Administrative - Meeting Management - Meeting Records, Governing Body, Agendas, Meeting Packets, Minutes and Exhibits

METRO COUNCIL RETREAT

January 15, 2003

The desired outcomes of this day-long retreat were:

- Agreement about appropriate Council, President, COO roles and

responsibilities related to the restructured organization.

- Clarity re: the communication process between Council,

President, COO, and staff and "ground rules" for working

relationships.

The retreat was facilitated by Arty Trost, of Organizational Dynamics, Inc.

The agenda was developed based on phone conversations with the Council President, each of the Councilors, the COO, and the Director of Human Resources. (See attached.) Although the agenda questions were presented in linear order, it was recognized that they were so intertwined that we might move naturally from a question in one area to a question in another area and still be "on track".

The following ground rules for the retreat were suggested by the phone conversations, and were presented to and accepted by the Council at the beginning of the day.

• Listen before you make up your mind.

• Consider all the information.

• Don't withdraw; stay engaged in the process.

• Share airtime.

• Surface any discomfort early, rather than waiting until you are really upset.

• Look for areas of agreement before voicing disagreement.

• Listen to understand rather than to respond.

• Recognize each others commitment.

• Be willing to move on once there is substantive agreement.

The following material is taken from the agreements listed on flip charts at the retreat.

Role of the Council

• The Council's role is to set policy, goals, measurable objectives and a process for COO to report back to Council on a regular basis about on-going progress toward the goals and objectives.

• The COO should clarify with staff that policy is made by Council - and what policy means. They should not use the word "policy" unless referring to an actual policy developed by Council, especially if they are referring to "usual practice".

The Council and Policy Development

• Through staff work and work by the Councilors and Council President, issues and opportunities are identified, and put on the Council's agenda.

The policy development process then is:

1. Idea generation

2 - Refinement/formulation of possible policies. (Develop a plan)

3 - Codification

4 - Vote

NOTE: The following information (from a different flip chart) builds on what is written above.

Role of Council in Policy Development and the Budget Process:

1. The Council President and COO will work together to identify policy questions and assumptions, which they will bring to the Council.

2. The Council discusses the questions and assumptions and drafts initial policy/ies .

The general public should be involved as much as possible at this stage.

3. The COO works with staff and comes back to the Council with budget implications of the draft policies. The Council may choose to make changes to the initial policies, based on budget implications.

4. The budget is fully developed and presented, based on Council-approved policies.

Principle: The earlier the Council can be involved, the better. The point is to avoid big surprises.

Developing a Council Work Plan

Council sets agenda for future meetings; they do this by prioritizing issues and seeing a time frame (appropriate to each issue.)

David appoints lead councilors for individual issues (as needed—not all issues will have a lead councilor) with a schedule for reporting back to the Council.

At informals:

Discuss issues in depth

Air issues and questions for formal agenda

Use a rolling agenda

Council Relationships

Principle: Keep each other informed. No surprises!

• The Council needs a process to ensure that it stays informed.

• Give each other "professional courtesy"...each of us should let the other Councilors know if something is likely to be in the media. (For the COO, this goes beyond the request of professional courtesy—the Council requires the COO to inform them if he believes that something might appear in the media.)

• If a Councilor is going to speak in another Councilor's district, it is another act of professional courtesy to notify the district Councilor beforehand.

Council and Staff

• General Principle: The Council wants a free flow of information to and from staff. We want all the information necessary to make good decisions; we don't want information withheld or massaged.

• The Council selects, supports, and if necessary fires the COO and approves the budget. The entire Council has oversight responsibility for the COO. The COO hires, manages, and if necessary fires staff. The Council doesn't direct/manage staff.

• If Council members have concerns about staff, (with what staff says or does,) they should take up those concerns with the COO; they should not go directly to the staff.

• Council can go to staff for information as long as there's no budgetary impact (We want to recognize that any request of staff diverts a resource - so use staff resources judiciously.) Give the COO a heads-up when possible...especially if you will be using more than a minimum of staff time. Staff should go to the COO if they feel overburdened by Councilor requests. The COO will then take it up with the individual Councilor - another option is for the Council as a whole to discuss if they want to reallocate resources so that individual Councilors have more access to staff.

• The COO should keep Council apprised of staff involvement "outside the building".

Staff Support for Individual Councilors as well as Council as a whole

• If possible, staff should be available to attend important meetings that Councilors are unable to attend.

• Individual Councilors can request staff support through the COO.

• Councilors would like to get information re: Council-grounded topics in writing or in person. (The preference is to be kept very well informed.)

• Councilors want a digestible summary/staff report of what they're being asked to make decisions on. This is in addition to, not in lieu of, the information already being received. They want clear statements of the decisions they are being asked to make - and the implications.

Communication with Constituents

The Council wants to maximize their ability to get information to and information from their constituents, both as an agency and as individual councilors.

The COO should develop a communication plan which allows the Council to:

-get unfiltered information from our constituents

-get information to our constituents

-make METRO better known

- be actively engaged in outreach (by the Councilors)