2009 Dr. Kass commented that if not asking for a vote was a significant departure from Council action in the past, and from how it intended to operate in the future, but it had been something that it had to do in that situation, then the Council would be well advised to engage the public in an interactive way. He spoke of the City cutting down the misinformation quota as much as possible. He reiterated that the Community Development Department would find this the most difficult, but other departments could make major strides in that area. He distributed a handout with suggestions about how to deal with loss of trust in government. He acknowledged that many of the suggestions were common sense, but pointed out that people needed reminders during the heat of battle. He referenced the Safeco Building. He recalled that many years ago, a City Council was excoriated for failing to buy a large amount of lakefront property on State Street; it had not wanted to take the property off the tax rolls. He commented that only time would tell whether the Council that purchased the Safeco building would be excoriated or seen as prophets in their own country. He reviewed the questions to ask before deciding to act on important matters. He stated that the Council could obviate over 60% of issues by asking these questions before taking action. He noted that government operated under two kinds of conditions: a need to make rapid decisions, and an allowance for reflection. He commented that government has become more flexible in the past 10 years because people were tired of the rigidity of a government bound by bureaucratic red tape. He suggested pre -identifying conditions in which the Council might have to take rapid action, and establishing procedures to make those decisions transparent, justifiable, and bounded by the limits of the Council's legal power to act. He spoke to involving citizens interactively in the process for reflective decisions. He spoke of the importance of the processes of decision and the results being transparent. Was information concerning the processes and decision conveniently accessible to citizens and without great cost? Another question was whether it was clear who was responsible for decisions, as well as when and how they would be made. Was that information available to citizens and understandable to the layperson? He posed another question: was the information factual? He discussed the difficulties with employees keeping up to date on the voluminous amount of information. He mentioned another scenario in which an employee/official told only part of the truth, which raised the question of whether the government was telling all the truth. He asked whether the actions under consideration were within the legal powers of the City. He observed that 99% of citizens did not understand that there were limitations on City government because it was a non -sovereign government that functioned as an agent of the state. Therefore, Salem dictated much of what the City told people, and Washington, D.C., through its funding initiatives, dictated much of what Salem told the local governments. He emphasized the importance of making it clear that the local government was not sovereign. He asked whether the City was promising more than it could deliver. He encouraged curbing enthusiasm without preventing people from exercising leadership and innovation. He emphasized the importance of making a sober judgment about what the City could and could not do. He cited NASA's failed Explorer program as an example of overpromising a product. He suggested overdelivering instead of overpromising. He reviewed the questions to ask as the City took action. Was the City monitoring the action appropriately? He indicated that asking whether they were making the City's actions as transparent as possible to the citizens involved was a crucial question to ask every day about the action in progress. He stated another critical question of whether the affected citizens were appropriately involved in an implementation process. City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 4 of 9 April 20, 2009 He asked if the City was walking its talk. If it said something, was the statement true? Was it doing the action stated? Was everybody on board with the action? He cited Portland's difficulties with community policing as an example of not walking the talk. While the mayor and police chief thought it was a great idea, they had failed to convince the troops. He discussed strategies when things went wrong. He recalled the advice that a brilliant public information officer with whom he had worked gave to an urban renewal agency when something went wrong: He told them to find out what went wrong, bring it to the public's attention as quickly as possible, state clearly what action the agency was taking to remedy the problem, and take the action as promised. He posed the question of why did the government not do more. He cited fear of the public's reaction as a major cause of government inaction. He recounted the story of a large agency in Washington State that mishandled how it dealt with an abusive manager in not removing her permanently from her position, which resulted in a court case and a huge black eye for the State. When asked why they did not take appropriate action immediately, the agency officials first pled the political situation (the manager was well-connected to one of the political parties), and then fear of getting even more bad publicity. He emphasized that when mistakes happened, intentional or unintentional, the City's image would inevitably be hurt. Since the newspapers would find out about it eventually, trying to cover it up was not the way to go. Although it was tough to do, the best strategy was that public information official's advice. He discussed building confidence and trust when a government did not have it or lost it. He mentioned instituting distrust strategies to create a safe place for interaction with those who have lost trust and/or confidence. He indicated that creating a safe place offered the City two opportunities: the City could be reliable and it could be transparent. He indicated that the last question dealt with consistent application of action, which was difficult in the middle of today's turbulent environment. COUNCIL QUESTIONS Councilor Tierney asked how 'the common good' worked with autonomy and security. Dr. Kass defined 'autonomy' as self-interest narrowly defined, or each individual looking out for him/herself. If everyone looked out after him/herself, then the thought was that the market would make everything turn out fine. He defined the 'community good' as subordinating oneself and one's interests to the community, because one would not be a human being without community. He pointed out that either concept could be taken to the extreme. He referenced Alexis de Toqueville's observation of 1840s America: while the populace