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08-17-1998 - Workshop CITY COUNCIL OF EDGEWATER WORKSHOP AUGUST 17, 1998 6:00 P.M. COMMUNITY CENTER MINUTES CALL TO ORDER Mayor Allman called the Workshop to order at 6: 00 p.m. in the Community Center. ROLL CALL Mayor Randy Allman Present Councilman James Gornto Arrived at 7 : 00 p.m. Councilman Myron Hammond Present Councilman Gary Roberts Present Councilwoman Judith Lichter Present City Attorney Nikki Clayton Present Interim City Manager Kenneth Hooper Present City Clerk Susan Wadsworth Present Police Chief Lawrence Schumaker Present MEETING PURPOSE The purpose of the workshop was to discuss, with the Executive Committee for the Citizens for Responsible Government, how citizens view the performance of responsible government. Opening Statement by Ferd Heeb Ferd Heeb, 115 N. Riverside Drive, Citizens for Responsible Government, thanked Council for agreeing to the workshop. The presentations would be limited to three speakers; himself, Dick Martinez and John Moore. After each presentation they hoped members of the Council would offer dialogue on the thoughts and ideas presented by the speakers . The discussion would only be between the speaker and members of the Council, would center on issues and there would be no personal attacks. The only agenda was reconciliation and responsible government. He asked the citizens in the audience not to applaud or make verbal gestures of support or displeasure. Mr. Heeb reminded everyone what a wonderful place they live in by describing what Edgewater offers and identified they had a lot to be thankful for. He felt the people who live in Edgewater were divided. They had those who were actively concerned about the affairs of the City and those who were so involved in making a living and raising their families or for whatever reason were not concerned. The actively concerned citizens were further divided into two camps . Both 1 Council Workshop August 17, 1998 camps had adopted mean spirited platforms based on revenge and payback to the point many outsiders consider Edgewater' s City government to be a joke. He felt it was time to put aside the anger and hostility and come together as a community; a community that respects individual' s differences and the opinions of others and a community where the majority deals with the minority compassionately and reasonably. Mr. Heeb then read an article written by Debby Brazzell from the Observer entitled "We Need to Understand Our Critics. " Mr. Heeb hoped tonight would be the start of a commitment by this Council and the citizens of this community to join hands in moving forward for the betterment of our City and government. The Citizens for Responsible Government were here to present their views on what they thought the leaders of the City should be doing to provide responsible government and to offer their help in achieving those goals. They wanted to see Council follow procedures established by State law and the City' s Charter in all of their dealings with and without the City. The perception that something was accomplished outside the process opens allegations of conspiracy and distrust. It also created division in the City. Mr. Heeb identified they were here to open dialogue with the Council with the hope that together they can develop a better understanding of what constitutes responsible government and eliminate the discord that surrounded the Administration. Public Perception of Block Voting Dick Martinez, 317 Schooner Avenue, identified they were here because citizens had voiced their complaints to them and had made clear that they felt they had a problem with the City Council as it existed today. Block voting was one of those problems. Many residents complained their views were ignored. He felt Council too often voted as a block and gave the perception of pre-agreement. He felt perception was important in a city our size. Mr. Martinez asked Councilman Roberts how they could give residents more of a voice on his decisions . Councilman Roberts informed him the residents were welcome to call him. A lot of the residents that complained he never heard from until after a decision was made. Mr. Martinez asked if it was possible that perhaps because of events overtaking the issue that there was a preconception of how they were going to go. He felt they should give more latitude to the people that come to the meetings . Mr. Martinez asked Mayor Allman to comment on that subject also. Mayor Allman informed him since they had been in office they had a total of 156 different motions they voted on. Out of that 135 were unanimous . He felt the voting bloc Mr. Martinez was speaking of was 2 Council Workshop August 17, 1998 himself, Councilman Roberts and Councilman Hammond. He pointed out the three of them had voted unanimously six times out of 156. He didn' t feel this was a voting bloc. There had been five votes taken where it was a 3-2 combination and ten votes of 4-1. He identified he fielded telephone calls at home. He would act and do whatever was necessary to help anyone in this town. He didn' t feel he had turned his back on anybody in the City. John Moore asked Mayor Allman of the 156 votes, how many motions were initiated by one of the two Councilmen and seconded by the other. Mayor Allman felt it was probably all six. Mr. Moore questioned if he thought it was only