Dear Mayor-elect Raman: 40 Modest Ideas

Dear Mayor-elect Raman,

Add me to the list of those who offer congratulations on your election win. For years I have presented suggestions to newly-elected mayors that I think will make city hall work better. I'll be brief in the hope that some of them will get read on their way to the round file.

I base these suggestions on my 34 years at City Hall as the chief of staff to Councilman Joel Wachs and the general manager of the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment during the initial growth years of 100 new neighborhood councils.

THE 100-DAY REVIEW
1. Begin preparing now for the media’s 100-day review. Start to control the narrative by outlining at least some goals that can be achieved within that time. Hold a news conference on the 95th day to evaluate yourself.

OPEN UP CITY HALL
Shorten that distance that exists between city hall and the people it serves. People need to feel that their voices are being heard even if the results aren't immediate or exactly what they want. City Charter Section 900 explains that the purpose of the neighborhood council system is "To promote more citizen participation in government ...." That too should be the goal of city hall.

2. Create a blog for the mayor’s office and instruct all departments and commissions to do the same. It should be one that would allow two-way communication with the public. Presently, websites are used only to push out sanitized information from city hall to the public – kind of “love me” sites.

Allow people to post comments and ask questions. Moderate the sites to keep away the ranters. Accumulate the answers in an FAQ. Eventually, most questions will have an answer in the FAQ. Don’t shy away from the controversial questions. Post polls about some of the pressing issues you are facing, and give fair and unbiased pros and cons about the choices. Post the results.

From time-to-time, invite the public to join you online in real time in Ask Me Anything sessions as is done on Reddit. Again, have staff screen the questions to screen out profanity and repetition. Instruct your department heads to do the same thing. Celebrities do this all the time. You’re a celebrity.

GENERAL MANAGERS AS THEIR OWN SPOKESPERSONS
3. Instruct general managers to personally respond to as many media questions as is humanly possible. The media deserves to get straight answers and get them quickly. Too many general managers look at the media as their enemy, and hide from them behind communication directors.

SUBMIT AND RANK IDEAS
4. Create a place on the internet for the public to list suggestions for you, and to vote on the ones they like best so the public can drive the best ideas to the top of the list.

HOLD TOWN HALL MEETINGS
5. From time-to-time hold “y’all come” town halls in different parts of the city so people can interact with you face-to-face. Mayor Bradley used to do this all the time. Your town hall meetings could be modernized by buying, renting, or getting donated, hand-held voting equipment and computer software that would permit everyone in the room to learn about, be asked questions about, and have their choices recorded on the city’s most pressing issues.

I’ve been part of several of these meetings. People pay more attention because they’re more involved. Maybe one of the departments could purchase the equipment and loan it to you when you need it. The results can be instantly displayed on a screen and/or available as a printout at the end.

HOLD OPEN HOUSES
6. From time-to-time hold an open house in your office. People can line up and have three minutes with you and some aides. It’s something else Bradley used to do. Have someone taking pictures of you and each visitor, and print them on the spot for each visitor, or send them to their e-mail accounts.

MODERN TOWN HALL
7. Create a moderated electronic town hall would allow participation by infinitely more people than can currently participate in their government, not just sounding off, but in reaching an action-oriented consensus on a variety of issues.

Very few people can take the time to attend City Council or commission meetings in person just to speak for two minutes and be ignored. There are simply too many people who are transit-dependent; work; have family or religious commitments; have other volunteer activities to attend; are uncomfortable speaking in public, perhaps because English is their second language; or who have more valuable information to share than time permits. These traditionally disenfranchised people need a way to participate.

There are free programs available to create a place on the internet where local and citywide issues could be listed and discussions held. People wouldn’t be limited in the number of comments they could make, and there could be real back-and-forth discussions.

The key is that a few people would be needed to moderate the site in order to control off-topic posters who have made so many other sites unpleasant and unproductive places, just as would be done in an in-person meeting.

The moderators could encourage experts to provide facts, answer questions, and respond to legitimate comments in order to create a fertile environment where ideas could grow. For example, this would mean that the CAO wouldn’t have to attend 90 NC meetings in order to discuss the city budget. With a place for civilized discussions you could instruct city staff to answer questions and provide information to raise the quality of the discussions.

DEPUTY MAYOR FOR PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
8. As part of their other duties, assign one of the deputy mayors to be responsible for promoting transparency and public participation throughout city government. FYI: Anyone on staff at any pay grade can be called a "Deputy Mayor."

