MINUTES OF THE METRO' S TRANSITION ADVISORY TASK FORCE MEETING

January 23, 2002

Room 370 A & B

Members Present:  Jeff Condit (Chair), Jeff Alden (Vice Chair), Gary Blackmer, Larry Hildebrand, Michael Jordan, Ted Kyle, Don McClave, Rick Gustafson

Members Absent:  Judie Hammerstad, Rob Drake, Felicia Trader, Matt Hennessee

Others Present:    Councilor McLain, Marjory Hamann, Mary Heffernan, Councilor Bragdon, Presiding Officer Hosticka, Councilor Burkholder, Alexis Dow, Mike Burton  

1.  Jeff Condit convened the Metro Transition Advisory Task Force meeting at 3:06 p.m.

2.  Consideration of the minutes of the January 9, 2002 Metro Transition Advisory Task Force meeting.

Motion:  Jeff Alden moved adoption of the 1/9/02 Transition Advisory Task Force meeting minutes.

Seconded:  Don McClave seconded the motion.

Vote:  The vote was 7 aye/ 0 nay/ 0 abstain. The motion passed of those present.

Councilor McLain provided input to the Task Force. She indicated how much the council valued the Task Force's thoughts and efforts to make the transition smooth. She felt that the council had put forward good information for the Task Force to consider. She spoke to the charter change to make sure they had continuity and had a council that was working together that could do policy together. She felt that the full council must confirm the hire and fire of the manager. The Council President might recommend a manager, but the whole council needed to have something to do or say with the hiring of the manager. She reminded the Task Force that all seven councilors were going to have to work with the Chief Operating Officer (COO). She noted that the Council President only had one vote. She felt the roles would be well defined, specific and balanced. She did not feel that the COO was a city manager model. The size and amount of connection within the region was important. It was important that the manager work well with the council because of the roles that the manager might place and the relationship between the council and other partners. Second, she felt good staffing was what the council needed, it was making sure we had the right kind of staffing and that the council could get to that staffing. She reminded the Task Force why they needed staff. She noted that six of the councilors were only part-time. She gave reasons why council should have connection to their own staff and support. When she had had more direct support in the council office she had been able to do a better job of outreach. When she had had better control over how the support was used, she had had better ability to do outreach. In other jurisdictions she had had experience with people who had regular staff that they were not in control of and she discovered that she got meetings and appointments more consistently when people had staff that they directly had some influence over. Third, she also thought the advice of the Task Force should take into account the timing including elections, budgets, etc. She suggested that the Task Force provide them with a short list of items that were crucial to have a handle on. These items would be helpful to include in the report. Finally, she said there were two levels of policy issues, regional and partner policy issues. The relationship between council, COO and the Council President was extremely important both for the region and for their partnerships with the jurisdictions and with advisory committees.

Mr. McClave asked Councilor McLain how many council staff she was talking about?

Councilor McLain said she had never had a full time staff. She felt that it would be helpful to have those staff report direct to the council. She felt that the Council President needed to assist the council in making sure that if there was a pool of staff that the council had some direct relationship to how those staff was used. She said it was not that the manager couldn't do that but she felt it got diluted. If you kept it with the council it would be helpful. Council staff work could include scheduling, constituent correspondence and outreach, CPO and neighborhood association networks, research, preparing for speaking engagements, historical background or current information, opening mailing, etc.

Larry Hilderbrand spoke to the council confirmation of the regional manager. He asked Councilor McLain where the council would stop the confirmation process, with that one office or each department director or assistant department director.

Councilor McLain responded that she would stop with the regional manager. She felt the past and current Executive Directors had done a good job of managing the directors. She felt that, as long as you had a manager that the council agreed on and had the manager deal with the department directors, it would work well.

Gary Blackmer spoke to the issue of subcommittees. A question as to whether there should be committees, perhaps the whole council should deal with the issues? He asked about the positive and negatives of having committees.

