Da Council

John Nalbandian states that the idea of council-manager government is that political and administrative realms can be in partnership and not dependent on the system of checks and balances that characterize our state and federal governments, where separation of legislative and executive powers is valued. The relationship between the manager and the elected officials sets a tone for the entire local government. Although some elected officials shy away from acknowledging a team or partner relationship between and among members of council and between the council and the staff, it is critical that the professional manager prepares the council for its work.
Unfortunately, substantial real impediments frequently exist which diminish effective city council involvement in all stages of a decision. These include, among others, departments, agencies or semi-independent agencies financed and/or sanctioned by state and federal laws. In addition, there is almost always a large time span over which projects or issues may extend, resulting in numerous changes in the composition of the decision-making body or a change in attitude of the citizenry or even a change in need for the project or service itself which can hamper effective decision-making.
The city’s citizen culture is relative to the general national culture of individual independence and this tends to hamper cooperation. The “organizational” culture originally seemed to have been defined by a City Manager who had also served as the Clerk-Treasurer in the 80’s and 90’s. The manager felt all staff were incompetent and that they should not spend a penny or make a decision unless approved by the manager. It seems that this led staff from the top of the organization to the bottom to treat the public as if they are out to rip-off the city and they had to defend every penny to the death. The council also seemed to expect staff to unrealistically deliver high levels of service to the citizenry while spending less money. Staff became paranoid and tried to avoid doing anything other than minimal maintenance. This did and in some cases still does dominate the interactions between the council, staff and the public. The city infrastructure deteriorated substantially in the 70’s, 80’s and early 90’s because of these dysfunction organizational interactions. One of the other ways this manifested itself was that copying of all agenda participants with information rather than just council members and senior staff was considered an unnecessary expense.
Still, one of the biggest problems is the difference in perspective between council and staff—differences that are often difficult to understand because while council and the staff are using the same words, they speak different languages. This means that staff can only help prepare the council for its work, but the council is responsible for providing overall leadership for the local government by enacting laws and providing policy for allocating resources for programs, services, and activities, and the council bears the main responsibility for building its own knowledge capacity and communication channels. The council goal should be a partnership with each other and staff. The city manager must work to provide a cooperative and friendly organizational culture that desires to work with the council.[1]

1 Julia Novak and John Nalbandian, Preparing Councils for Their Work. PM Magazine. August 2009.