09/26/1977 Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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with the staff. Option (C) distinguished between the staff serving the council and the staff serving the city in general. He reiter- . ated that the staff is now doing an excellent job for the city. If the councilors went directly to the staff it might muddy the dis- tinction between the staff and the council more than if councilors had direct individual assistants responsible to them. He noted that providing a pool of council aides would better serve those council members with time already available. Those with less time available would receive less service. In the pool concept the pressures on the staff would be great to work on things other than serving the council. Mrs. Smith asked if she was correct in assuming that options (A) or (B) would not require a revision of the charter. The manager stated that that was correct. Mrs. Smith noted that having an individual aide assigned to her would not help her, therefore she would support either option (A) or option (B) . She felt a need for technical assistance. She had had excellent assistance from personnel and public works and from the manager's office. She said she was not prepared to support individual aides for each councilor. Mr. Obie asked how many people would be added to the staff. under option (B) . Manager indicated that at least two members would be added to the staff with a possible third if the need arose. He pointed out that Paget Engen, staff member, had talked to a number of cities and could provide additional information. Paget Engen discussed the information received from Salem, Sacra- - mento, San Jose, Boulder, Berkeley, Bellevue, and Modesto. Mr. Obie asked if Mr. Williams and Mr. Haws would speak to the issue based on their experience as councilors for a number of years. Mr. Williams stated that the basic question was how to accomplish more and make more time available. He expressed support for op- tion (A) and, to a lesser extent, option (B) . He was rather strongly opposed to option (C) . He supported anything which would increase the councilor contribution to the council body. He was concerned with possible abuse as to option (C) . He felt there was substan- tial potential for reintroduction of the patronage system with possible use of council assistants as campaign assistants. Based on his years in the federal government, personal aides turned into campaign aides during campaign time. He also saw a possible risk in that eight individual aides digging around would have a potential for mischief and would increase the risk of damaging the city and the system. Mr. Haws stated that he did not see it as a question of the council/ manager form of government. He believed the city manager form of government worked very well with the staff doing an excellent job. The present system left unfulfilled needs which were difficult to articulate. He stated that 'sometimes the roie of the councilor became that of the judge. He believed that the role should be other than an executive one where decisions are made based on e evidence submitted. He saw a strong need for assistants for councilors. Under the present system, only ten percent of the councilors' resources were being tapped. The system did not let the councilors do everything they could in being creative and meet- Speci~l Meeting 9/26/77 - 2 l~l