Councilor McLain gave her history of committees structures over the past 10 years. She thought the committee structure was important because it gave background before going to full council but she would limit the number of committees. She noted that they had tried it without committees, she felt that there were certain people that would rather have the whole council make the decision. She said the one problem with the whole council dealing with all of the issues was that you had some councilors that were not interested in certain topics so would not show up for a meeting which sometimes created quorum problems. She added there were currently committees of the whole.

Mr. Condit asked how much of a staff person each councilor should have? He said the committee was struggling with the desire to have a centralized structure but give the council the kind of control over the individual staffers.

Councilor McLain said each of the councilors used their staff differently. She felt that they needed at least a half of a person that was an average. There were some that used less and some used more. That was a minimum.

Mr. Condit asked if there was some method of assigning one person to two councilors where you could match the Councilor's needs was a model that might work?

Councilor McLain said they had used this model the past several years and felt that it had worked. She said it depended upon how active you wanted your councilors to be. She suggested that if you were a policy maker, you needed to know something about the policies you were delving into.

Mike Burton, Executive Officer, spoke to how Department Directors were at-will employees and appointed by the Executive Officer. The council confirmed the directors. The COO currently was the only director who has a contract. He felt that every director should have a contract.

3.  Report and Discussion of Metro staff input and feedback

Mary Heffernan spoke to the process they had been going through in getting staff input and feedback. She introduced herself and gave details of her credentials for the Task Force. She had been an organizational consultant for the past twenty years.

Marjory Hamann said she was also a consultant and coach primarily with non-profit and public sector agencies. She gave further background on her credentials. She said they first started working with Metro when the looked at the structure of the Council Office as part of the preparation for transition. They had talked with all councilors and council staff. They were then invited back to interview agency staff.

Ms. Heffernan said they had an oral presentation as well as a written report for the Task Force. She noted the written report was a draft with a final report coming to the Task Force in about 10 days. She explained the written report process. She said their first and primary role was to feedback to the Task Force as accurately as possible what the agency staff had said a thematic summary. The secondary role was that their specialty was in organizational life, systems and structures. They would be happy to give their opinions in the context of those specialties.

Ms. Hamann spoke to how the report was set up (a copy of which may be found in the meeting record). She verified their timeline.

Mr. Condit responded that they should spend as much time as needed.

Ms. Hamann continued by saying that their main charge was to listen to staff. She noted that the report was not inclusive of all of the comments they had received. She reviewed the outline of the report and spoke to the tone of the project. She encouraged questions at any point. She felt the staff was thoughtful in their responses and very committed to Metro and its mission. Staff was constructive in terms of things that they should pay attention to and this would serve Metro as the transition proceeded. She talked about the interview process including addressing benefits and fears. She said people talked about potential for improved team work in Metro with the new structure, the potential for greater efficiencies in staffing and the potential for a unified voice of the agency. The most common concerns were that there would be no real change and either the President or COO would use their power to manipulate the agency in a way that was not helpful to the organization. Staff echoed things that the Task Force had been discussing.

Ms. Heffernan said the staff was very aware of the issues.

Ms. Hamann said staff was happy to participate and give their opinion.

Ms. Heffernan spoke to the "no real change". They were very aware of the structural tension that had been in place between the Executive Office and the Council Office. They felt this had had a real cost on multiple levels. They were excited and eager to have that shifted to a more unified leadership. They were most afraid that some how the structural decisions that got made would recreate that tension in some form rather than avoid it.

She spoke to Core Issue 1) Building trust and cooperation between councilors and staff. There was a lot of staff who shared a commitment to work cooperatively with the council and truly work as their staff. There were a number of observations about how things had improved in the last several years about council staff relations and an appreciation of that. They understand that the council was the leadership and visionary leadership for the organization and they welcomed that. The heart of the issue to watch was that they were also aware that there wasn't a lot of trust between the council and the staff. This had to do with the structural tension. They wanted the structure to support the building of trust, to support the possibility that council could find out this staff was now going to be their staff and was loyal to them and had the interest and capacity to provide the kind of information and data that the council could trust. They expressed the desire to have the council give them a chance to build a trusting relationship.

Mr. Blackmer asked about the trust issue, was it a one-way or a two-way trust issue?

