Gilbert City Council Meeting

July 22, 2003

Index of items discussed:

Basic stuff   Open forum   Dick DeMoss reappointed to planning and zoning commission   Contract for financial software and training approved   Contract for new weather warning siren approved   Discussion with consultants about restaffing city hall  Tax abatement approved for 131 Christian Petersen  General discussion among council members

Basic stuff:

Mayor Bob Jaquis convened the meeting around 7:00 pm at city hall. The council appointed Angela Laury to be the interim clerk to take minutes. Angela is also the new, part-time, temporary staff person at city hall during daytime office hours. All the council members were present: Craig Allen, Chris Benda, Lynn Henn, Jon Pop, and Peg Uthe.

Sue Cosner and Gary Reiners, who are consultants with the Public Management Resource Group, were present to lead a discussion about restaffing city hall. Helen Gunderson, who is a Gilbert citizen and editor of the Gilbert Gazette, and one other visitor were also present.

The mayor asked for a motion to approve the consent calendar, which is a broad motion that covers the agenda for the meeting and the minutes of several recent meetings. There was a motion. Usually the mayor asks for discussion following a motion, but in this case, he did not. Helen Gunderson asked if it was appropriate to have a discussion. The mayor said that if the council members wanted a discussion, they could have one. Everyone at the council table sat in silence and looked blankly at each other. The mayor asked for a vote, and the motion was passed unanimously.

Agenda item number one — Open Forum: Helen Gunderson explained her concern that the minutes of the June 30, 2003, meeting were misleading regarding a council conversation about the G125 Group that is planning Gilbert’s 125^th anniversary celebration for the July of 2004. She gave an example of the misleading language in the minutes and asked that the minutes be amended. The mayor responded that if the council members wished to amend the minutes they could. Again everyone at the council table sat in silence and looked blankly at each other.

Agenda item number two: Dick DeMoss was unanimously reappointed to the town’s planning and zoning commission.

Agenda item number three: a contract for new financial software for the computer and training on the software was unanimously approved. At a recent council meeting, the price tag for the software and training came to a total of about $10,000 and will be obtained from CMS, an accounting firm in Ames.

Agenda item number four: a contract to approve a second weather warning siren was unanimously approved. From the notes we took at the May 5, 2003, meeting of the city council, it appears that the new siren will cost about $9,100.

Agenda item number five — discussion about restaffing city hall:

Introduction

The council held a long discussion about restaffing city hall in light of the fact that Gilbert’s last official city clerk, Dianna Schmidt, resigned on May 5, 2003. Since then, the town went for several weeks then hired a part-time, temporary office worker, Nichelle Morris. Her last day was on July 18. Fortunately, she was able to orient Angela Laury, who is the new part-time, temporary staff person at city hall.

Sue Cosner, a consultant from PMRG led the discussion about restaffing needs. Sue is the city manager at Panora. She and her colleague from PMRG, Gary Reiners, have been working with the city council and planning and zoning commission for more than a year on Gilbert’s comprehensive land use plan.

At some of the council meetings earlier this summer, Council Member Craig Allen had spoken of being impressed with Sue’s leadership qualities and asked permission to invite her to a council meeting to advice the city about obtaining management services. When Sue began the discussion about restaffing, she referred to the input she had gotten from Craig and Mayor Jaquis. Sue said that she envisioned using the meeting time as a listening session to get council input. She said that she and Gary could then come back to another meeting with a menu for the council to consider. She added that there are a whole myriad of possibilities for conducting the work of city hall.

Sue went on to say that this is a critical time for the city in light of its orbiting within the Ames area and Story County. She also said that there is a lot of work that Gilbert should have been doing that has not been done. And she contended that even with the Gilbert population under, or near, 1000 that the city government had many more responsibilities and opportunities than its leaders had previously recognized.

Questions to think about

Sue’s first question to the group was, “How successful has a one person office been?” There was a sense around the council table that in the past situation of being a one person staff, the clerk has mainly focused on day to day detail and not on setting policy. Sue concluded that one person cannot do policy and that, anyway, policy should be led by the council.

Sue’s next question was, “How do you finance your clerk?” There was a consensus that the clerk had been funded out of several funds, including: water, sewer, and the general fund. Sue then reviewed some of the various options for funding the work of city hall.

