Request for Decision
Any issue - in-house or citizen-proposed - needing City Council's approval, is presented in a Committee of the Whole (COW) as a REQUEST FOR DECISION (here RFD).
An RFD is a standard document covering the issue itself and looking at its projected positive/negative impact, with substantiating documents attached.
Near the bottom is a Recommendation to Council - usually to pass the item as presented in the RFD. Who is doing the recommending is not clear but certainly would be interesting to know with in-house issues, frequently presented imprecisely.
Whodunnit?
At the very bottom of an RFD are 2 signatures:
the one on the left with AUTHOR printed above and usually DEPUTY CORPORATE OFFICER below;
the one on the right with REVIEWED BY printed above and CITY MANAGER below.
No names printed though!
(This City Manager used to be called Chief Administrative Officer (CAO). What changed? Admittedly - City Manager does have a more being-in-charge-of-absolutely- everything-and-everyone punch.)
Anyway - unless one is familiar with those signature-scrawls belonging to personnel one is familiar with: they could be anybody's.
Expert authorship by a mid-level employee is doubtful, what with too wide a range of knowledge required. That and the author/deputy certainly not having enough time to gather all pertinent material to then write it up as well. One RFD of many and all with the same deadline.
Just as it is doubtful that the CAO will relinquish determination of what goes into an RFD to a Deputy and be satisfied with reviewing it. Only.
It is more likely that the CAO provides topic, key-points, fixes direction and goals; the Deputy Corporate Officer has droids do research and gives shape to the material as Writer, to ultimately have the RFD polished and approved by the CAO as Author.
Troubling: why names of the so-called author and so-called reviewer are not identified-printed as well, as is customary anywhere in official documents.
Back to this later.
RFD Presentation
Normally citizen-based issues are dealt with relatively easily in COWs, with their presentation narrowly focused and heavy on itemized single-need-based documentation.
While in-house issues - affecting the community as a whole - like bylaws, plans/concepts and physical projects - should take more involvement from Councillors: deeply discovering purpose, use and flaws.
The following focuses on the latter - in-house issues. Well - flaws too.
In-House Issues
Although Councillors need to take responsibility for self-motivation with more convenient decision-making via RFDs only - they are not supported in this when Requests lack depth, detail, logic, defining documentation and - objectivity. Frequently several of them in one RFD, and that way actually authored and reviewed by whom?
If not cognizant of this Councillors then may - too often do - accept the RFD at face-value. Thus possibly nudged in a particular direction.
This can lead to issues being approved in general only. And once approved overall - any later specifics, changes by whom? are out of Council's hands. Like haphazard, open-ended Hall St 1&2; loads of money for nothing into the Cottonwood Market; the totally unsubstantiated attempt at a Panhandling Bylaw.
Request for Information
Wondering about the names of those seemingly responsible for having in-house issues put to Council - I connect with Frances Long, Director of Corporate Services, for clarification.
And that goes like this - quoted directly:
Oct 7, 2017
To: Frances Long
Subject: Request for Decision Signatures
Hi, Frances -
The "Author" of Requests for Decision for the Reg. Meeting, 10 Oct, 2017, is a "Deputy Corporate Officer" with a signature unknown to me - thus probably to at least most outsiders who read them.
Seeing that these documents are made available to the public: it is desirable - for the sake of transparency - to know who those signing are. Would you please - as a matter of course - print their/all names together with the job title.
This is my 2nd request.
Thanks -
Claus Lao Schunke
While in the past messages to Long are replied to almost immediately - I don't receive a reply to #2 yet for almost one month:
Nov. 2, 2017
Re: Request for Decision Signatures
Good afternoon Claus;
I am sorry to inform you that we will not be changing our practise and printing the name of the person as well as the position on our Council reports. What is relevant in those reports, is the position, not the person that is holding that position. The responsibility for what was written in the report remains with the position no matter who the person is that holds the position. The signatures are required as an internal control to verify that the person signing is the person holding the position as stated in the report with the originally signed documents being retained as the City's permanent record.
Frances Long, CMC
Director of Corporate Services
City of Nelson
What?
Here City Hall is replacing people with a fixed position/title through a signature-scrawl only. To the point of the City Manager's signature - when he is absent - replaced with that of the Chief Financial Officer. Who - then called City Manager by virtue of his signature above the printed position - in reality has nothing to do with any of it - even less issues at hand. REVIEWED BY - indeed!
The breathless tone of Long's reply makes me - more than before - wonder why she/they won't be transparent about an issue as ordinary and easily adjusted as this.
I also wonder at the style, form and content of this message - here quoted verbatim, including punctuation - totally different from Long's usual way of communicating electronically.
Actually authored! by a deputy corporate officer (with atrocious writing-skills)?
What is to be avoided here? Who is doing the avoiding?
Nov 2, 2017
To: Frances Long
CC: Mayor Kozak
BCC: Council
Re: Request for Decision Signatures
Hi, Frances -
Thanks for your long-awaited clarification.
"What is relevant in those reports" to the public - seeing that Requests for Decision must be available publicly - is that the citizenry should know who is originating what. Which clearly goes beyond "relevant" for "internal control" only.
Obviously - the public - ostensibly served by City Hall - is deemed irrelevant here.
Transparency -
Claus Lao Schunke
Along those lines - FACT:
City employees are working under a non-disclosure rule - sensibly largely ignored - a gag-order, really.
Put in place when by whom, and why is it (still) there?
BOOM!!!
Image credit:
Caspar David Friedrich
+ image manipulations
Frances Long, Director - Corporate Services
flong@nelson.ca
Kevin Cormack, CAO
kcormack@nelson.ca
Deb Kozak, Mayor
dkozak@nelson.ca
Council
nelsoncouncil@nelson.ca