Ms. Heffernan responded that she expected more mistrust from the staff. She said it was more an awareness of council's trust with staff. But there was mistrust in the area of multiple bosses and lack of clear direction.

Ms. Hamann said they did one-on-one interviews with the Department Directors and two group interviews with 16 agency staff. The Department Directors said that they felt pretty good about the relationship they had with the council. There were times where the trust fluctuated dependent upon the issue.

Ms. Heffernan said the staff's hope was that the council became more comfortable with their policy-making role and focus. The new management structure gave the council an opportunity to do this. One person said they thought this could be a "gift of freedom" to the councilors.

Ms. Hamann said another staff member made the observation that the first COO would need to play a role in helping the council and the staff in what their roles were. Core Issue 2) Using the restructuring process to create a unified voice for Metro. This item came up repeatedly with staff. The notion that instead of having multiple bosses and multiple people speaking for the agency, the new structure provided the opportunity to work more with one another. People talked about the hope that this could increase the public perception of Metro as a well-run organization and how important it was that people see Metro as a well run organization. Internally it would provide a clear directive as to what were the vision and priority issues.

Several staff commented that they hoped the COO and Council President would have a good relationship so that once priorities were set they were talking about the same thing and committing to the same thing.

Mr. Hilderbrand asked about the single voice. He didn't know many councils that spoke in a single voice. How did you work that out? He understood a single voice for the staff because you were going through the COO but when you had a majority of the council setting the policy, there could councilors that disagreed.

Ms. Heffernan said they made a distinction between direction for the organization and region and expression of individual opinion. In the course of setting priorities internally, goals and vision, there should be plenty of dissention, plenty of divergence of opinion so the decision was as constructive as possible. She said one way to address what was said was once the decision had been reached, they would speak in unity about that decision. They had reached a decision and it represented Metro's direction for the next period of time, they all stood by that decision. They had an opportunity to talk about their individual opinions. There may a different person opinion that a councilor had but supported what was decided as a group. She indicated that it was a real challenge.

Mr. Condit asked how to accomplish that structurally? Was it better to try to have some kind of council policy about decision making and supporting the decision or was it better to have an annual retreat where those kinds of issues were reaffirmed or would both be the things to do?

Ms. Heffernan said she thought it was up to the councilors what methodology worked best for them. The first thing to do was to see if they were going to have a unified voice? Then, how did they agree they would get there? She suggested looking at the cost to the organization. There was strong feedback from the staff about this. There was a cost to the organization without some level of a unified message. The staff suggested marshalling the resources, with mixed messages they felt splintered.

Mr. Condit asked about the perception that there was contention on the council or was it council versus Executive Officer.

Ms. Hamann spoke to the concept of public decency. She gave an example of councilors saying things in taped sessions that staff felt didn't need to be said in front of a camera. They also suggested that the Council President and the COO needed to have discussions that provided an opportunity for different voices to be heard.

Ms. Heffernan asked for clarification about tension.

Mr. Condit said he was wondering whether the failure to speak with one voice was between the Executive and Council or within the council. It sounded as if it was a little of both.

Rick Gustafson commented about the tension because of the unique split. This was unique to Metro; the regionally elected official was required to carry out policies of the council that may be opposite to their commitments to the voters in their election. This was where the unease came for the organization. This created a tension within the organization even if it wasn't meant to be. It happened in Metro because of the unique split. It created a real quandary for the staff members.

Mr. McClave asked if that was what Ms. Hamann was describing.

Ms. Hamann felt that reflected the internal version.

Mr. Gustafson spoke about unwritten rules of civil behavior. He talked about the City of Portland's unwritten rules concerning not lobbying the legislature except on what the entire city council had supported. The lobbyist function was particularly sensitive to political bodies as you worked with other political bodies. Even though it was not written down as any regulation or requirement, it was established as a standard of behavior.

Ms. Heffernan said there was civil behavior and then there was the internal challenges and need for clear direction to the public about what Metro was doing. She said the staff said you needed this consistent thread between internal and external and the COO's job was to make sure what the staff did was consistent with what the council had set both publicly and as its priorities.

Mr. Hilderbrand said he was concerned about trying to muzzle independently elected officials.

