Public Comments to Council
Below are the comments I made to Ann Arbor City Council on February 3rd, 2020. Read more about this issue in this MLive story.
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Good evening. I am here to draw your attention and the public’s attention to DC-4 A Resolution to Improve City Council Communications sponsored by Councilmembers Griswold, Eaton, and Bannister & to ask you to vote against it.
There are numerous problems with this resolution, but fundamentally it is misleading and exemplifies poor leadership.
This resolution resolves to improve effectiveness by improving three components of governmental communications: Collaboration, Accuracy, Completeness, Timeliness, and Transparency. By my count that is five components, but that’s just a minor criticism.
The big issue is that this resolution doesn’t appear to be about improving council communications or furthering those nice sounding goals, rather it appears it is rooted in paranoia, a mistrust of staff and their recommendations, and a somewhat obsessive need to micromanage staff.
Among other things, the resolution resolves that:
• A councilmember must be copied on any email or attachment containing the councilmember’s name;
• It requires staff to record and report to Council on meetings they are holding with residents;
• And, perhaps the oddest resolve, “City staff and Council members will continue to strive to make accurate statements and publicly correct inaccurate and incomplete statements as soon as practical.”
Let’s examine the last bullet point. As Council surely knows, given the power dynamic, staff is generally unable to challenge the accuracy of councilmember statements. And we can safely assume our professional and qualified staff are doing their best to provide accurate and complete statements to Council. So while this resolved statement really amounts to nothing new, it points to a disturbing trend and theme we are hearing all too often from some members of this Council. It suggests that if Council does not agree with the statement of a staff member or disagrees with staff advice, it must be false. This sounds a lot like the tendency of some politicians to call news they disagree with fake news. It is the job of Council to set policy and indeed at times that may mean deviating from staff advice, but that can be done without suggesting that the facts and advice provided by staff aren’t based on data and professional training.
I urge you to oppose this resolution and further to strive for greater civility at this table, to treat our public servants with the respect they deserve, and to recognize that the way you speak at this table and the resolutions you introduce affect workplace morale and thus the productivity and performance of city staff and operations.