Metro Committee for Citizen Involvement

Regular Committee

Call to Order & Approval of Agenda

Members Present: Norm Andreen, Kay Durtschi, Dennis Ganoe, Kathy Henton, Dick Jones, Jim Kimball, Ted Kyle, Darren Pennington, Bob Pung, Pat Russell, Scott Seibert, Ray Sherwood and Elizabeth Tucker.

Members Absent: Leeanne MacColl, Don Olson, Christine Roth, Meyer Siegel and Curt Winkler.

Also Present: Councilor Rex Burkholder; John Donovan, Council Communications Officer; John Milliken, MCCI Applicant; Pam Peck, Senior Public Affairs Specialist; Camrynne Six, Auditor’s Administrative Assistant; and Cary Stacey, MCCI Staff.

Chair Kyle opened the meeting at 7:05 p.m.

Introductions

Chair Kyle asked everyone to introduce themselves for the good of the group.

Mr. Pennington volunteered to be timekeeper.

Approval of Agenda

Chair Kyle added a Staff Report item after the Subcommittee Reports item. Hearing no objections, Chair Kyle said the agenda stood approved as amended.

Approval of January 16, 2002, Minutes

Approval of February 20, 2002, Minutes

Mr. Russell asked for a clarification on page 2, 9^th paragraph to name the document to which Mr. Andreen had referred.

Public Comment

Mr. Milliken said he would be interviewing with the Executive Officer on April 2, 2002.

Auditor Liaison Report

Ms. Six said a new report, titled “Solid Waste Hauling Contract: Metro’s Consideration of Risks and Rewards of Change Order 24,” had been distributed. She said financial savings had been accrued as a result of the change order, which had taken place two and a half years ago. Mr. Ganoe asked if there was a media plan accompanying the report. Ms. Six responded that a news release had gone out regarding the findings of the report. Mr. Russell and Mr. Andreen asked who had overseen the audit. Ms. Six said she would find the answer to that question. She announced that future reports would be distributed via electronic means.

Council Liaison Report

Councilor Burkholder said he had privately answered Mr. Russell’s question regarding downloading maps from Metro’s website. He said that system compatibility was the issue, and announced that staff was improving the website’s accessibility. He gave a brief update on the website’s new model. He said he had attended both days of the Let’s Talk Conference and enjoyed them. He said an excise tax proposal by the Executive Office was in process and the Parks subcommittee might be able to speak to it. He asked, as chair of the Budget and Finance Committee, for help in letting the public know that the meetings were open. He said hearings would occur in April with a final adoption in June. He said there were no major changes to the budget. He asked for suggestions in letting people know they had an opportunity to come weigh in on the budget decisions.

Mr. Pung asked whether meetings addressing the budget could occur throughout the region. Mr. Pennington said he thought public participation was slim in part because some citizens felt that a momentum had already been established which discouraged public participation. Councilor Burkholder said that once the transition was complete, it would be easier for the Council to involve the public in the budget discussion. Chair Kyle suggested addressing this issue in the Steering Committee.

Ms. Tucker asked to whom she could present her version of a Metro simulation program. Mr. Donovan said he could address that issue.

Metro Let’s Talk Conference Review

Chair Kyle asked for a roundtable so that conference attendees could give Ms. Peck any feedback. Ms. Peck also encouraged questions that she could address at a later date.

Ms. Durtschi said that both days very outspoken people at her table left immediately after discovering their agendas would go unheard. She said about 35 citizens attended the Tigard workshop. She said she enjoyed Norma Paulus’s speech but didn’t like the keynote speaker.

Mr. Andreen said he had attended the Friday meeting and thought it was excellent. He said the audience was sophisticated enough to find some information redundant. He said the breakout group about growth was excellent with a well-balanced panel of articulate speakers. He said that, when table facilitating, he didn’t include votes of people who had left since they were not an active part of the conversation.

Mr. Sherwood said he would like a copy of the Coffee Talks Report.

Mr. Russell said he had watched the Town Hall panel and said the Hillsboro session had about 35 people in attendance. He said it would have been helpful for table facilitators to read the Participant’s Guide beforehand. He said he was disappointed with staff presentations because they didn’t seem to correlate with questions for the table to answer.