Ms. Heffernan said the purpose was not to muzzle.

Mr. McClave clarified what Mr. Hilderbrand was saying. There was a push me pull me concerning policy at Metro. No one really had the final say.

Mr. Hilderbrand said he said he saw the majority as having the final say. The majority was the voice of Metro and carried out by the Council President. In no way should that deter the minority from going out and disagreeing? In the long run the minority may prove to be right.

Ms. Hamann said this conversation was a great example of giving them additional information and of how they could present information they had heard from the staff, some would stick and some may not fit in the context of the task force recommendations and discussion.

Ms. Heffernan said this was a good example of one that the Task Force needed to be tussling about. How did the organization have clear direction that gave both public a sense that Metro knew what it was doing and was leading the regional in something that was exciting and meaningful and gave the staff something to follow while not muzzling the council and their different perspectives? Once the majority rules, what did that mean? What avoided undercutting those decisions and directions?

Ted Kyle said he had sat in a room and discussed this at great length with other elected officials. In some cases if things go well there would be unanimity and people would move ahead. In a lot of cases there won't be that unanimity. What they were talking about was the fundamental struggle of all governments. There was no unified voice. He thought that elected officials needed to be talking to their citizens, the community on whatever was on their mind. Some rules of civility were useful. The tough job and the challenge for the COO and staff was to try to figure what the true sense of what the group was and then generally steer in that direction. He found that as a staff member for Clackamas County, he listened to all three commissioners very carefully. He tried to understand not just what they said but what was driving it. He also listened to the community, brought them good advice and hopefully prepared them with all of the information they needed. There would always be seven voices on the Council but at least the citizens knew who the seven were and that in the end there was a way to get to an answer.

Mr. Condit talked about the regionally elected Council President. They would have one vote out of seven, participate in the discussion and vote. He asked if they thought this might alleviate some of that structural issue.

Mr. Gustafson said he was intrigued by the structure because of the COO and the Council President. He felt very strongly that someone should be elected region-wide so we maintained a regional perspective. The COO's main job would be to guide the council to assure that they actually set policy and that it was carried out. It was fine to disagree but there was an importance in having a single voice. Under current structure, it was more difficult to reinforce the single voice.

Mike Jordan commented on the single voice issue. The importance of the COO’s role was not just a role of management but of stewardship. The stewardship was of the process, of how you made policy decisions, how they got carried out and how they got articulated to the public. Managing that process was the role of stewardship. Over the long term, elected came and went but the idea was a continuity of stewardship, how you did the work. It was an important role that sometimes got overlooked. He thought that was where the staff was looking for that critical focus in the COO, to focus on what the organization's mission and direction was.

Ms. Heffernan said one more question to continue to ask was how do we maximize the ability of the staff to go in a certain direction? She thought the COO was a critical piece of that.

Ms. Hamann highlighted comments from staff about the COO role. There was a strong recommendation that the COO be a professional manager rather than a political appointee. The distinction would be that the intent was for the COO to serve the organization and provide consistent management rather than the assumption that with every new President there would be a new appointed COO.

Mr. Gustafson said he was interested in the distinction between a political appointment versus a professional appointment. He still thought the Council President should represent the region. If the President wanted to change the COO, that was his or her prerogative.

Ms. Heffernan said there was another meaning to "professional manager" which was that they were actually professional skilled in this area of management and interface with a political body.

Ms. Hamann said that another piece of that was that there not be an assumption that every time the Council President changed, there would be another COO.

Mr. Hilderbrand said the manager position was like other critical jobs such as the sheriff position, which had to meet law enforcement standards or the auditor, which had certain standards, they must meet.

Mr. Condit summarized the need for a qualifications based selection process as opposed to political appointment.

Ms. Hamann spoke to suggestions concerning attributes that the staff thought a COO should have. These would be included in the final report.

Jeff Alden asked if the first of those wasn't built into the system because the council had to

approve a new COO and approve the termination of the existing COO.

Ms. Heffernan said yes in terms of the President choosing.

Mr. Alden said this was not the President's choice alone. They needed advice and consent from the council.

Mr. Gustafson asked the clarification. He thought the Council President appointed the COO.

Dan Cooper, General Counsel, responded that the appointment of the COO was with concurrence of the council.

Mr. Condit said the issue really was how involved should the Council President have the rest of the council be in making both of those initial decisions. The structure may make them have to concur. He thought they should concur.

Ms. Hamann said the staff was interested in having the entire council be involved.

Mr. Condit said one of the discussions he had had with Mr. Kyle was if the staff would like to have an official role in the selection process.

Ms. Hamann said yes, the model that they suggested was that when the pool of candidates was brought down to the final two or three, there was a desire for key staff to be included in the selection process.

Ms. Heffernan said it seemed a very reasonable level of involvement. They gave an example of where they had been involved in a previous hire. They were very appreciative of seeing that both candidates were qualified and that neither candidate would put them at risk. They felt that their input was taken into account when the final decision was made. This was a good trust building opportunity; there was wisdom there. She returned to the issue of the council being fully involved in the hire. The staff understood this was a big change for how the organization would work and required a leap of faith on the part of the council. It was critical for the whole council to feel as confident as possible about this first hire. The staff wanted a maximize trust between the new COO and Council.

Ms. Hamann called for questions. There were none at the time.

Ms. Heffernan addressed 3) Recognizing the human impact of the restructuring, and actively involving staff in the transition. There was considerable distress and lack of information about what was going on. It was the lack of information that built the distrust (an attachment to the report will include suggestions from staff for improved communication). It was the staff's experience that they had heard very little in the last year. Job loss was a great concern. This had an effect on morale, productivity, loyalty, and trust. It was strongly suggested that the lack of information be corrected. The staff might have very valuable information about the transition that could be of use at junctures in the planning process. There needed to be better communication. It would generate more creativity and helpfulness.

Ms. Hamann said she heard several staff say that even if the councilors didn’t have answers and decisions hadn't been made, it was still helpful for that message to be sent around about what the process was, what the timeline was, etc.

Mr. Hilderbrand asked if they suggested a process for this communication.

Ms. Heffernan said they did and they would provide more detail in their report attachment on this. Several things that stood out was the staff were looking for some expression of appreciation for going through this process and sticking to it, an acknowledgement of the impact on them and or potential impact on them. They would like the time frame on decisions about when jobs would be eliminated.

Mr. Blackmer asked what staff positions were at risk in this process.

Ms. Heffernan said positions from both the Executive office and the Council office.

Mr. Blackmer clarified that it was not the whole organization that was effected then.

Ms. Hamann said there was a lot of uncertainty about restructuring. There was concern that a COO would come in and feel the need to do a lot of restructuring. The level of anxiety was just below the surface, the lack of information allowed room for uncertainty, rumors and speculation.

Ms. Heffernan said the potential for rumors was huge. Those rumors could be addressed through better communication.

Ms. Hamann suggested that one idea was a hotline that helped limit the amount of speculation and staff would get a response right away.

She then addressed 4) Clarifying lines of authority and reporting. This focused on the need for staff to have a single source of work assignments, a single point of accountability. There were a lot of issues raised around multiple boss concerns. Some of the department heads had pointed out that they were often in communication with councilors. They were comfortable with this but the important piece was for the COO to also be aware of the work assignment. COO was seen as the appropriate person to supervise staff and coordinate workload and workflow. She spoke to Department Directors concerns about councilors talking to specific people in their departments and making work assignments. This was too far removed from the official lines of communication.

Ms. Heffernan said there was universal recognition that there were times when directors needed to have direct communication with individual councilors. The distinction about who made work assignments was important to staff.

Ms. Hamann added that an image that worked for the staff was the image of the COO as a gatekeeper and that the gate was always open. There was no desire to restrict information just that there be a person at the gate who was monitoring in both directions.

Ms. Heffernan said this was also to minimize information overload as well as coordinating workload.

Mr. McClave said there were difficult things to work out in transition. He liked the idea of a gatekeeper. Staff needed to understand who to clarify their workload with.