six. Mayor Allman informed him he didn' t know what Mr. Moore was getting at. Mr. Moore identified he had seen it happen more than six times . Mayor Allman identified they had voted together 141 times but they had been joined by the other two Councilmembers 135 of those 141 times. He felt the perception of bloc voting was exactly that, perception. Mr. Martinez asked Councilman Hammond how the Council could restore the residents' confidence since there was a perception. Councilman Hammond stated he didn' t know there was a problem. He left his business ten minutes ago to get there by six o' clock. Customers had been on the phone all day to him and had been driving in and out. Ever since he ran customers had been in and out. If there was a problem they phone him or come to his place. Right now, he had asked John Moore' s father to get a hold of John Moore, Jr. to talk to him and that had been months ago. It never happened. He had not had anybody come in to his business and say they did or didn' t want something. He had people phone him and had gone to people' s homes on problems. He didn' t understand this . Mr. Martinez gathered Councilman Hammond thought there was no problem. Councilman Hammond stated for him, he had no problem. Councilwoman Lichter felt if they were going to ask her fellow Councilpeople to respond that she should respond too. Mr. Moore informed her she was coming up. Councilwoman Lichter felt what might help perception, if there really was a perception, that they should know what type of issues had been voted on as a bloc. She felt that may give a key to the perception problem. She felt sometimes it was their responsibility not just to vote, but to explain. If they explained their vote, since they have no other way to legally dialogue with each other, she felt it was important to explain why they were voting yeah or nay. Start a new Search for a City Manager Mr. Moore applauded the Council' s efforts before of finding a new City Manager. He felt the process was very fair and very professional, which he credited Interim City Manager Hooper for. 3 Council Workshop August 17, 1998 Mr. Moore informed Councilwoman Lichter that at the last Council meeting she made the comment that perhaps it was time to start a new search. Councilwoman Lichter identified she mentioned it because Mr. Hooper originally said he was only going to be here until the end of September. She knew how long it took them to go through 200 applications the first time. She felt Interim City Manager Hooper had done a wonderful job as interim but interim was only temporary and wasn' t planning for the future. Mr. Moore thanked Interim City Manager Hooper for all he had done for Edgewater. He wanted to see a City Manager who was going to be here that was going to afford some type of continuity to that position. He wanted to see some sort of action taken to decide whether or not a search would be started. There had been rumors about how since this Council had been in office they had gone through some City Managers . It wasn' t just Edgewater that was noticing it; it was all over the State. He felt it wasn' t hard to clean up perception. Restoring Confidence in Our Elected Council Mr. Heeb heard a residence refer to the Council as the City Fathers, the connotation being they are the leaders of the City family. When they elect their representatives, they expect them to be leaders . To build confidence, the Council must demonstrate leadership. One of the critical components of leadership was the ability to build consensus, which he felt was what Council was going to have to start doing, with the City Manager and the public. If the Council wanted the citizens to have confidence in them, when they had an issue that had two sides they had to stand up and say why they felt the way they did and why they felt this was the right direction for the City and offer compelling arguments. They can' t let everybody talk and then vote because then the people don' t feel their comments had been taken into consideration. He found this Council did not offer compelling arguments before they vote. They don' t take into consideration that there were people in the audience who don' t agree with their position and he felt those people needed to be addressed to help with building consensus. The Council was elected to represent all of the people. When the citizens cast their ballot, they vote for the person they think would do the best job. They expect a candidate to do the best job for everybody, not just his constituents. There were a lot of people that felt they had been disenfranchised from the process because of who they supported. He felt Council needed to make an effort to assure them they hadn' t been disenfranchised. They had to do what they thought was the best for the entire City and hopefully not bow to the influence of small special interest groups . He felt it was especially important to listen to the critics and hear what they had to say. Every person who addressed Council had the right to be heard and their statements considered. To have confidence in the Council, they needed to believe that and Council needed to restore that confidence. 