June 15, 2011 City Council Work Session: Agenda Summary

AGENDA SUMMARY

Work Session

Item 1: CARL VINSON INSTITUTE—CITY MANAGER & ORGANIZATION—Enacting House Bill (HB) 555, signed into law by Gov. Nathan Deal on May 11, 2011, giving city council the legal right to change the city’s charter to hire a city manager, council invited the Carl Vinson Institute to answer questions and to give suggestions about how best to proceed. Carl Vinson was instructed to review the proposed City Manager Ordinance and the City Charter to recommend changes to the ordinance.

Harry Hayes of the Research & Service Division of the Carl Vinson Institute said fortunately, unlike some states, Georgia’s constitution and general assembly “allow a wide range of latitude in terms of what cities and counties can adopt in terms of their structure and form of government”.  He said there is not a “one size fits all” government structure in Georgia.

In response to Councilwoman Katie Hart Smith’s question about city manager recruiting agencies, Hayes said there are a number of private sector consultants that do that type of work. Because Carl Vinson also provides those services, he said he is not the appropriate person to make a referral.  He said the Georgia Municipalities Association (GMA) and the Georgia Association of Counties via their websites provide good general information.

Councilman Peter Martin asked Hayes for “growing pains” associated with city manager government structure. Hayes said in order to respond to Martin, he would have to know the city’s current structure better. To identify those issues, he said, study must be done to what is on paper and how the city actually functions, operates, which could be quite different. 

Hayes said that if the city has been operating with the city clerk performing some of the duties of a city manager, which he said is indicated, the change should not be as great; because those duties can be transferred to the city manager. He said having read the legislation and the proposed City Manager Ordinance, there are needs for interpretation and definitions.

On one hand, Hayes said, the police chief and superintendent report only to the mayor and council, but then it is stated that the police chief, superintendent and the clerk as managers would report directly to the city manager and are responsible for all of the employees. Hayes said there must be some clarification of duties, roles and responsibilities for employees and for crisis management looking to find the proper authority in the city’s charter and, or the City Manager Ordinance.

Councilman Martin read a portion of the proposed ordinance that needs clarification because it seems to be a contradiction. The first sentence of 1. (a) of the proposed ordinance states:  “The City Manager shall have the authority to supervise all City employees and this authority shall include the ability to hire, discipline or dismiss any such employee within the limits created under the City’s personnel policies.”

But in the next sentences of the ordinance this authority is revoked when it comes to the positions of the City Clerk, the General Superintendent and the Police Chief: “The City Manager shall be responsible for the supervision and control of the City Clerk, City General Superintendent, and the Police Chief, and all employees reporting to the City Clerk, City General Superintendent, and the Police Chief, however the City Manager shall not have the authority to hire(,) discipline or dismiss the City Clerk, the City General Superintendent, or the Police Chief or to alter the duties and responsibilities of those positions as may be provided by the City Charter or City Ordinance. The City Manager may make recommendations to the Mayor and City Council regarding hiring, disciplinary and termination decisions related to the City Clerk, the City General Superintendent, or the Police Chief. The City Manager shall not have the ability to hire, discipline or dismiss any City official who holds a position created by the City Charter and is directly appointed by the Mayor and Council, including but not limited to the Municipal Court Judge, the City Attorney, the City Clerk, the City General Superintendent and the Police Chief.”

Hayes said that typically these roles are defined in provisions found in ordinances. The city could add a provision that states all department heads must go through the city manager before going to the mayor and, or city council. And the provision could also state that city council would go through the city manager if any council members have an issue or requests for any city department. Hayes said this should be done because the city manager is being held responsible for daily operations of the city, so it is only right that he or she are enabled to be that authority.

Councilman Tony Powell said it is the intention of the council is to have the city manager be in charge of administration for the day-to-day operations of the city. Making sure that people are accountable and doing their jobs. Powell said historically there has been “classic bad management, down to having individual city council members running the gas department”.

Councilman Martin said that there were problems with a paving company and in following the historical path, he was asked to call the paving company to get these issues resolved. He said that was not only meddling, but is not the role of council members. He agreed that clear definition of roles and responsibilities should be in writing.

Councilman Powell said as a suggestion in fine tuning the language of the ordinance, that the city manager should be given control over the department directors; including the authority to fire them. As for the hiring of certain positions, he said he would like for the council to be in on interviews. And because, Powell said, the city manager’s “neck will be on the line”, he or she should have the authority to fire employees that are not performing.  

Powell said that council members should retain “investigative” rights not “instructional”. This would include council members making calls or inquires directly to a department and its director.

The mayor’s role, Powell said, will continue to be the city’s representative for every type of function, including ribbon cutting and ceremonial events. Another responsibility of the mayor will be communicating to the city manager the joint instructions from the council, and the mayor. He said while they are putting a person in between the council and the mayor, the mayor, while council is in recess, “is the voice that communicates what council has done”. The city manager, he said, is the person that the mayor will give instructions to, so that accountability can take place.

Hayes advised council that if they call a department directly to make a request that they also call the city manager to make him or her aware of the request. In doing this Hayes said the city manager is kept in the loop and can tell the council member what tasks or projects that department has that might have higher priority.  

After reviewing the City Charter, Councilman Martin said the two positions specifically mentioned are the City Clerk and the General Superintendent. Hayes suggested that in the quarterly reports from the city manager to the council on the state of the city, that information from or about these two charter protected positions are included. 

Hayes also said that the city manager could conduct an annual performance review of the City Clerk and the General Superintendent and forward these reviews directly to the council.

Councilman Martin said typically city managers don’t fire a Police Chief, City Clerk or the General Superintendent unless he or she knows that is what the council wants.

Councilwoman Smith asked Hayes for samples of City Manager job descriptions to assist with clarification and to provide specifics in changing the language of the proposed ordinance. Hayes said he would provide a couple that were done recently and GMA (Georgia Municipalities Association) should have some.

Hayes commended the council for struggling with these issues, because he said it is hard to please everyone all the while keeping the public informed.

Next steps, is for the council and the City Attorney, Lee Thompson, Jr. with assistance from Hayes, to incorporate the suggested directive, authority clarification to the drafted City Manager Ordinance in accordance to the city’s charter.

Councilman Powell asked if a city manager organizational chart, that will have some “personnel sensitivity “, be discussed in Executive Session.

Item 2: TADs (Tax Allocation Districts) and OZs (Opportunity Zones)—Ken Bleakly of the Bleakly Advisory Group, said the Opportunity Zones Act was amended last summer by the DCA (Department of Community Affairs) to institute a two step process. First step for the city is to adopt an Urban Redevelopment Plan for the areas where Opportunity Zones will be created. A special analysis of the Opportunity Zones properties must be done, creating an overlay of specific areas onto the redevelopment plan.  

Bleakly said the first action of the council would be adopting the redevelopment plan that sets the baseline for Opportunity Zones. The draft of the plan identifies areas that the city is considering as Opportunity Zones and some additional areas that are not being considered, but could be in the future. Including these additional areas now will allow the city to develop these areas without having to go through the entire process again.

Bleakly said the DCA application package will include the council’s approved (Opportunity Zones) resolution and a letter from the city’s attorney that all packaged documents and information was done in accordance to the Opportunity Zones Act. Other required documents in the package are a letter from the mayor or council stating official submission of package and what is being requested; maps of the areas and a detailed spreadsheet with description of current conditions, for every parcel in the zones. As soon as documents are completed and gathered, Bleakly will send the package to DCA for its approval.

The city’s proposed redevelopment areas include the downtown area, the depot district, the college corridor, Highway 120 area, the Scenic Highway corridor, Langley Drive and Gwinnett Drive. For now the city has only identified the college corridor and Highway 120 corridor as areas for redevelopment.

In creating a redevelopment plan the state requires that areas meet four standards: more than 15 percent of households have incomes below poverty, areas must be underdeveloped, evidence of general distress, or blithe.    

Next steps proposed by Bleakly were capturing revisions to the redevelopment plan from council, making the changes and sending the revised plan back to council by June 24. In attempts to have plan ready for council’s vote or consent to approve during its July 11 meeting, Bleakly proposed that the council hold a public hearing, that must be advertised five days prior, either before or during the council’s July 11 meeting or on a separate day before July 11 meeting.

 While there are no plans to displace anyone, should the need arise, said Bleakly, the city is required to follow the Uniform Relocation Act.

Bleakly said, unlike TADs, the city will not have to wait to use this OZs funding; once approved by the DCA, the city can start spending on redevelopment projects.

Also required for redevelopment plan, Bleakly said, is designating a development agent for the city.  Options for this agent are the Downtown Development Authority, can establish a new redevelopment authority, the city council can be that agent and delegate responsibilities. This agent, who will technically be in charge, must be identified before plan can be finalized.  

The goal on TADs, Bleakly said is after receiving the awaited update county property tax information to fold it into prepared documents making them “ready to go”.  A public hearing must take place before the council can adopt TADs plan.

In gathering individual parcel information, Bleakly said he will work with the City Clerk, Bob Baroni, to get answers to the following questions to add this information into the redevelopment plan: (1) how many building permits have been issued in the OZs versus the rest of the city? (2) What is the crime rate in the OZs versus the rest of the city? (3) What is the unemployment rate in the OZs?

Bleakly will let the city know when this item will be ready to go onto council’s Work Session and, or Business Meeting agenda.

Item 9: DEFINITION OF ANNOUNCEMENT—Councilwoman Marie Beiser asked if the Announcement portion of the council’s last Business Meeting (held on June 6) was the appropriate place to criticize previous councils and, or mayors. Beiser pointed out that “everyone sitting here (on the council) is a part of that last administration; either a contract player or an elected player”.  She said last week (comments) belongs in a campaign.

Councilman Martin said all announcements are political.  Martin said he didn’t think Councilman Powell (in making comments about former Mayor Rex Millsaps attempts to stop the hiring of a city manager) criticized a previous council as much as he criticized a present act.

Beiser said it was innuendos about what happened in previous councils. She said, “It’s laying the footwork for people to say we don’t have absolutely laid out proof of an indictment or anything; it just seems like it is inappropriate.” No one, she said, should be criticized for writing a letter.

Martin said Powell did not criticize former Mayor Millsaps writing the letter; the criticism was “that he lied”. The message in the letter was “untrue”. Martin said that when sending a letter to the governor “you have got to tell the truth, because if you don’t we will call you out”.

Mayor Johnson said when Councilman Powell asked that Announcements be added to the agendas of council’s Business Meetings, she thought announcements would be about what is happening in the city.

Councilwoman Smith said announcements let the people know what events council members have attended; and what council members are doing in this and surrounding communities and throughout the county.

In response to that Councilman Martin said “all announcements are not happy; they are not all positive”. He said council members are going to make announcements, they are call upon to make announcements, but now they are going to be restricted in what they can announce.

The mayor said then “we won’t have announcements”. Martin said if two council members want to discuss something then that item can be placed on the agenda.

Councilman Powell said that announcements have been very effective overall. He said (when he made his comments) he had no intentions of “triggering a response from members of this council”. Powell said, “I don’t think we have operated at our best; I think we are on the right track”.

“But there are things about the way it has been operated in the past that deserve public attention,” said Powell, “and needs to be talked about and needs to be changed. And one of these things is truthfulness; people have been misrepresented on its face for political purposes. And defining people by the way they talk, and the way they represented has done damage to this city. It has got to be talked about, brought out and cleared up.  

There are people still in division.  And I am going to do that; and I don’t care where I go on the agenda. I don’t care if it is announcements, it will be talked about. I am not backing up from that. And I don’t care if I don’t get re-elected, the truth is coming out and things are going to change,” said Powell.

Powell said the citizens are going to know what is going on and that he “is not covering up that crap just to make our city look like a candy store”. He said that is not his way. It is very important for citizens to know what has happened and to understand it.

“The audit will be the best way for citizens to know that when the five of us say we are going to do something that they know we will. The audit is not intended to drag anyone through the mud, but to see things that should not have happened that way and to fix them,” said Powell. “Our council needs to communicate the truth and let the chips fall.”

Councilwoman Beiser said, “I want to be allowed to give an explanation as to why that was done under previous council. When all of that (audit issues) comes down I want to give explanations of what happened to go out to our public. That might not have been paying attention at the time. Of course when they see all of that money that will get their attention, sort of like the Gas Department got their attention.”    

Powell said that he is confident that the previous council did nothing wrong and that they did not make the decisions now being called to the attention of the public via the audit.

Councilwoman Smith said that Councilman Powell is a very passionate person who wears his emotions on his sleeves. She said that his comments came across, to the community, as if he was angry and as if he had a vendetta about a previous personal relationship and it looked “personal to the community”.    

Smith proposed that an announcement should tell where council members have been, how the council has been acting, but issues, should be placed on the council’s agenda.   

After hearing Item 21 of the agenda, the council moved into Executive Session.