Ms. Henton said she had attended both days. She said the Friday conference was great and she was pleased with the growth breakout group. She said the Gresham workshop underwent some time constraints and she was disappointed in the low citizen turnout. She said she was interested in what creative ideas had arisen from the conference. She said the Gresham participants found it hard to transcend a local perspective.

Mr. Kimball said he enjoyed the Friday conference and it was a very worthwhile experience. He said the table discussions were very effective, especially in trying to reach consensus. He said the Saturday Hillsboro workshop was not as successful, but that it was useful in bringing together representatives from other cities.

Ms. Gillespie said she had attended the Portland workshop and really enjoyed it. She said she was amazed at some of the similarities among different communities’ concerns.

Mr. Jones said he had attended Friday and the Town Hall broadcast. He said he enjoyed the keynote speaker. He said the transportation breakout group had too many panelists that covered too wide of an array of subjects. He suggested having an MCCI meeting in which past members were invited.

Mr. Pennington said he had attended the Tigard workshop. He said he was very impressed with the amount of professionalism during the two-year development of the conference. He said he would like to see results of the tallies and comparisons of those tallies with other results. He suggested starting a pool on where the Council would end up in terms of UGB decisions.

Mr. Ganoe said that, since he did not attend the conference, he would like to be part of a control group when testing results of the conference.

Ms. Tucker said she was unimpressed by the Town Hall. She said that Metro information had been lost at the Portland workshop. She said her facilitator wasn’t assertive enough and that the presentations were a distraction from valuable discussion.

Mr. Seibert said he was interested in knowing how conference attendance broke down in terms of “new blood” and “the usual suspects”.

Chair Kyle said he enjoyed the keynote speaker and the student presentations. He said he would have liked to have heard a summary of results from the Coffee Talks. He said he wished other people in the region could have heard the debate and he didn’t think it got the press it deserved.

Mr. Donovan said the Milwaukie workshop had drawn 55 citizens, which was more than expected. He said Mayor Bernard announced that he had learned more about Metro’s issues on Friday than in any other venue and that he had completely changed his mind about some issues.

Mr. Kimball asked how much the conference cost Metro in terms of money and staff time. Ms. Peck said the budget would be finalized the next day. Mr. Kimball said he’d like to see the budget in comparison to those for other citizen involvement efforts.

Chair Kyle commended staff, the Council, and conference partners for pursuing such an innovative citizen involvement effort.

MCCI Workgroup Report

Chair Kyle spoke to citizen involvement and MCCI’s direction in relation to the transition. He said that MCCI would continue to advise the Council and the Council President, and he saw Mr. Donovan as a key contact. He said that although the Charter required an Office of Citizen Involvement (OCI), the office was not yet represented in the agency’s leadership. He spoke to MCCI’s past accomplishments and where it could improve. He said the proposal would truly establish the OCI, freeing up MCCI to do other work. He said the OCI would have full-time agency representation and would have a better chance to achieve citizen involvement goals. He said a smaller membership would make MCCI more effective, in terms of having a louder voice, a speedier consensus, and more efficient work. He believed the Metro Council would view the changes to MCCI as positive.

Mr. Seibert said he supported the document because if MCCI didn’t work with the transition it would decrease in effectiveness and value. He said the proposal would make MCCI’s relationship with the agency more open, collaborative and seamless. He said MCCI had said that, to get its work done, its values needed to be integrated with those of Metro staff. He said that if MCCI wasn’t seamless to the organization, that goal wouldn’t happen.

Mr. Ganoe said that during the MCCI Workgroup process he was more concerned with citizen involvement rather than with the nuts and bolts. He said the OCI would need to be structured so that MCCI was still very involved and he thought this was a step in the right direction.

Mr. Andreen said it was important to go back to the September Retreat and remember the purpose of the MCCI Workgroup. He said the proposal took major steps to give MCCI a power-base with the OCI as their mouthpiece with the Council. He said that having MCCI work directly with the OCI to ensure that citizen involvement was properly done would give the committee a way to be more effective.

Mr. Donovan said that every MCCI meeting gave him a valuable perspective that he took back to his daily work. He said themes from the MCCI Workgroup were also arising in the PIPG Review Committee. He said Council would help to accomplish MCCI’s goals, and that Council staff’s commitment of 1.0 FTE would be evenly shared by him and Ms. Stacey.