Mr. Kyle said the back channel was important, the staff needed to be comfortable in going to the COO with those workload requests. Direct requests would occur, how could you resolve the conflict if something couldn’t get done?

Ms. Hamann said the COO needed the ability to be comfortable with going to the council.

Mr. Blackmer said he would hope who ever was hired would bring that type of experience to the agency, to guide the staff and let councilors know when something couldn't get done or there were other priorities. Some of this should be in the job description.

Ms. Heffernan said this topic was a good example of Metro leadership. The staff was very aligned with the Task Force concerns.

Mr. McClave said this spoke to an issue about a councilor being paranoid about not getting accurate information.

Ms. Hamann said there was a readiness on the part of the staff to embrace the transition and become the council's staff.

Ms. Heffernan spoke to 5) Providing staff support for the council. They felt that it made a lot of sense that council had its own staff, particularly in this first stage. She noted Councilor McLain’s comments. The more part-time the councilors were, the greater need to have strong staff support. At the same time staff suggested creating a structure that allowed for one direction rather than recreating or establishing the "us/them" mentality.

Mr. Condit talked about the tension between everyone working for the COO versus having a staff work for the council. He asked if it was possible to have a blended structure where the ultimate hiring and firing decisions and direction of staff was with the COO but that the councilors had particular people assigned to them and participate in the hiring, assignments, and review decisions. Did that structure work?

Ms. Heffernan said that was the direction her thinking had been going also. She cautioned against the council being the managers and doing the hiring and firing of council staff. She didn't feel this was a good use of their time and may not be their area of expertise.

Mr. Condit explained the structure of his office. There was one secretary for each two attorneys with pool staff available. The office administrator managed the staff. The administrator did the hiring, firing and the reassignment. Who got assigned to whom was in part decided by the attorneys and performance evaluations were done initially by the attorney the staff worked for and then the management took that into account in the overall performance evaluation. He thought that structure worked very well.

Mr. McClave said he thought there was a distinct difference between constituents relations versus another councilor’s suggestion that they have policy people. Mr. Condit's suggestion made a lot of sense.

Mr. Alden spoke to ratios. While there was a general trend towards a one-to-two ratio, the fact was that the real ratios depended upon the amount of output of the people who were using the staff as well as the energy of the staff member to get material out. There was a lot of give and take on this. The COO's job was to recognize the energy level of the staff member and the output needs of the councilor. He didn't think they could dictate that to the council but could provide some guidelines.

Mr. Condit said he was similarly reluctant to recommend a particular staffing level. He was thinking more of recommending a staffing structure and then having the council figure out how to make that work.

Ms. Hamann said this brought up an issue about encouraging staff who had a lot of experience with this and how it played out at Metro. The system that was currently in place had staff people making those decisions now. They encouraged the Task Force to have some staff people come to one of their meetings. Those individuals could get to a level of detail and specificity that would be helpful to the Task Force and would be a nice compliment to the input they were getting from the councilors.

Ms. Heffernan said they were doing the breadth with the staff. She suggested the Task Force could pinpoint several areas where their expertise would be helpful. She said that could also be part of a recommendation for a next step. She brought up the unified voice topic. By the nature of this body some of this would not be neat and tidy. How did you create structures that supported that effectiveness as much as possible and recognized where it would not work? They were right about the difference in how much each councilor used staff time.

Mr. McClave said there would have to be a job description for staff with some defined boundaries.

Mr. Hilderbrand said he thought Mr. McClave was right. If a councilor had a special project he felt they ought to be able to have someone do that project. He liked the idea of contracting these special projects. He suggested the whole council should approve this contracting.

Mr. McClave said it got to the issue of the gatekeeper. He thought the concept of gatekeeper whose door was always open was a good way to filter work that councilors had requested.

Mr. Hilderbrand said sometimes the councilors didn’t know what questions to ask. This was where they needed help, how did they ask the right questions. He felt contracting was a possible answer to this concern rather than a full-time employee.

Ms. Heffernan spoke to the issue raised last year, looking for administrative support in their staff but also looking for some level of analysis, some type of policy conversation. She suggested a job description of council staff that allowed the councilors to have a slightly broader range about what their support staff could do for them.

