Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024-06-14 Council Appointed Officers Committee Summary Minutes Council Appointed Officers Committee SUMMARY MINUTES Page 1 of 10 Special Meeting June 14, 2024 Chair Lauing called the meeting to order in the Community Meeting Room and by virtual teleconference at 1:32 P.M. Present In Person: Lauing (Chair), Burt, Kou Present Remotely: Absent: CALL TO ORDER Chair Lauing called the meeting to order. Clerk called roll and declared all were present. PUBLIC COMMENTS There were no requests to speak to items not on the agenda nor to items on the agenda. ACTION ITEMS 1. Discussion Regarding Council Appointed Officers (CAO) Annual Performance Evaluation Process and Goal Setting Chair Lauing provided a recap of the last meeting. He had recently submitted his notes in a document, which he also had at this meeting. He outlined what had been discussed regarding the annual review; what the CEOs were being evaluated on; if longer-term goals should be considered, such as succession planning; if CAO goals matched Council members' accountability to residents; if CAOs were given clarity of what needed to be done and if comprehensive feedback was being given; if the self-review document was the right approach; and if the recommended questions covered the areas for the Council and the CAOs. He would be happy to add to his notes anything he may have omitted from the last discussion. He voiced that the CAOC needed to determine the process; document content to and from the CAOs; begin to set a timeline for the City Manager, City Attorney, and City Clerk; and decide if MRG would be retained. Related to agenda setting, he thought there needed to be a recommendation to the Mayor that there be more time for each CAO review. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 2 of 10 Sp. Council Appointed Officer’s Committee Meeting Summary Minutes 06/14/2024 Council Member Burt stated that as a late At-Places he had received a draft updated procedure for Board Appointed Officers (BAOs) from VTA, which was not radically different. He outlined the differences not captured in the steps, which included the facilitator getting board members' thoughts. There had been an initial closed session with the consultant, the facilitator, and the Committee to review the procedure and then there was a meeting related to the BAOs' self- assessments. There had been much thoughtfulness concerning the KPIs. He commented that the goals should be translated into performance indicators. The VTA Committee wanted to ensure that the meetings with the BAOs would not be rushed. He noted that in Exhibit C1 of the current contract the fees allocated for the facilitator were less for the City Manager and City Attorney than for the City Clerk and the City Auditor, which did not make sense to him. He remarked that there would not be a City Auditor review this year, so he supposed that under the current contract some of the $14,600 could be reallocated toward the other CAOs as appropriate. Council Member Kou had found that in 2017 a very detailed timeline of the evaluation process had been provided in May, which allowed Council members to prepare. She noted there had been information related to the purpose of meeting, target dates, meeting expectations, and whether public notices were required. Another evaluation process had also been assembled giving even further descriptions, and she apologized for not having had time to submit that for review. She thought the content of the evaluation would also be examined at this meeting. She remembered the former consultant presenting a survey to Council members, which she felt was a good tool, and based on the survey results, there may have been one-on-one conversations, which were not rushed. She outlined what had been in the survey, which was meant to obtain content. She did not remember there being a survey last year or the year before, and she thought the process had been pruned. She added that she had not forwarded the survey because it included answers of specific individuals. Chair Lauing asked if Council Member Kou was making a suggestion on content or process. Council Member Kou replied that the scope of work spoke of a process. She hoped something would be continued so expectations would be known, which would be in the notes. Chair Lauing noted that the process on document content to and from the CAOs needed to be determined. He expressed that the current process included the consultant sending out a questionnaire to each Committee member. He inquired if that should include some of the questions Council Member Kou spoke of. Council Member Kou liked what Deborah Figoni with MRG had done with the survey previously. She proposed sending a redacted survey in for review. Council Member Burt suggested forwarding the document of the 2017 process to the CAOC and MRG Dan Rich and that he include an appropriate expanded group of questions. Although, the CAOC may want to review the questions before going to the full Council. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 3 of 10 Sp. Council Appointed Officer’s Committee Meeting Summary Minutes 06/14/2024 MRG Dan Rich noted that he had something similar to the survey being discussed, which he could share. However, there were challenges with it, which he elaborated on. He inquired if the goal was to have numeric scoring or to have certain things discussed, documented, and summarized. Chair Lauing recommended that Council Member Kou provide the survey to MRG Rich and that he combine it with what he had prepared and then present the Committee something for editing. Council Member Burt thought that was the right theme and that it should be internally consistent. He was not very interested in numeric scoring. He was concerned that the process had become more truncated than what it had been a number of years ago. City Manager Ed Shikada thought Council knowing the instrument and the process in advance was helpful to the CAOs. He discussed why he understood that in previous years the quantitative scoring had been a hurdle. Discussion ensued and the CAOC determined that MRG Rich had enough information to do an edit and return to the CAOC with suggestions, and the CAOC agreed that there was no interest in numerical scoring. Chair Lauing thought it was logical to incorporate longer term goals with three- to five-year plans. He noted that it may need to be done for some departments more than others, such as grid readiness, which was a multiyear project, and other departments may be more short-term oriented, and the CAOC would need direction from City Manager Shikada related to that. He inquired if the CAOs' goals matched with accountability to residents. Council Member Burt agreed that longer term goals should be incorporated with three- to five- year plans and that goals should be parsed out more clearly as to what would be specific for this year and what would be part of multiyear goals. Council Member Kou, concerning the CAOs' goals matching with accountability to residents, noted that the CAOC did not really know the residents' thoughts on the CAOs as that information was not gathered, and she thought there should be input from the residents. Chair Burt thought there should be a deliberate step. He construed this to mean that the CAOC would ask themselves whether the CAO goals aligned with the residents. He asked if Council Member Kou was suggesting a survey. Council Member Kou believed a survey was a method that would simplify the process of getting residents' input. She added that the National Citizen Survey (NCS) was a big indicator, although it was not used as an evaluation tool for the CAOs, which should maybe be incorporated as an input. Council Member Burt thought the NCS would be a valuable input to inform goal-setting. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 4 of 10 Sp. Council Appointed Officer’s Committee Meeting Summary Minutes 06/14/2024 Chair Lauing questioned what the process should be for iterating and coming back to the Chair, the CAOC, or Council. Council Member Burt asked if MRG Rich had any thoughts on Council being more deliberate in making sure the goals of the citizenry were being addressed. MRG Rich encouraged Council to ask residents their thoughts. However, he cautioned that 98% of the citizens did not pay attention to the day-to-day operations of the City. He thought it was a good idea to include the NCS as a datapoint, which he could include with the interview questions or whatever documents he would send out in advance to Council. City Manager Shikada requested some additional clarity related to incorporating longer term goals with three- to five-year plans, due to a possible large volume of material. Council Member Burt did not know if clear lines could be provided, but he wanted to strike a balance. As part of the iterative process, there may be a draft from the CAOs and particularly the City Manager and then that could be reviewed and refined by the CAOC to go into the full Council discussion. City Manager Shikada stated that it would be unpredicted for the CAOC to review CAO evaluations prior to going to the full Council, and he thought such a process should be discussed with Council. Chair Lauing discussed wanting the City Manager to look at long-term projects, such as grid, to make sure direction was in place. City Manager Shikada expected that level of visibility to apply to grid, housing, economic development, and a number of key areas largely tracking with Council priorities. He thought it would be manageable if that and the organizational issues were to be the focus. MRG Rich suggested going over the draft questions to the CAOs for their self-evaluation, which would direct the City Manager and his colleagues as to what should be included. If, for example, it was determined that the City Manager should focus on the grid for the next three to five years, that needed to be made clear. There should be clear direction on short-term and potentially long-term goals. Council Member Burt did not want the CAOC to go into a prereview of the CAOs' self- assessments. If that were to happen, it would have to be a Council decision. He wanted to ensure that it would have the right questions, depth of goals and KPIs, and structure to the process when received by Council. City Manager Shikada voiced that he had seen widely varying areas of priority among Council members and that maybe all should participate in the conversation. He discussed when it would be appropriate to have a closed versus open session. He thought it was appropriate to discuss the questions in an open forum. Once the questions were responded to, it would SUMMARY MINUTES Page 5 of 10 Sp. Council Appointed Officer’s Committee Meeting Summary Minutes 06/14/2024 presumably be a closed session discussion. He questioned if it should be a closed session with the CAOC or with Council as a whole. If it was to be with the CAOC, he thought it would need to be done twice. Chair Lauing envisioned the answered questions going to the Council as a whole. He asked if the CAOC should see the consultant's/facilitator's written report to make sure it was the summary of Council. He explained that he did not want to do it twice, which had been the case last year. MRG Rich thought it made sense that the CAOC see the consultant's/facilitator's written report, although he elaborated on why it was a little tricky and potentially dangerous. He thought it was most important that the CAOC and the full Council sign off on the questions to appointees for their self-evaluations as well as the questions to individual Council members. Chair Lauing commented that a couple of Council's consensus items were not in the written review. Council Member Burt understood that MRG Rich was speaking about soliciting input from individual Council members, which would be put in a feedback document that would go to Council for review with the CAO, and that Chair Lauing was speaking about a follow-up document to that and making sure Council's intentions were captured. Chair Lauing wanted to ensure that the consultant's written report would be aligned with Council consensus. MRG Rich suggested there be a closed session with the full Council to review his draft report before having the closed session with the individual appointees, which would be an additional step to the process. Chair Lauing thought that would be fine. Council Member Burt stated that what MRG Rich described was consistent with what had been done at VTA, which was the consultant input from the joint meeting and the individual Council members (to include what had been done in writing and what had been discussed collectively), a writeup summarizing that, providing it to the board, and then a meeting with the board. HR Sandra Director Blanch expressed that in looking at the timeline it appeared there needed to be a step in between the third to last step. Chair Lauing was sure there needed to be a step in between the third to last step. Council Member Burt noted that the VTA looked at the compensation for reviews of each of the CAOs, and it was not understood why the cost was lower for the City Manager and City Attorney than the City Clerk and City Auditor. The CAOC wanted a more in-depth process, which would require more hours from MRG, and in the agreed upon contract there were dollars that could be reallocated because the City Auditor would not be reviewed this year. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 6 of 10 Sp. Council Appointed Officer’s Committee Meeting Summary Minutes 06/14/2024 MRG Rich replied that he was not an MRG employee and could not speak for them or the contract terms. He was optimistic that reallocating money would be sufficient or close to sufficient to cover any additional costs. However, if necessary, an item could be brought to Council in the fall to amend the contract to add additional dollars. He stated that he originally was not tracking his time because it was a lump sum, but he was now trying to keep track of the hours to get a sense whether the time spent aligned with the dollars allocated. He mentioned that the interviews would be longer and there would probably be an additional closed session, but he did not think the process was fundamentally changing or that too many additional steps were being added. Chair Lauing asked if any timelines needed the CAOC's attention. MRG Rich asked if the step on Packet Page 25 (him debriefing the Mayor and Council and getting red line edits from the CAOs) meant he would draft a report and give it to the CAOs and get their input before it going to Council. City Manager Shikada stated the CAOs would see it after Council had confirmed it reflected the collective feedback. MRG Rich suggested the box stating CAOs due 8/27 be deleted, which was on Packet Page 25. He thought there should be four closed sessions – one for full Council to discuss the draft report, one for just the City Manager, one for the City Clerk and the City Attorney, and one to discuss compensation unless than could be discussed at one of the other meetings. Chair Lauing would incorporate it that way, and it could be pulled if necessary. MRG Rich noted there had been several comments about feeling rushed and not having enough time to fully discuss these issues in closed session. He asked if any or all of the four closed sessions should be special meetings on a different day or time than the regular Council meetings. Chair Lauing replied that he put in the notes today that the CAOC would recommend to the Mayor there be more time for the closed sessions. He queried if the closed sessions should be at the beginning of a regular Council meeting or if there should be extra special meetings. Council Member Burt suggested the initial closed session be a special meeting. MRG Rich thought the closed session concerning compensation could be pre or post a regular Council meeting. He asked if the CAOC felt they needed more time to meet with the appointees for the other two closed sessions. Chair Lauing thought more time was needed than last time but not as much as the first closed session. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 7 of 10 Sp. Council Appointed Officer’s Committee Meeting Summary Minutes 06/14/2024 Council Member Burt asked if there needed to be special meetings or if there could be more time at the beginning or end of regular meetings. Chair Lauing thought a longer time than normal should be booked. He did not think special meetings were needed. Council Member Burt discussed the timeline and reviewing the questions document. He asked if it would be reviewed after break, which would push the timeline out, although there was a gap between the grid box of 7/30 to 8/9 and there was not anything until 9/4, so some time could be made up there. He mentioned there was nothing referenced concerning the deadline for completing this. MRG Rich stated there could be an update fairly quickly if time was spent today inspecting the questions to drive the evaluation process. He discussed why he would be hesitant to not have this done relatively soon. Council Member Burt thought he would need time to reflect on the questions. He suggested there be either a follow-up CAOC special meeting on June 18 or 19 or MRG Rich be provided with individual input to incorporate. City Manager Shikada commented that Council would need to approve any direction provided by the CAOC, and it could be put on the consent agenda for June 18. If questions were not finalized until later this month or if Council should not confirm that direction, potentially self- evaluations would not be done until August. Council Member Burt did not remember Council ever having to approve the questions and asked for documentation related to Council doing that. He noted there were two sets of questions – one for Council members and one for the CAOs. City Manager Shikada thought Council had always approved the questions for the CAOs, but he did not think questions had been used as the basis for the evaluations in prior years. MRG Rich remarked that the questions for the CAOs was the priority. HR Director Blanch declared that Packet Page 26 contained the questions for the CAOs to respond to. Chair Lauing suggested addressing the questions for the CAOs at this meeting and deferring the questions for Council members until a later date. Discussion ensued related to amending the content and language of Questions b, c, e, f, and g. Clerk displayed the questions and made the changes live. Council Member Burt noted that the word values in Question g referred to the Council adopted enduring values. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 8 of 10 Sp. Council Appointed Officer’s Committee Meeting Summary Minutes 06/14/2024 Discussion ensued related to community-focused issues referenced in Question g, and it was determined that this referred to more immediate issues over the coming year or something coming up that was not captured in the priority setting or the enduring values. MRG Rich would share with Council the survey that was discussed and the values and priorities when he sends the questions to Council in advance of the interviews. Council Member Burt asked if the questions should require Council consent or if it was within the CAOC's purview. City Manager Shikada voiced that this could be put on consent next week for Council approval. He thought the questions being within the CAOC's purview was a judgment call. Council may want to revise the questions, which was a bit of a risk. If it was put on consent, it would be for Council to concur with the CAOC's recommended questions to be posed to the CAOs in their self-evaluations. Council Member Burt explained why he did not feel Council revisions would be a big risk, and he did not see a need to go to Council. MRG Rich suggested, if put on consent to Council, that the timeline and process chart (which he could update) also be included. Chair Lauing voiced that there could be an informational report to Council or a Committee Report that would occur during the Council Member Comments portion of the meeting. After discussion, the CAOC agreed to provide Council with a verbal Committee Report that would occur during the Council Member Comments portion of the meeting. Council would be informed that the CAOs' self-evaluation questions had been established, but those questions would not be presented to Council. MRG Rich declared that he would provide Chair Lauing with the updated timeline over the weekend. City Manager Shikada noted there would not need to be a future informational item to Council as Council would see the self-evaluations, which would include the questions and the responses. Council Member Kou asked if Council would be able to provide edits for next year's evaluation upon receiving the informational report. Council Member Burt replied there could also be input during the one-on-one with MRG Rich. He requested that MRG Rich ask Council members for input related to future questions during the one-on-one conversations. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 9 of 10 Sp. Council Appointed Officer’s Committee Meeting Summary Minutes 06/14/2024 MRG Rich confirmed that he would do that and that there could be a debrief at the end of the process to discuss any possible changes for next year. He suggested the CAOC meet a final time after the process to reflect. Chair Lauing proposed there be a separate consulting project and the writing of a training manual to brief new Council members on the process, which may be a 2025 deliverable. Council Member Burt thought that could be addressed in the final CAOC meeting. HR Director Blanch asked if there would be goalsetting for the City Auditor for 2025. Chair Lauing thought City Auditor goalsetting should be addressed later in the year and set up as a separate review process. Council Member Burt stated the training manual could be an onboarding for new Council members and it could serve as a document to refresh existing Council members. He suggested reflecting on what onboarding should consist of for new Council members, boards, and commissioners. City Manager Shikada acknowledged it was a good opportunity to review that. They had done onboarding for new commissioners earlier in the week, which was based on the Council's approved Board and Commission Handbook. Typically for new Council members, they had done more of the logistics around City Hall, the Brown Act, etc., along with the elements of the Council's Procedures and Protocols Handbook as an initial introduction, and Council may want to include more or different material. He remembered hearing as a suggestion at the last CAOC meeting that the process and what might ultimately be onboarding for new Council members on the CAO evaluation could also go into the Procedures and Protocols Handbook. Council Member Burt thought it was a good idea to place the process and the onboarding for new Council members in the Procedures and Protocols Handbook. He thought a gap in onboarding was new Council members understanding the scope of each department. He proposed there be more deliberate training for Council, board, and commission members. Chair Lauing noted that understanding the scope of each department had been addressed two years ago, but he discussed there still being gaps. MRG Rich suggested that he, himself, work with Chair Lauing to refine the interview questions for Council members and, in particular, review the document Council Member Kou referenced to see if incorporating any of that material would be appropriate. Council Member Burt requested that MRG Rich return his revised draft to each Committee member to provide individual input. Council Member Kou declared that she had sent the questions she brought up and some of the process charts to Sandra Blanch. She thought MRG Rich's revised draft should be reviewed. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 10 of 10 Sp. Council Appointed Officer’s Committee Meeting Summary Minutes 06/14/2024 Chair Lauing thought there should be a hard deadline for comments. MRG Rich hoped to do all the interviews between July 30 and August 9, so he did not need to have the questions finalized until the third week of July. He would give a first draft to Chair Lauing, get his input, and then send it to all CAOC members for input, which would complete the process. He would generate an email asking that final input be received no later than early to mid-July. MOTION: Council Member Burt, seconded by Council Member Kou, moved to recommend that the City Council move the questions for the CAO Evaluation Process, as revised below. QUESTIONS TO DRIVE THE PALO ALTO CAO EVALUATION PROCESS – Council would like the appointed officials to respond to some specific questions in the self- evaluation, which will help focus the Council interviews and final evaluation: a. What is your overall assessment of the state of the Palo Alto organization? What are your, and the organization’s, areas of strength and key achievements in the last fiscal year, particularly as called out in Council-identified priorities? b. What do you see as areas of concern or vulnerability (to include risk assessment organization-wide and department-specific comments in the near and long term, but not personnel-specific). c. How are the City’s department(s) or functions under your authority performing? (for example: productivity, morale, collaboration, communication, recruitment, etc.). d. What are your observations on the organization’s fiscal health (strengths and risks)? e. Are there regional, state, or national issues/trends that the CAO believes important for the Council to be considering in the near and long term? f. What would enhance the effectiveness of relationships between yourself and the Elected Officials and yourself and the other Council Appointed Officers (availability, responsiveness, communication, etc.)? g. What are your specific priorities for the coming year and beyond, including both internal and community-focused issues and priorities (beyond Council-identified priorities and values)? h. What do you need from the Council in the next fiscal year and beyond to be successful? i. What else would you like to share with the Council? MOTION PASSED: 3-0 Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 3:24 P.M.