Councilor Burkholder said this proposal was the next step in citizen involvement, which was to set policies and see implementation. He said he was looking forward to bringing the proposal to the Metro Council. He asked for comments, concerns and ideas to incorporate into the presentation to Council. He said he saw this proposal connected with the new fiscal year.

Mr. Kimball asked who the Council Outreach Office was. Mr. Donovan responded that he, Legislative and Policy Development Director Jeff Stone, Outreach Assistant Kim Bardes and Ms. Stacey staffed the Council Outreach Office.

Mr. Pung said the direction towards membership reduction was OK, but he felt there should be representation for the disabled population. He said that MCCI should make sure that all the membership provided input to their neighborhoods.

Mr. Russell spoke to Mr. Sherwood’s written comments included in the March 20, 2002 Regular Meeting packet and said he supported them.

Mr. Jones asked for a clarification to the number of members to be appointed by the Council President.

Mr. Sherwood referred to Section 28 of the Metro Charter, which required that the Metro Council establish a citizens’ committee by ordinance. He said he was supportive of working closely with Metro staff but he was concerned with some of the language in the recommendations. He said there was no guarantee that MCCI would always be accorded the type of respect the Charter required. He said the Council might implement something similar to the workgroup report for ease of administration. He said that MCCI should be an independent body of citizens set apart from the Metro staff, and that the proposal should not come from MCCI. He asked for a review of what would go before the Council.

Ms. Durtschi said she agreed with most of what Mr. Sherwood had said. She didn’t think the report addressed what MCCI was trying to do when it was established. Multnomah County helped write the first set of bylaws, intending that the committee be independent with the right to hire and fire its own staff. Her concern was that MCCI would be a rubber stamp for the OCI’s work. She said that the committee only started to become effective when it took charge of its own destiny, and she hesitated to turn that role over to staff. She said she had no objection to staff following MCCI’s lead, but she had concerns with the reverse situation. She said leadership of citizen involvement at Metro should be contained within MCCI and that staff should carry out what MCCI wanted.

Mr. Seibert said he believed MCCI had done a lot of work to get where it was, but he didn’t believe it had the wherewithal to lead the agency. He said he’d love to see an independent body that audited citizen involvement after the fact and he was looking for a way to change the value and culture of the organization to accomplish that goal.

Mr. Pennington said that independence could be sought through the ballot box.

Mr. Andreen said he felt MCCI was ineffective as to its purpose, and that needed to be changed. He said the committee needed to be part of the inside, not part of the outside, so it could have some real power.

Ms. Tucker referred to Ms. Durtschi’s concern with ineffective liaisons and suggested building in wording in that allowed for other channels in case liaisons were ineffective.

Mr. Ganoe said that since MCCI was established within the Charter it was part of Metro and shouldn’t be independent.

Mr. Pung said he believed MCCI would be vulnerable to the arrogance of politicians.

Chair Kyle said the committee should continue to set its work, and that wasn’t clear in the proposal. The document also did not clarify that MCCI would advise the Council and the Council President. He said that member comments would accompany the proposal as it went before the Metro Council. He said the next step would be an ordinance to establish the OCI and that the ordinance could take care of member concerns to some degree.

Councilor Burkholder said that the Council was responsible for policy-making and there was a very involved structure of advisory committees at all levels. He said a draft ordinance would be the next step and that the committee could review it to make sure their concerns were addressed.

Mr. Seibert asked that members have until the next Friday to get comments regarding the proposal comments to Ms. Stacey.

Subcommittee Reports

Mr. Ganoe reported that the legislation regarding the proposed excise tax on solid waste to fund parks had been amended and would be considered the next Thursday. He said the Green Ribbon Committee’s proposal to add 61 cents to the excise tax had not been considered.

Staff Report

Ms. Stacey distributed an updated membership list, background materials on new MCCI members, the OCI monthly budget report for February and an article regarding growth in Sacramento County, copies of which are included as part of this record. It was agreed that the OCI’s monthly budget report no longer needed to be distributed to the committee.

Round Table

There was none.

Adjourn

There being no further business before the committee, Chair Kyle adjourned the meeting at 9:05 p.m.

Prepared by,

Cary Stacey

Council Assistant