Mr. Condit said it was an important qualification for the COO. He saw a good COO recognizing when a councilor wasn't asking the right question and taking care of this.

Mr. Gustafson offered perspective because there was a political role of the council. He was not sure the COO would be the best person to give good political advice to Council. When they merged CRAG and NSD, all of the board members were staffed independently by their jurisdictions. What came together was no experience in directly serving a political body. It was the greatest challenge they faced. They didn't have that well of an understanding about how to do that. There was no inherent experience in the organizations that came together. The politicians would meet with their own people to handle the political responsibilities and then come back and declare those in the organizations. The difficulty that the councilors had in acting effectively was probably the most significant disappointment he had. Some of this had to do with the nature of the issues that were there but also the inexperience and lack of support that they received. He felt that it had improved significantly. He regarded the political responsibility of the council as very important. He felt that sometime technical analysis might lead you in a different direction than the political responsibilities. He gave the example of south light rail which was not a technically supported priority but rather a politically supported priority. That kind of adeptness at understanding how to make those decisions, certainly a COO had to be part of that but that political responsibility of the council needed to be supported.

Ms. Heffernan spoke to the expectation of skills of the COO. At what point was there too much for one person to be able to carry out. Therefore what was the emphasis for the COO?

Ms. Hamann spoke to issue 6) Recognizing the transition as an ongoing process. There were a lot of comments from staff about the focus happening in January 2003. The reality was that that change continued on for quite sometime after that as the impacts of restructure got felt and rippled through the organization as a whole. Staff requested recognition of the ongoing process and a system of communication and management that recognized that. One of the specific areas that came up was a discussion of the COO’s role. There was a notion that different things would be needed in the first two years when there was more restructuring activity than would be needed after those first two years. Some staff suggested hiring an interim COO. Could the COO fulfill both roles before and after the transition process ended?

Mr. Alden asked what they thought about the idea of a formally mandated evaluation process after the first two years. It could addressed the very issues they were talking about which asked for input from councilors, staff and COO about how the existing structure at the end of that two years was doing to addressed the very issues that the consultants had brought up. He was sure these would be ongoing issues for people. He suggested a sunset provision where you forced people to re-look at it and mandated that now so that everyone knew as they were going along that they needed to track what they thought was positive and negative about the system was evolving.

Ms. Hamann said that sounded like an excellent idea. It did suggest that in the interim period things were different.

Ms. Heffernan said she liked the idea. The evaluation process was very important in general. You set expectations so when someone had a chance to meet them, they knew what they were. This helped guide and redirect. She thought they wouldn't know exactly what the process would be but she thought an evaluation was very appropriate. To mandate it in some way helped to assure that it would happen. She thought it was important that it did not assume that the COO could be dumped at that point. It did recognize that the expectation for the roles that were needed in the first couple of years might really shift after that.

Mr. Condit asked if it would be useful to set transition benchmarks and have them reviewed. He thought two years might be too long. Did we have a unified staff and if not what was the problem. He thought they were clear on what the goals ought to be, it was whether or not the structures they put in place met those goals. He suggested annual transition checks to see how they were meeting the benchmarks.

Mr. McClave suggested at least an annual review. He was not comfortable with making it an evaluation of just the outcome. The evaluation should be frequent, possibly every six months to see how it's worked not how someone was doing. There would be many changes such as the role of the department heads; their role would have to be much stronger. What you had was a need for a good participatory look at the evolution of the government; this also kept the trust of the public.

Mr. Alden said the system failure could be because the Council President wasn't doing some things that were necessary to support the COO or that council members were asking for things that were inappropriate, it had to be a system analysis not a COO analysis.

Mr. Condit agreed. He thought that the first council and first COO needed to have bi-monthly sessions where they talked about how things were going, at least during the first year. He spoke about his experience in Lake Oswego; the city manager and city attorney had bi-annual performance evaluations where they talked about this. Once the organization was going, that seemed adequate because you were able to get those issues that were bothering people before they became terminable offenses. Initially, particularly with the change over in structure, there ought to be a pretty close performance evaluation to make sure that those roles were working right. He thought that was different from the organization meeting the benchmarks for change that they promised the voters.