was very individualistic and desirous of their own autonomy, America had far more cooperative activities than occurred in Europe. Mr. de Toqueville decided that the reason was that Americans had discovered self-interest, rightly defined, which Dr. Kass considered the middle ground. Dr. Kass described this concept as yes, one looked after one's self-interest, yet the fact was that if the majority of people around an individual were not doing well, then that individual would not do well either. Therefore, it made sense to make sure that one's self-interest was tied to the community's self-interest. If necessary one modified one's self-interest for the community's welfare, because if the community went down, so did the individual. Consequently, the City needed to show citizens how the good of the community was tied to their personal self-interest. Councilor Hennagin referenced Dr. Kass' opening remarks about the tension between wanting security and wanting autonomy. He mentioned the e-mails that a Rotary member was sending back from Iraq describing the current situation and how different it was from when he had lived there. Today the e-mail talked about the people who would go back to a dictatorship in order to have the security that would provide. He commented that that thought was anathema to City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 5 of 9 April 20, 2009 Americans. Dr. Kass agreed that the idea was hard for Americans to understand, yet, it was not hard to understand in a country with an unreliable government. Councilor Hennagin recalled that many Americans were willing to give up freedoms following 9- 11 in exchange for government protection, yet he questioned whether any government could actually provide protection against that sort of infiltration. Dr. Kass commented that a government always had to maintain the tension. He said that James Madison built that tension into the U.S. Constitution because he understood the dynamic and the healthy benefit of having unresolved tensions. He clarified that he did not mean the tensions leading to civil strife, but rather the tensions leading to people getting together to resolve an issue. He commented that both a 'communitarian' government (Karl Marx) and a 'do your own thing government' (Ayn Rand) were disastrous socially. He pointed out that the raison d'etre of the American form of government was to allow individuals the freedom to achieve their own goals. If individuals did their own thing with a total disregard for everybody else, such as occurred on Wall Street, destruction occurred. He stated that the Council's goal was to manage that tension in this town, in this place, in this time, and to do it the best that it could. Councilor Jordan spoke of the importance of a free press to the survival of democracy, especially investigative journalism. She mentioned the sentence 'why search for the truth when you can create it?' She noted that in today's age of information, people did their own research in making decisions on how to vote, but there was a question regarding the reliability of that information. Dr. Kass agreed that the loss of investigative journalism was a problem. He commented that they have not yet found an institution that would play the role that the best of the press could play, which was as a body of individuals that sent out investigators who could be experts in a given field. He cited an example of a reporter at the Washington Post who had been a national expert on urban renewal. He noted that as papers were unable to pay for those people anymore, the country was losing that capacity. He pointed out that the Lake Oswego Review could no longer do the coverage of City Hall that it used to do. He noted that there were people online who tried to fill that fact -checking role, but that information was not as readily accessible as it was in a newspaper. Mayor Hoffman thanked Dr. Kass for his presentation. He presented him with a gift certificate to Tucchi's as a token of the Council's appreciation. Dr. Kass thanked the Mayor. 3.2 Public Communication and Engagement Council goal Ms. Heisler gave a PowerPoint presentation. She reviewed the Council's communication goal: Develop and utilize effective communication tools and programs to enhance public engagement. She mentioned that the staff committee, comprised of herself, David Donaldson, Robyn Christie, and Jordan Wheeler, spoke with each Council member in order to discuss a list of questions. She described staff's current methods of public communication as involving three levels: providing information through a variety of venues, consulting with the public by listening to their opinions, and allowing the public to inform a decision through workshops or citizen committees. She noted that the vast majority of the City's public communication was at the information level. She reviewed the Council member comments. Several mentioned transparency and accessibility of government, and all mentioned eliminating the Tuesday morning meeting and starting the Council meetings at a slightly later time. Other comments included starting community round tables, offering citizens more time to speak, setting up Council member offices at City Hall, and attending venues where many people gathered, such as the Farmers' Market and the concerts. City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 6 of 9 April 20, 2009 She noted the comment to stop public hearings. She indicated that staff heard few comments about sustainable ways to communication, other than the possibility of stopping the hardcopy Hello LO newsletter in the future. Ms. Christie reviewed engagement activities that staff began doing this year. She described how the shift from a paper LO Down format to an electronic format allowed staff to provide information on upcoming events, instead of simply reporting on what had happened. She mentioned the community roundtables and televising more Council meetings, including the study sessions live. She said that beginning tomorrow, there would be streaming video on the website. She indicated to Councilor Jordan that staff has not yet publicized that the study sessions would be on Channel 21, as opposed to Channel 28, because they still needed to iron out details. She indicated to Councilor Hennagin that staff has not publicized the streaming video yet for the same reason. She indicated to Mayor Hoffman that the streaming video did not cost the City additional monies because the City IT staff set it up, although without the expensive bells and whistles. She reviewed the invitation procedure for the first Internet survey, which the 1,200 registered participants should receive in May. She mentioned that the questions would be similar to the last telephone survey in order to provide a baseline for comparison. She confirmed to Councilor Tierney that only the respondents randomly selected from the utility database could participate. She