4 Council Workshop August 17, 1998 Mr. Heeb asked Council if they had any comments. Councilman Roberts identified he had lived in Edgewater for 15 years and had had family in Edgewater for about 20 and felt he understood the community pretty well . He listens to a lot of people. A lot of people don' t show up at these meetings. They show up when they see something in the paper that was voted on the night before and they get upset and they show up at the next meeting but they don' t get involved when they should. He does his homework on issues on the agenda. Councilman Roberts pointed out he did not ignore what he hears the audience say. He hears both sides of the story, gives equal thought to both sides and votes the way he thinks the City should go in the future. He does the job to better the community. He felt Council had done a very good job of getting this City where it should be going. If it meant personnel changes, so be it. They had some good people on staff and he wanted to continue that path towards a better future for the City. He further commented on the people being welcome to get in touch with him. Mr. Heeb expressed his appreciation of the intentions of all of the Councilmembers that they sincerely were trying to do what was right for the City. Unfortunately there has been created a perception that they have an agenda and that the agenda is in place before they walk into the Community Center. He pointed out Councilman Roberts just admitted that he does his homework and walks into the room with his position but he doesn' t elaborate how he got there. They let everybody talk and then they vote. If they wanted to restore confidence in the Council and get the City back together, they were going to have to make an extra effort. It was time for the City to be a community and for Council to take responsibility for their position and bring it together as a community. Mr. Heeb didn' t think that any of the Councilmembers were experienced politicians or had held public office. Councilwoman Lichter informed him she had been an active politician for over 40 years and further commented on her experience. Councilman Roberts identified this was his first elected position but he had served on an advisory board. With his background in the construction industry he had worked with many government agencies, City, County and State and had a good feeling for how government worked. Mr. Heeb was talking about the political process where he would be willing to stand up in front of the people and discuss every issue in minute detail if necessary. He informed Councilman Roberts he needed to be able convey his thoughts and feelings so people understood where he was coming from. 5 Council Workshop August 17, 1998 Mr. Heeb identified they wanted responsible government and wanted the Council to be successful. Councilwoman Lichter spoke of trying to explain everything, not only being a teacher but a politician. Then she gets comments from people in the audience asking why she doesn' t stop talking and that she was explaining too much. She felt it was a two-way street. The Council had a responsibility. They had to talk to their constituents and do their homework. Their constituents had a responsibility as well as the Council to understand the City Manager/Council form of government. Councilwoman Lichter spoke of receiving calls and letters asking her to do things she isn' t supposed to do. It' s not her responsibility to go up and down every street and find code enforcement issues. She is to set policy and yet she gets that type of request. Mr. Heeb spoke of revolving in a sphere of influence with many people coming in and out of that sphere. So often their discussions center on the people in that sphere of influence. He cautioned the Council to be careful of who they were talking to because there were a lot of people outside their sphere of influence they weren' t talking to and they had to think in terms of how those people feel when Council was making decisions . Councilman Hammond said what he was going to do when he got elected. He had things . People came up and told him and that was his perception of what the people wanted so that was what he perceived. He didn't have time to go out and ask the people as he felt it was their responsibility to come to him. Mr. Heeb identified he understood the difficulty of the job. Councilman Roberts spoke of when they had their first budget hearings and nobody showed up. They had one person go to the podium. He was sure once they set the final tax rate that they could get complaints from everybody but questioned how many people came and got involved during the budget hearings; practically no one. Mr. Martinez mentioned hearing a lot of shouting at some of the early meetings and thankfully they hadn' t heard a lot of it lately but early on when people were voicing their views they heard statements such as "sit down, you lost the election." He felt the Council needed to take a leadership role because there was still permeating that perception that if you lost the election you don' t have a voice. He felt the people had been hurt by what happened early on. City Employee Relations Mr. Martinez pointed out many key City employees had quit or been fired. The intent of the Council/City Manager form of government was to have a legislative or policy body directing a non-political 6 Council Workshop August 17, 1998 administrative staff lead by a professional Manager. The purpose of this was to foster a competent staff and continuity of service. They had lost many competent people