Several years ago, when my eldest first began grade school, I attended a PTO meeting, looked around the table, and didn’t see a single parent of color among the six or seven people there. Since the school has a large non-white population, I wondered why there seemed to be little PTO participation from the wider community of parents, not just parents of color, but people from the larger community of parents from U of M’s North Campus Housing, folks from around the world. When it came time to rustle up volunteers for an upcoming event, I said I would stand in front of the school, if need be, and buttonhole parents as they dropped off their kids. I did just that, and found that most of the parents whom I approached were willing (if not always able).
I soon came to realize that the problem wasn’t a lack of interest on the part of the school’s parents, but that the long-time volunteer PTO parents were so busy keeping the PTO afloat, that reaching out to people other than those whom they knew was forever falling to the bottom of the to-do list. It happens in organizations and groups all the time. A few long-term volunteers do all the work and, when volunteers don’t just step forward, begin to believe no one is interested in helping them.
Well, I’m a problem-solver. I got a copy of the PTO bylaws and read the rules on PTO elections. I volunteered to Chair the PTO Nominating Committee (the first one formed in, literally, five years). Getting more people involved, I reasoned, would be as simple as following the bylaws and election rules. The bylaws called for the formation of a Nominating Committee to put together a slate of candidates. The project involved lots of elbow grease. The Nominating Committee collected names of potential PTO officers and members-at-large. In fact, I phoned over 300 parents over the course of a month to ask if they’d like to be involved in the PTO as officers or a members-at-large.
It was a great experience for me, personally. I spoke with a huge number of parents, and together with the other members of the Nominating Committee, put together a slate of candidates that, in effect, tripled the number of parents involved in PTO leadership, and drew in parents from the various communities of parents in the school. I did this, because I wanted to see a wider range of people have a voice at the table, and to have the PTO representative of the community at the school.
Not everyone was happy, though, with having to follow the bylaws, or with the fact that I had asked practically every parent in the school to participate—strangers to those who’d been involved for years.
It’s understandable, but isn’t a stranger just a friend you haven’t met before?
This same thing has happened in our city government. At a recent City Council meeting, as the Mayor prepared to read a list of his nominees to several boards and commissions, he chuckled and said to the Council, who would vote on his nominations, “Several of these names will be familiar to many of you.”
There are about 270 hard-working volunteers on the city’s boards and commissions. Some people have asked me whether I think the number of boards and commissions could be reduced. To be sure, past administrations have combined, created, and purged boards and commissions as the need arose. However, participation in city government should be a grassroots affair.
There are, however, a couple of things I’d do differently with respect to Mayoral appointments to boards and commissions: Let me elaborate.
1. Having individuals serve on multiple boards is not a practice I would continue unless there were a compelling reason to do so. