Common Council Executive Committee Recap

Short half hour meeting. Vision Zero, Transportation Studies, Independent Monitor, Recommendations on Government Structure, budget process for next year and more.

You can watch along here:

DISCUSSION WITH MAYOR

UW Partnership

Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway says there was one thing she didn’t put on the agenda, so she isn’t sure if she should say it, but she’s going to anyways.  They are in conversations with UW about ways they can support the City of Madison.  They are making a list of all the collaborations already in place.  If there are any collaborations you are aware of that might not known by department heads to let her know.  She hopes that they can make a list of their possible connections and then the UW can help facilitate connections.  She gives the example of evaluating pervious pavement options and they could find students to help with that, or not.  That is longer term.

Bloomberg Technical Assistance

She says she announced at the budget meeting that they were accepted for technical assistance by Bloomberg Associates for Vision Zero and they have their next call next week. Staff team includes Traffic Engineering, Transportation, Engineering, Fleet and someone else.  They are already engaged and TE is the lead.  She has reached out to alders on relevant committees.

Bloomberg Innovation Track Bootcamp

Their coach was in town with some staff and had a two day boot camp.  She sat in on some, it’s fascinating, they did practice.  They interviewed people on the street to get ideas and practiced iterating ideas on that, but they didn’t get to the testing piece.  They will spend a minimum of 5 hours a week each.  Staff are seeing ways to use it in their other work.

Locked out fisaco

Attorney May and others are locked out.  Locked out of the building not just the room.  They are on Doty St.  Alders Lemmer, Carter and others are also locked out. Bidar asks what they need to do if no one could get in to the meeting.  His answer was off mic and I didn’t hear it.

Innovation Track

Staff is excited about the work.  Foster asks who is on the team.  Tom Lynch from Transportation, Chris Petikowsky from Engineering, Ellie Anderson and Laura Larsen from Finance, Urvachi from Planning, Rachel from Streets, Adam Pfost from PCED, Martin Alvorado from Library, Sabrina from Parking, and she can’t remember who else.  She will send them the list.

They are tracking how they interface with other transportation and Transportation Demand Management activities.  They are tracking how it interacts with MOPES (she can’t remember what is stands for, she only remembers Mother of All Parking Studies) process, and they may need to change the timeframe to align with this process.  They also want to keep the committees up to date.  This is a great group of people and tools and this will makes its way into other work.

Grant Foster asks how this will be brought into other work.  Mayor says that they have two vacancies on the data team in finance and she is thinking about the structure of that and she wants on of the hires to be someone who has these innovations skills to integrate it more.  Also the team has the skills and will bring it back to their departments and they may want to do a more intentional transfer of knowledge.

Alieigha Stevenson, Rachel Kelley from Streets, Jessie Stammer from Metro and Justin ? from Health are the other people she couldn’t remember.

Budget follow up –  Independent Auditor, Metro Studies, Vision Zero

She says the process for the Independent Auditor process, she assumes that CCEC will want to be involved, Cam in her office will draft a job description and bring that through both informally and formally.  They also will be having conversations with the command staff and the union.

The other piece she wants to get started on right away are the various studies in the Metro budget.  She thought less about them. She assumes staff will draft the scopes, take those to the committee and then got out for RFP.  They can’t spend the money til January, but they should be working on the scopes now so they can start them as soon as possible.

She asks what else is in the budget that they want to move on quickly before the new year.

Shiva Bidar says that for the Auditor position she think the biggest question is who the auditor reports to.  Eventually it would be the citizen oversight committee, its chicken and egg, and we need to discuss options around that.  She says they can get into the details fo the position, but the ad hoc committee did that.  She is worried about the structure being set up for success so its not subject to other pressures – political, people, internal and external.

Mayor says that the committee looked at structures in other cities and Cam is familar and also doing that. He has done a lot of thinking about the oversight committee and what the duties of the auditor and oversight committee, is that separate from PSRC (Public Safety Review Committee) and what are the duties of the PFC (Police and Fire Commission).  They are laying out what exists now.  They want to have that discussion at PSRC.  They can bring it here too.

Barbara Harrington McKinney says that a subcommittee will meet tomorrow to discuss their role moving forward and Cam will be there to help them through that process.  They will make recommendations to this body.

Mayor asks if they have other issues in the budget they want to flag.

Grant Foster says they are already discussing the scope of that they want to see for Complete Streets Study and recommendations for implementation for Visions Zero.

Mayor says she hopes the Vision Zero will be worked on in the Boomberg process.

EXTENDING DEADLINE FOR WORK GROUP ON APMs REPORT

McKinney says that they are meeting on December 16th where they will look at their charge and workplan and they will look at dates to meet.

Motion to approve passes on a voice vote

UPDATES

Task Force on Structure of City Government

Draft Report is here

Attorney May says it will be approved tomorow night (Wed) and sent out.  He encourages them, as well as saying to the to management team, to look beyond the headlines that everyone will be talking about which is the size of the council.  There is much more in the plan including getting communities of color and low-income people involved, using technology to get people involved and taking steps to “get better control” of our boards, committees and commissions – both in terms of what they do and how many they are.  He cautions that the motion on the council will get the most attention but that really followed these other things.  He says reducing the council is a difficult lift and will require a referendum.

Shiva Bidar says it will be referred to them for discussion.

Foster says that CCEC will likely want to take a leading role in looking at Boards, Committees and Commissions.

Kwasi Obeng, the Council Chief of Staff says he has hard copies if they want them.

Surveillance Equipment and Data Management Work Group

Rebecca Kemble says their next meeting is Dec. 13th where they could finalize the report and ordinance change.  If they have edits or suggestions they should get them in by the 13th.

Council Communication Tools and Processes Work Group

Foster says they have 8 meetings left, they will have items they can’t get to before their March deadline.  They are going to be bringing a recommendation on blog tools for the council and moving them, they will have a presentation at the next CCEC, that is one piece they can get started on now.

Work Group to Review APMs

Already covered.

Common Council Staff Update

Obeng says that the survey on the Chief of Staff position went out on Nov 8, 7 alders responded, 17 department heads responded and Lisa will send that out.

Obeng and Karen, the legislative analyst have been talking about the budget process and how to be more effective and involved in that.  They will combine that with the survey results and come up with a strategic plan.

Sheri Carter says that this is going to be so important for 2021, because they are going to be beyond belt tightening.  The wish list is going to be blank.  They are going to have to pull back their wants, or make money in the basement.

McKinney asks that the Chief of Staff will design a process where they can prioritize instead of waiting until the week or day of.  She wants to have the discussion, priorities can change on the floor, but at least they will know.

Obeng says they are looking at other cities and looking at how to start early and work with finance early.

Bidar says that she says they will have a discussion in January.  She will bring recommendations on how to start earlier.  She asks that they make recommendations on structure and process.  She wants them to move that up.  The mayor starts on the budget in March or April when there isn’t an election.  She wants to have the discussion in January so they can start at the same time as the executive in getting information and staying caught up.

McKinney says they should involve Laura Larsen because she has been working on the Denver [sic] model for the past two years.

Foster wants to have focused conversations about public engagement, they need to get involved earlier so they have a longer run way to get information out and get feedback.

Bidar suggests they send ideas to Obeng, McKinney and herself so they can compile them for discussion in January.

McKinney says the Matt Phair and Mo Cheeks had listening sessions in the community where they talked about the budget and it was well intended.  They should look at incorporating taking the budget to the community.  She says that was missing this year.

Obeng says that others have talked about having town halls as well, and he will talk to Finance about how that would work.

Bidar asks them to provide feedback on improvements.

FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS

*Legislative File No. 57712 – Accepting the report from the Madison Police Department Policy & Procedures Review Ad Hoc Committee (also referrred to EOC, PSRC)

*Engineering Presentation – Stormwater Ordinances (12/3/19 CCEC)

*2021 Budget Process (requested by Ald. Foster)
*Creating an Annual Common Council Report*Audit process for City departments
*Annual Performance Review – Chief of Staff

Standing Updates
*President’s Work Group on Surveillance & Data Management Policies
*President’s Work Group on Council Communication Tools & Processes
*President’s Work Group on APM’s
* Council Chief of Staff

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.