indicated that after doing around four surveys with this group over a year, staff would select a new pool of participants. She mentioned that staff was working on a calendar of all events throughout the year. However, there was also the community calendar, the Digest calendar, and the City Council schedule. She indicated that they would keep working on a calendar to find out what worked best for the Council. Mr. Donaldson mentioned that the City belonged to Alliance Renovation, a group of cities around the country that were looking at how to do things differently. He discussed a concept he found on the group's website called 'peak democracy.' He explained that it was the idea of an open public forum hosted on the City's website, which he saw as an extension of the public involvement process at a City Council meeting. He pointed out that many people were intimidated at the thought of speaking under Citizen Comment, yet they would like to participate in the democratic process. He described this forum as an opportunity for citizens to weigh in on substantive issues or other issues on which the Council wanted to hear public opinion. He mentioned his conversations with other cities that have begun using this forum, during which the staff told him that realistically, one might get another 10% on either side of the bell curve to participate, but that many people in the bell would still not participate. He described how a city could use the forum idea to create an environment where its citizens could participate online. He noted the requirement to register, the monitoring of the site, and the usage feedback statistics available. He indicated that it could be set up to be semi -autonomous. He showed the City of Decatur, Georgia, and the City of Berkley, California, forum pages as examples. He commented that many communities had blogs now, but those have evolved into a self-selected, though interactive, group that was often very negative. He said that the City's Information Technology staff concluded that it was very possible to put the forum up on the City's website. He noted that it cost $5,000 a year for the company to host and monitor the forum. He commented that the other cities using it so far were very happy with the service, and they have seen an increase in participation on issues. Mr. Donaldson commented that what he had found interesting was not the numbers but the quality of thoughtful comments made, and the issues raised that the Council might not have thought of. He spoke of introducing the forum to a wide range of people through the electronic newsletter, as Decatur did. He mentioned the possibility of using the forum to brainstorm ideas also. City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 7 of 9 April 20, 2009 Ms. H isler indicated to Mayor Hoffman that while the forum could assist the Council in seeing what the range of public opinion was on an issue before making a decision, it was still only one more tool to use. Mayor Hoffman commented that if only another 20 to 30 people participated through this venue, it would be worth it. Mr. Donaldson indicated to Councilor Jordan that the vendor had ways of making sure that there was only one response per individual. Ms. Heisler acknowledged to Councilor Hennagin that it was possible that the people in the large part of the bell curve were those with confidence or trust in the City. Councilor Hennagin commented that apathy was another possibility. Councilor Tierney asked if staff research has found any tools or tactics associated with reaching the large part of the bell curve not heard from. Mr. Donaldson said that the focus groups were an attempt to reach that group. Mr. Donaldson indicated to Councilor Tierney that while staff discussed the Farmers' Market as a venue, they knew that often 30% to 40% of the people there were not from Lake Oswego. The Council discussed strategies for best utilizing the Farmers' Market as a venue for engaging people. Ms. Heisler mentioned that they could expand the Council sign up for the Farmers' Market booth to include booths at the concerts. Mr. McIntyre recalled a creative method Councilor Johnson used to engage people by asking a simple question and having people put a dot on a yes or no sheet. Councilor Jordan mentioned another possible venue of a wine and cheese social hour focusing on a single topic, during which Council members mingled with the attendees to discuss that topic. She spoke of finding more informal opportunities for people to state their concerns without having them recorded somewhere. She described the forum as a relatively anonymous engagement method, which people trusted the City would not use against them. She agreed with Councilor Olson that it might be worth a trial run. She said that a caveat was that the Council had to really have something that it was asking about. Mr. Donaldson indicated to Councilor Olson that staff could get the forum up and running right away. Councilor Olson suggested using the facilities issue as a test of the forum. Mayor Hoffman spoke of thinking about all the topics that Council members were interested in, and then deciding what to do. Ms. Heisler indicated to Councilor Hennagin that the only information they had about how many people read Hello LO was through a survey question that asked where the participants got most of their information. The answer had been through the Lake Oswego Review and Hello LO. Councilor Hennagin speculated that many people would prefer the hardcopy newsletter to the electronic newsletter. Mr. McIntyre indicated to Mayor Hoffman that staff would find the money to set up the forum. He clarified that while it might cost $5,000 a year to acquire the site and service, there were additional staffing costs involved. He observed that these kinds of efforts were not free. Councilor Tierney suggested establishing the Council's expectations for the forum, and then testing the forum against those expectations after a set period of time to see if it delivered what the Council expected. Mayor Hoffman commented that they could also start out with no expectations and just see what happened, as they did with the round tables. Mr. Donaldson mentioned that the tracking software did provide solid numbers on how many looked at the forum. Ms. Heisler commented that the Council would want to assess all its new public engagement efforts in a year to see if they were doing what the Council thought they should be doing. City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 8 of 9 April 20, 2009 The Council discussed other public engagement activities, such a Farmers' Market booth, Councilor Coffees, a booth at concerts, and a Councilor Office at City Hall. 4. ADJOURNMENT Mayor Hoffman adjourned the meeting at 6:20 p.m. Respectfully submitted, -,Ps Al��L Robyn Christie City Recorder APPROVED BY THE CITY COUNCIL �WI�:v- 7!d' • City Council Special Meeting Minutes Page 9 of 9 April 20, 2009