and the continuity had been disrupted. He asked Council how they proposed to get them back to the intent of the City Charter. Councilman Roberts stated those that had left employment with the City he didn't feel were a great loss to the City. He felt the City was running very smoothly under Interim City Manager Hooper. He identified the people in charge such as Ms . Plaskett and Mr. Fischer were doing a wonderful job. He was getting a very positive response from the public. Karen Rickelman was doing a fantastic job. He felt change was a part of evolution in government and these things happen. Administrations change and personnel change. He thought Mr. Hooper had brought the senior staff together, his new staff members and it was working very well . Interim City Manager Hooper mentioned the terminations/resignations. There has been very pressure from Council. They told him they wanted him to look into things and he spent a number of hours interviewing a tremendous number of employees to figure out what was going. That was the reason they had seen the terminations, firings and resignations . He further spoke of making a more efficient, more cost effective management structure. It didn' t come into being by being a political deal. If anybody wanted to meet and talk individually about any departments his door has been open and nobody has ever called to come in and talk about any one item. As far as he knew nobody had been into the Personnel Office about employee morale. He informed Mr. Martinez before they decided Council was in error they needed to look into whether employee morale was up or down. Mr. Martinez stated the process of removal was abrupt and many believe was arbitrary. They heard recently all of the evaluations of these employees were of the highest so that previous people evaluating these people said they were doing a great job and suddenly they are doing a bad job when a new administration comes in. Interim City Manager Hooper identified the problem was that everybody had an outstanding evaluation. No one was being honest or managing it. All of the department head evaluations were great. Mr. Martinez suggested they be evaluated and get the public on board and let the public be aware and not just fire them. The rumors of the threats were very corrosive within a City administration. The threat that peoples' jobs were at stake and that they better leave before they were fired. That was very corrosive to confidence of the residents in their government. Many of the residents felt the staff had been politicized by the firings . Interim City Manager Hooper identified when the folks left there had been no repercussions . It hadn' t changed the efficiency as the departments had done more with less people. That was money in the citizens' pocket. 7 Council Workshop August 17, 1998 Mr. Martinez felt some of the functions wouldn' t see the effect for a long time to come, with regard to Engineering and Code Enforcement. Interim City Manager Hooper informed him they would see some of that immediately. Mr. Martinez informed him he was an engineer and he knows how you can tear apart an engineering department and it seems to be humming for a year or two and then it will collapse because suddenly nobody has been watching the ship develop holes in the hull . Interim City Manager Hooper invited Mr. Martinez to come and look at the Department and they could debate that one on one. Mr. Martinez informed him he may take him up on that. Councilwoman Lichter spoke of the fellows running on an obviously different platform than she did. In her primary she had four or five points she ran towards such as broadening the tax base, culturally and economically improving the climate, beautification, recreation. Sweep City Hall was not one of hers . It was a matter of an approach of how they do things differently. Maybe she would have come to the same conclusion as what happened on day one. That was not her primary goal and she would have gone about it in certainly a different manner. She felt they lost some very good people but more especially her sadness is Kevin Grace. She felt they went through an elaborate process of selection and she felt that was a very bad loss . That was her personal opinion and probably one of the reasons their relationship got off to a rocky start. Mr. Martinez stated the perception was there was an agenda, there was a hit list, it was payback time and a lot of people went and it was a shock to all of the residents of Edgewater. Consensus . Nobody talked to the community. They left them there with their jaws hanging and they were still looking for an explanation for why some of that happened. Councilman Roberts informed him they did talk to the community. They talked to thousands of people during the campaign. That was why they were voted in. He was out there for over two months talking to people prior to being elected getting their views and finding out what they wanted. It appeared to him that a vast majority wanted a serious change in City Hall . That was why they voted them in. He thought it would make a better city. Mr. Martinez stated when he hears so many people who contradict what Councilman Roberts was saying and that they never heard that during the campaign and never heard about a hit list. He didn' t. He voted and was looking carefully at the candidates. It came as a shock when