Ms. Heffernan agreed, this led to a system evaluation. Looking at the core issues could be a source of markers. There needed to be an evaluation, a formal clarification of what was expected

Mr. Condit said he thought it would be important because it was possible to have seven incumbents under the old system on January 2003. There needed to be some commitment from those seven that recognition that things would change. There may be some issues adjusting to that structure.

Ms. Heffernan said the more; the leadership saw the transition as a process and that it just doesn't happen by itself, the better. If the process was shepherded, there was more of likelihood that communication with staff would be maintained.

Ms. Hamann pointed out that there was a period of time between May and December 2002 where there would be leadership abundance and an accountability gap. The potential to have a Presiding Officer, a Council President Elect, and an Executive Officer all in place at the same time was possible. There were labor negotiations happening this year and so from a staff perspective it was discomforting to think about having negotiations where there wasn't anyone who felt accountable for the other side. There was concern and anxiety that high priority issues might get short tripped during that period.

Ms. Heffernan said there was a number of big issues happening this year. Were those important issues going to get the attention they needed. People were concerned about how this leadership played out if the Council President was elected in May 2002 and could we at least hear from that leadership as to what the agreement would be. Who was the 'go to' person over that period.

She closed by talking about the Other Issues of Importance for Staff: coordinating staff functions, providing adequate resources for priority functions, securing a stable, adequate funding source for the agency, streamlining the budget process, revisiting committee use and structure. These issues were not throwaway issues but if they Task Force didn't address them, she suggested that the leadership should.

Ms. Hamann spoke to the last two issues concerning streamlining the budget and committee structure. Staff had different ideas about the committee structure.

Mr. Alden said when they met with the majority of councilors; several councilors suggested having the Task Force make some recommendations on committee structure. The council itself was concerned about that issue.

Ms. Heffernan said there were a number of staff who commented on the improved coordination of the budget this year over previous years.

Mr. Blackmer said there were things he thought were important for the councilors and staff to deal with but the consultants were a more direct voice to the agency than to run them through the Task Force. For example, civility, good communications, defining subtleties of roles and how interactions happen and what an open gate looks like, and finally, politics. Other issues raised by staff were important, such as a stable funding source, but he wasn’t sure the Task Force could accomplish them.

Ms. Hamann said they were very aware that in presenting this information that they were presenting to two audiences. She noted attachments for the final report that would be useful pieces for the leadership.

Ms. Heffernan asked for feedback.

Committee members were pleased with the draft report and looked forward to the full report.

Ms. Heffernan said it was very helpful to have the dialogue with the Task Force.

Ms. Hamann acknowledged the Task Force's wisdom and experience; they wanted to hear back from the Task Force. She noted that all of those who participated in the interviews would also get a full copy of the report, this was again a trust building step.

Mr. Condit said the presentation was very useful. It had given him new ways to think about issues that he had been grabbling with. He thanked the consultants and asked that they thank everyone who participated. He was surprised that there wasn't more anxiety.

Ms. Heffernan and Ms. Hamann said the staff saw this as a good opportunity and looked forward to the transition. Good communication would ease anxiety.

Mr. Condit said he hoped the consultants would be available to the Task Force when they got down to brass tacks of trying to recommend a system. Their insights would be beneficial.

Ms. Heffernan said to let them know if there was a point where the Task Force would like their involvement.

Mr. Condit suggested they wait and see. He felt the benefit of the consultants' wisdom on putting a system together would be helpful. He thanked the consultants for their work. The level of depth was great.

Mr. Condit noted that the Citizen Involvement Committee has put together

recommendations. He asked Mr. Kyle about discussing the report.

Mr. Kyle suggested reviewing the document and discussing it at the next meeting.

4.  Citizen Communications

There were none.

There being no further business to come before the Metro Transition Advisory Task, Chair Condit adjourned the meeting at 5:07 p.m.

Prepared by,

Chris Billington

Clerk of the Council

Attachments to the Public Record for the Meeting of January 23, 2002

The following have been included as part of the official public record: