CC Minutes - 10/08/03 WS - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES Eugene City Council Work Session McNutt Room-City Hall October 8, 2003 Noon COUNCILORS PRESENT: Gary Pap~, Scott Meisner, Betty Taylor, David Kelly, Bonny Bettman, Jennifer Solomon. COUNCILORS ABSENT: Nancy Nathanson, George Poling. Mayor James D. Torrey called the meeting of the Eugene City Council to order. A. WORK SESSION: City Manager Six-Month Review City Manager Dennis Taylor observed that he had been on the job for approximately six months and it was time for the City Council and the City Manager to discuss observations and accomplishments of that time. He said that the position of City Manager had been a professional and personal challenge and he had been honored and privileged to have been given the opportunity to take on that challenge. He said that he had inherited a great work force and an organization with a national reputation for excellence in many policy, service, and program areas. Mr. Taylor said that over the last six months he had worked hard to acquaint himself with City staff. He said he had been going out to meet with individual employees in their work spaces, adding that this was a practice he would continue throughout his tenure in order to get an understanding of the organization and its many intricacies. Mr. Taylor said he had also taken great care to reach out and be available to neighborhood groups and various stakeholders in the larger community. Mr. Taylor said he had tried to bring energy, endurance, sensitivity, flexibility, and optimism to the work. He said that he focused on the vision and values of the organizational and had used opportunities to demonstrate his commitment to democracy, public service, and professionalism. Mr. Taylor said he had worked hard to honor the City's value of diversity and would continue to do so. He had worked to create a shared responsibility team and to emphasize that every employee was a part of the larger team which was the City of Eugene. Mr. Taylor shared that during the past months he had worked to emphasize superior customer service, improve communications throughout the organization, improve communications between the community and the organization, forge stronger partnerships with private and public organizations, improve economic development, and foster a concept among departments and employees of the City being a team. He spoke in more detail about creating an organization that had a reputation for being good and helpful to work with in terms of economic development and on large projects such as the hospital or the new federal building. MINUTES--Eugene City Council October 8, 2003 Page 1 Work Session