suddenly abruptly people were fired and were leaving. He felt Council needed to build consensus with the community. They can' t just travel in their circles and assume what they were hearing from their supporters was what the rest of the City wanted. Following the City Charter 8 Council Workshop August 17, 1998 Mr. Moore identified the way he interpreted the Charter was that the Council worked in a legislative manner not administrative. The Council creates criteria and they do this from public opinion, building consensus with the constituents on the advice of the City Attorney and the City Manager, who work at Council' s discretion. He felt Council proved that and exercised that right when they first came into office. They made it very clear the City Manager and City Attorney work for them but he advised Council they also work for the citizens . When it comes down to it and the Council makes the vote there are five of them up there. The City Manager and City Attorney do work for the Council but the Council works for the citizens . They needed a City Manager that Council could get along with and a City Attorney who would have the best interest for Edgewater and was going to be there. He wasn' t throwing rocks but identified that was the way he had seen it since the Council first took office. He supported the "Clean Sweep" but felt the way it was gone about and the way things went down the Council didn' t explain why they did it the way they did it. When people came initially to the first few meetings, he got up and said he didn' t like the way the meetings were being ran. He was mad and he was confrontational and he got exactly what he deserved for being confrontational back. Mr. Moore stated this was a group of people that got together at the Library as a recall group who wanted to kick the Council out. Mayor Allman told him to do it. Mr. Moore informed him it wasn' t worth the trouble and that it would be easier to come to Council to say what they did tonight. Mayor Allman agreed perception was 99% of this whole thing. This group got together originally for recall . They had done nothing to be recalled for. They were voted in with 1, 600 and 1, 700 votes as opposed to 1, 000 votes . They were the people that have guided them that they have listened to. He would help anybody do whatever he could to make his life better in the City. He asked to be given the opportunity. Mr. Moore informed him that was not his point. Mayor Allman felt maybe the perception he had coming was wrong. All he sees is his picture on the front page of the newspaper on something that happened a year ago. He was approached by the Associated Press today. It was on CNN this afternoon. He would be on Channel 6 at 11 p.m. tonight. It has become something it doesn' t need to be. It has become a joke. Mayor Allman informed Mr. Heeb his total perception of him had changed 150% tonight. He respected him as a gentleman and respected him as a scholar the way he conducted himself tonight. His perception going the other way was he was one of the trouble makers . They are all citizens of Edgewater. Mayor Allman spoke of City Manager Hooper not living in Edgewater and identified some of the decisions he would be making over the next six 9 Council Workshop August 17, 1998 months they had to live with for ten years . City Managers come and go. He felt he was the best for what they could do right now and felt he was doing a good job. Mayor Allman felt it was time for healing. He thanked Mr. Heeb for coming forward tonight. He informed Mr. Martinez and Mr. Moore that the perception they had was slightly different than what they had right now. He felt they needed to sit down and get the perception out in the open. Maybe that was what they were trying to do tonight but they were listening and weren' t coming back. If the room was divided there were more people in support of the Citizens for Responsible Government than there was for the Council. Mr. Moore informed him they weren' t about division and were about bringing the City together. Mayor Allman felt they should move forward. Councilman Hammond spoke of learning a lot at the Florida League of Cities conference. He commented on an article in the newspaper yesterday. The Council is trying to build a community and get industry in here. If someone had an industry and was thinking about coming to Edgewater, they wouldn' t want to come to Edgewater. Councilman Roberts felt more people should show up at meetings instead of taking what was in the paper as gospel. He also felt the News Journal had had an influence on the community. The influence should be what they hear at City Hall and participating in the system and not just believing what you read in the Press . Mr. Heeb felt it had been a good meeting. They have had their say and they commended Council for allowing them to have this workshop session. He hoped it would be a start for a new more cordial relationship between all of the citizens in Edgewater and Council, their elected officials . Mr. Heeb quoted the Optimist' s Creed and stated "Let us all forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future." ADJOURNMENT There being no further business to discuss, Councilman Roberts moved to adjourn, second by Councilwoman Lichter. The Workshop adjourned at 7 : 00 p.m. Minutes submitted by: Lisa Bloomer, CMC 10 Council Workshop August 17, 1998