Previous role of clerk

Then there was a discussion of the role of the previous full-time clerk. Council Member Jon Popp said that the position has been called that of a city clerk but that the person has been required to do several things outside of a clerk’s role. Council Member Craig Allen said that the tasks of the previous clerks has been on an “as needed basis” with no systematic approach to a job description. He continued by saying that he had not felt the job was planned so a person could see the tasks assigned in an organized fashion. He suggested that the person should be called the “city employee” and not “the clerk.”

The three areas of city hall work and dividing them up

Sue listed three areas of work that need to be done at city hall. She said that the first two are required by law: the general municipal work and the financial management. She advised that most auditors feel the two roles should be done by separate employees but that it is a reality of life in many small towns that one person does both jobs. Sue said that the third area was that of administrative management which includes such things as public works and land use management. She said that in many small towns, the administrative management is done by the mayor and council like it is in Gilbert.

Sue then outlined some alternatives for distributing these responsibilities. She said that some small towns have a city coordinator, who is charged with the duties of the clerk, treasurer, and administrator. She added that in these situations, there often is a part-time, deputy clerk who works as needed.

Sue spoke of another setup in which a person is hired to do the clerk and administrator tasks while the city contracts out for all financial duties, including: utilities, payroll, bill paying, etc. This could be to an accounting firm or an individual person. In either case, the party would have to be bonded. She also suggested that the financial management could be done by a part-time treasurer who works only on certain days of the month.

Another alternative that Sue listed was for a city to have one person be the administrator/manager with a second person serving as the clerk/treasurer.

Role of council and mayor is making policy not micro managing

Then Sue asked the council how much volunteer time it felt was appropriate in getting the work of city government done. Craig responded, “We can become quite involved. I could see that eating my time up.” On the other hand, he seemed to think that he had the responsibility to make some investment of time. However, he felt it was too early in his tenure as a council member to answer Sue’s question.

Gary asked the council members and mayor if there were things that caused them frustration because they did not have enough time to spend on the tasks or because they didn’t have enough raw information to make decisions. Craig responded that it was premature to answer that question. He said he was just getting around to learning his role with the water and sewer committee of the council. (Note: the council initiated the use of committees last February.)

Council Member Chris Benda, who also serves on the Gilbert school board, said that the school board decides policy and the staff does the work. He contended, “That’s what we should be and not micro manage.”

Sue responded that the work of a mayor and council is always more if a town does not have a manager. She advised that the council is supposed to be able to focus on setting policy and talking to its constituents. Sue went on to say that with all the land use and other issues facing Gilbert, that the town has a need for some type of an administrator/manager. She said that there are many cities the size of Gilbert who have full-time managers. She said that in some cases, a manager functions as a clerk but not always as the treasurer. She said it is important to have another signature on checks than just that of the mayor and manager.

Sue gave an example of Gilbert’s comprehensive land use plan. She contended that a lot of information could easily have been gathered by an administrator. Instead, since Gilbert had no administrator, the mayor had run down a lot of the information. She suggested that was not necessarily an appropriate use of the mayor’s time.

Sue also spoke about how the town of Gilbert has grown and how there are many new environmental laws and other issues that a city has to deal with.

On a couple of occasions, Chris and Council Member Peg Uthe asked about the role of grant-writing. Both seemed to think that was an important aspect of city management.

At one point after Sue had reviewed several options and there had been considerable discussion, Chris asked Sue and Gary, “Do you want us to pick one [option] tonight?” Sue replied that the council could give them an idea of what they wanted, then she and Gary would create a matrix for the council to review at an upcoming meeting.

Council member Jon Popp asked about the issues of compatibility in roles if one person is both the clerk and treasurer. Sue said that in Gilbert in the past, the clerk and the mayor have been the only two people signing checks. She said the auditor points out the issue but that it understands the reality of the situation.

Helen Gunderson mused about a hypothetically rare situation in which the mayor and council members of a town all had 40 hours available to voluntarily administer the municipal government. She also alluded to churches who operate only on lay leadership with no professional staff. In light of those kinds of scenarios, Helen asked Sue to comment on the value of hiring professionals who are trained to be municipal leaders in contrast to having untrained volunteers do the work of the city.

Sue responded to Helen’s question, saying that a city is like a school district and that there are complex issues in and around a city. She said that even if all of Gilbert’s leaders had 40 hours a week to volunteer their services to the town, their role should be to make policy and let the trained professionals carry implement and carry out the policy.

The cost of restaffing city hall

The matter of the cost of restaffing city hall was discussed. Craig said that a town gets what it pays for. He suggested that Gilbert needed to make its positions attractive.

Sue said that the professional people Gilbert needs do exist but that the question is whether the city will pay enough to get someone the council wants to move to the area. She said the council members need to decide what level of professionalism they want and determine what the city is willing to pay to get it.

There was a slightly tense discussion among some of the council members as to what to do first: list all the tasks that needed to be done or decide the job titles. Sue said that the council knows the legal requirements for city hall: the municipal and financial duties. She said the third category of responsibilities is that on administration and management. She suggested the council could frame their thoughts around those categories then go to the Iowa League of Cities and find out factual, current salaries for people in those positions.

Gary said that there were two ways the council could go about setting an amount to spend. One alternative is if the council is in a rock hard financial situation and has a hard and fast, fixed amount it can spend. He said the council would have to determine the dollar amount and fit the job description to it. The other alternative is if the council is not straight jacketed and has some flexibility in the amount it can spend. If that is the case, the council could figure out what staffing it wanted and determine the dollar amount to obtain that staffing.

Craig said that the last thing he wanted to see is putting the cost first and the council ending up stumbling and tripping in a continuous mess because it had not spent enough. He felt that the big issue was not whether the council paid $40,000 or $60,000 to staff city hall but that the council do the job right.

Sue again said that the municipal management and financial tasks are required by law. She added that having an administrator is the last role to consider, that it is icing on the cake. Sue reminded the council that it needs to decide the level of professional services it wants. She noted the example of the town of Pleasant Hill which has a city manager but contracted out all of its planning and land use functions to a firm. She said, “There is no right answer.”

Chris gruffly chastised Craig more than once about Craig’s remarks about the amount of dollars to spend on professional help. Craig indignantly said, “It comes down to what the city wants ... the majority of Gilbert people care about $20,000. Let’s not just have a one person show.”

Craig acknowledged that he recognized he had triggered a button. Chris responded that the council needed to offer pay that was commensurate with a person’s experience. He also said he didn’t want to throw the money of the people around. The mayor responded that the extra investment in professional help might save money.

How to proceed

Sue said that the council needed to look at the restaffing first in terms of functions then in terms of what resources the town had to pay for the staffing. She also referred to tools via the International City/County Management Association that the council could use to assess Gilbert and the services it is providing. She said the council could go directly to www.icma.org to find those tools. She said the council could complete the process within a couple of months. She also said that the Iowa League of Cities has a compensation survey that the council could refer to. The League’s web site is at www.Iowaleague.org.

Sue said something to the effect that Gilbert already has a clerk’s job description and that it is in the code. Helen asked if Sue had actually seen the job description or if Sue was assuming that the city had a complete job description for the city clerk.

Chris asked the consultants, “What do you want from us now?”

Sue replied that the council should land on a couple of approaches and then she and Gary would draw up a matrix and attach functions to it.

Peg asked about how much work the city could contract out, what the pros and cons are, and what the cost would be? Sue replied that sending out an RFB (request for bids) was the only way to proceed.

Craig asked whether the council should determine job titles or job functions first. Sue said that the council could proceed either way. She suggested that if the council lists functions first, then she and Gary could draw up a plan with job titles. She said there are 100 different combinations for getting the work done. She added that the council did not have to decide at that meeting.

Chris brought up the issue of the fall elections and that it is possible that their might be new civic leaders in January. He asked whether the job descriptions and staffing should be done now or wait until there is a new council.

Council Member Lynn Henn jested that there might be a whole new council.

The mayor warned about the risk of getting behind if the council waited until January to do the restaffing.

Gary suggested that the council wait for the next meeting before making a decision. He suggested it was important for the council members to look over the list of job functions over a cup of coffee. He proposed that each person make a list of the most important things they would like to see on the lists. The consultants could then collate the lists and look for a common thread. He added that if the council comes up with strong threads, they have reached consensus.

Sue added that the council needed to tell her and Gary whether or not the amount of dollars available for salary is a constraint or not.

Lynn warned that the council should not lock itself into having specific job positions.

What the new city hall staffing might look like

Craig said he wanted to see the restaffing done right and said he envisioned a full-time clerk/manager, a part-time financial officer, and a part-time record keeper. He suggested that the first position is the most important one. He also emphasized that competency, integrity, and trust were paramount factors in looking for a staff person. Chris agreed. Lynn said that he also agreed with Craig but said that there should be no number of hours attached to any of the positions. He felt that any of them could be part time. Peg emphasized what Craig had said about competency being a priority quality in staff. Chris said that what Craig had suggested would be good instead of expecting one person to do it all. Craig doubted that Gilbert could find a three-quarter time clerk/manager. Peg said that one function needs to be that of grant writing. Chris liked the idea of having a clerk/administrator and a deputy clerk to answer the phone and then contract out all financial management. Craig anticipated there should be 1.5–2.5 FTE’s (full-time employee equivalents.) The mayor said that 1.5 FTE’s is bare minimum. He also acknowledged that, “One full-time person loyal to us is important.”

Sue said that she and Gary would develop a plan that included a clerk/administrator, a financial person, and a clerical person. None of the positions would be assigned a set amount of hours. She and Gary would then allocate the obligatory functions to those positions.

Gary said that the clerk/administrator position would be the least likely one to be parceled out. The mayor suggested that the clerk/administrator could be hired and the council could see what skills that person had, then the other jobs could be determined to complement the skills of the clerk/administrator.

Chris asked if the consultants would be willing to help the council by reviewing the applicant and determining a fair salary. Sue talked about the need to pay the going market rate if Gilbert recruits employees who are already working at other cities. Or the council could hire someone with less experience, paying the person less than market rate but offering on the job training.

Lynn told about the previous field of management applicants in 1999 and how it was hard to find people with training who were willing to come to Gilbert.

Craig said that Gilbert needs someone with some experience and said the town had already had two years with a staff person with no experience.

The council and consultants compared schedules and decided to meet again on August 4.

Contracting out water services

As one last comment, Sue presented another scenario. She told about how both Windsor Heights and Ankeny contract with the Des Moines Water Works for water. She told about how Gilbert might be able to contract with Ames for water services and save money.
  

Agenda item number six: The council decided to skip the discussion of obtaining new street decorations for Christmas.

Agenda item number seven: A tax abatement was approved for 131 Christian Petersen.

Agenda item number eight — general discussion among council members:

Chris said he had gotten phone calls from a couple of concerned citizens about drainage issues in the northwest part of town. He requested that the drainage plans for northwest Gilbert be put on the next council agenda.

Chris also said he had talked to Don Adams of the fire department about a community center. (Note: At a recent council meeting Chris had said how the Vision 2000 board has rekindled its interest in building a community center in the Upstill Park. The mayor had suggested Chris talk to Don because there was some talk of the fire department remodeling its building and adding an improved community room.) Chris reported that Don was receptive and that no funds had been spent on a fire house addition. (Note: we’re not sure what Don was receptive to. Chris did not make that clear.)

Craig brought up the topic of costs for the new well. He had done some research and proposed that the city did not need to have a well house for the second well.

Lynn reported that Gary Steele, the town’s maintenance supervisor, had taken demonstration drives on new mowers and had gotten bids. Lynn said that Gary likes the lower cost mower. It’s a John Deere diesel that costs $5460.

Peg whispered something to the mayor. The mayor chuckled.

The meeting adjourned at 9:07 pm.

This unofficial summary provided by Gilbert Gazette editor, Helen D. Gunderson. When the minutes of a  meeting become available (after they are approved at the next council meeting), we will post them. You may also wish to look for the minutes in the fine print of the legal notices in the Ames Tribune about 14 days after a council meeting. 

If someone has an eye for proof-reading and finds typos, mis-spelling, grammar, or other errors, please let us know so we can make corrections. It's difficult and time-consuming to prepare the summary, and although it would be wise to find a copy editor before posting the summaries, we feel it is important to make the essence of the material available to the public as soon as possible.

Also, the city council tape records each meeting, and the clerk maintains the cassettes for use in writing the minutes and clarifying future questions about meetings. As far as we know, those tapes are part of the public record (unless the a city uses the tapes only for preparing minutes then destroys the tapes). And as far as we know, citizens and other persons may arrange with the clerk to listen to the tapes at city hall.