One of the City Council’s declared core values is transparency. Although the city talks up a good game when it comes to actual practice the record is dismal. The average citizen has no idea what the city council is doing and only learns about what happened weeks or even months later.

Standard practice for upcoming city council actions is to include them on a meeting agenda which is listed on the city web site on Friday before the Monday city council meeting. The three-day notice meets the minimum legal notice requirement established by the state. However, unless someone is checking the city website during that three day window they won’t know what is being considered until the newspapers report the results a couple weeks later – too late to have any voice

A classic example of this practice is the city manager’s contract. The mayor proposed to renew the city manager’s contract for another eight years. The council (at least those not in the inner circle) learned about this proposal at a special executive session on December 1, 2014 (closed to the public). The councilors were given seven days to review the contract proposal for a formal vote to be taken on December 8.

Ward 4 City Council member David Wiechman noted that selecting a city manager is one of the two basic functions of a city council (other being passing ordinances) and that the public had only three days notice to give any input on the selection of a city manager for eight years. Since there is no time urgency on the issue he questioned why this action is being done during the Christmas holidays when citizens’ attention is directed elsewhere.

Given the importance of this issue and the fact that there was no public input, Wiechman moved to table the matter for a month to give the public a chance to have a voice. The motion failed and the contract was approved 10-1 (Wiechman opposing).