MAKE IT EASIER TO COMMUNICATE WITH ELECTED OFFICIALS
9. Instruct Information Technology Agency to modify the city’s website so that people can have the option of sending the same message to all members of the City Council and the mayor at the same time with a single command. Presently, 16 separate messages need to be sent regarding a single issue.

SELECTING GENERAL MANAGERS
10. Formally involve neighborhood council representatives in the interview processes for general manager candidates.

EVALUATE GENERAL MANAGER PERFORMANCE
11. Formally involve neighborhood councils in the performance evaluations of general managers.

RETURN THE MAYOR’S BUDGET DAY TO ITS FORMER GLORY
12. The City Charter mandates the neighborhood councils to submit budget priorities to the mayor each year.

At one point, a previous mayor would meet with neighborhood council representatives to discuss their priorities. With the help of some USC professors, an online questionnaire was designed. Each council was urged to meet and discuss the budget issues, and submit the questionnaire. The mayor would print the results of each neighborhood council's votes in the budget summary.

DIVERSITY OF CITY COMMISSIONS
13. Include more socioeconomic diversity on some or all city commissions by appointing at least one person from the working class. Nearly every commissioner is and has been an elite. They are usually retired, self-employed, head of a union or non-profit organization, business owner, etc. “Regular folks” aren’t represented. This may require meetings at night, or allowing the working class commissioners to teleconference.

CITY OUTREACH
14. Instruct each general manager and commission to establish procedures for communicating with neighborhood councils and the public on a regular basis, and in a manner that ensures information is disseminated in a timely matter. Instruct commissioners that at the beginning of each meeting, or during discussion of major issues, each commissioner must briefly explain which efforts (s)he made to reach out to the public for input.

DRAFT MINUTES/COMMISSION SUMMARIES
15. Instruct commissions to e-mail drafts of its minutes to those who have asked to be e-mailed the commission agendas so they can be made public sooner.

IMPROVE COMMISSIONS' MINUTES
16. Instruct that the minutes of commission meetings include a description of the issues raised during the discussions, the reasoning (briefly) behind the decisions, and the points raised by the public speakers. Let transparency be the guide.

BE MORE DESCRIPTIVE WITH AGENDA ITEMS
17. Instruct commissions that agendas go beyond describing agenda items to meet with bare minimums of the Brown Act. Be more descriptive regarding the more important items.

I remember that when plans were being developed to build what became the Staples Center. The agenda item merely stated that it was a land use issue at an address on Figueroa. The goal was clearly to help ensure that the public didn't know what was about to be discussed.

GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENTS
18. Instruct commissions to never put “general public comments” at the end of any agenda. It’s rude to make people sit around for hours to speak for two minutes.

PUBLIC COMMENT ON ITEMS
19. Instruct commissions to allow those wishing to comment on a particular item to have the option of speaking before the commissioners begin their discussion, in order to try and influence the discussion, or after the commissioners have finished their discussion, but before they vote, in order to correct misinformation or to make final arguments.

READ WRITTEN COMMENTS
20. Instruct commissioners to read aloud the comments submitted in writing by those who cannot attend the meeting.

DISCUSS PROPOSED BUDGETS
21. Instruct that each city department discuss its financial situation at a regularly scheduled or special meeting of its commission prior to submitting its proposed budget to the mayor, and gather input from neighborhood councils and the public.

POST THE RULES
22. Instruct that commissions write their procedures and laws in a way that is transparent and easy to understand. Post this information on the department’s website, and make written copies available at every meeting. The City Charter requires the city to write city ballot measures in simplified language and send it to all voters. So, city staff has the skills to do this.

FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS
23. If it is anticipated by the commission president that an item MAY appear on a future agenda, that potential item should be listed at the bottom of all agendas. This can include a statement that the date is tentative and subject to change.

Often lobbyists and parties with financial interests in an item will privately arrange with the commission president to have an item scheduled for a specific date, usually at a time when it's convenient for them. The problem is that the public never knows about it until the agenda is released, usually just 72 hours in advance for a regular meeting, or 24 hours for a special meeting if the insiders want to wait until the last minute. The Brown Act sets minimum requirements for notification, but the city can require more notification time.

OUTREACH BY COMMISSIONERS
24. Recommend that commissioners plan meetings in their area to have face-to-face, real discussions with neighborhood council members and stakeholders. And that they do the same online. The city’s commission system was developed in the ‘20s as a way to infuse more public participation in the decision-making process. However, it is extremely rare when an individual city commissioner goes into the community to give people an opportunity to share thoughts and concerns with him/her in an informal and meaningful way.

RELEASING REPORTS
25. Instruct commissions that, except in the event of an urgency, the commission should not schedule an item, or cast a final vote on any item until the staff report, if one is being prepared, has been made available to the neighborhood councils and public X working days before the meeting. Too often, critically important reports aren’t available until moments before a meeting is to start, leaving the public not knowing what's in the report.

MAKE PUBLIC DOCUMENTS PUBLIC
26. Instruct general managers and commissions that all preliminary drafts and department memoranda be declared public information. The city of Riverside does this.

PUBLIC INFORMATION REQUESTS
27. Instruct general managers and commissioners that requests for non-exempt public information be delivered within one working day. From the city of Riverside.

TRAVEL REPORTS
28. Remind city staff and commissioners about Administrative Code Section 4.242.75 that requires that any city staff attending a convention, file a written report upon returning that describing what they did, and most importantly, what they learned. This was done so that the mayor and City Council members could more easily determine which events were worth sending staff to.

COMMUNITY IMPACT STATEMENTS
29. Instruct commissions to print the first Community Impact Statement it receives from a neighborhood council on commission agendas. Or, recommend adoption of the recommendation by the Neighborhood Council Review Commission that ALL Community Impact Statements submitted by neighborhood councils be printed on the agendas.

IMPROVE THE CITY’S BIDDING PROCESS:
30. Even if it requires an amendment to the City Charter, the city should want the ability to allow all the qualified bidders for a service or product to bid against each other until there is a winner. This would take the politics and corruption out of the process, and produce more revenue or less cost for the city. As happens far too often, city staff designs bid requirements and evaluates the submissions. They rank the bidders and eliminate those who don’t meet the city’s minimums. Then, sadly, the lobbyists for the losers begin negative campaigns in attempts to reverse the recommendation. It's a slimy process.

PROMOTE PET ADOPTION
31. Arrange with the Department of Animal Services to stage regular pet adoption days in City Hall, or across the street in the mall. At one event years ago, all 50-70 shelter animals that were brought to the City Hall Rotunda were adopted, including many hard-to-place mature ones.

CREATING COMMISSION FILES
32. Allow a neighborhood council, or perhaps three of them together, to vote to place a matter on a commission agenda.

MUNICIPAL BEST PRACTICES
33. Ask the California and National League of Cities to create a database of best practices ideas so each city can learn from the others. Have someone on your staff collect best practices from all city agencies so they can also be shared with other general managers. There is no reason why each department needs to have a different process for public outreach, communicating with staff, maintaining files, managing e-mail messages, responding to Public Records Act requests, etc.

ANNUAL COMMISSION SELF-EVALUATIONS
34. Instruct each commission to prepare an annual self-evaluation. The design, discussion, and approval of the evaluation shall be done in public meetings. And they should be more than just a list of each commission's perceived achievements.

PUBLIC RECORDS ACT POLICY
35. Each department and commission should adopt a policy that describes which documents are available to the public without requiring people to submit a Public Records Act request for everything.

ESTABLISH NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICE CABINETS
36. Provide that a deputy mayor and high-ranking city agency officials meet regularly with neighborhood council representatives, area by area, so that councils can present their service requests, and the deputy mayor can give directions to the city staff for handling them, or give reasons why they can't be fulfilled in the immediate future.

VERBAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST DISCLOSURES
37. Instruct that each commissioner, at the start of each meeting, declare whether or not they believe they have a conflict of interest in any matter that is on the agenda, or have had private conversations with the parties about to come before them. This helps eliminate the “I forgot” excuse. This was done by the old commission in ITA that regulated cable TV franchises.

FORTHWITH PROCESS
38. Tell the City Council that any files sent to you “forthwith" include an explanation of the urgency. This would help alleviate concerns by the public that the action has been taken to purposely eliminate the public's ability to influence the mayor's actions, or to eliminate the ability of the City Council to reconsider the item.

PENDING FILES
39. Tell the City Clerk that twice a year, the City Clerk should post on its website a list of the files pending in each City Council committee. These lists exist in electronic form, so posting them wouldn't create additional work for the office. This will allow the public to see which files the committee chairs may be "sitting on."

KICK THE TIRES
40. It seems that whenever whistleblowers report waste and inefficiencies in city departments, the mayor and City Council react by announcing that they will doing something about it "going forward." But the goal should be to prevent these problems from happening in the first place. Instruct all general managers to be constantly kicking the tires in their agencies in an attempt to anticipate what could possibly go wrong, and telling you about it.

(Greg Nelson is a former general manager of the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, was instrumental in the creation of the LA Neighborhood Council System, served as chief of staff for former LA City Councilman Joel Wachs … and occasionally writes for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected])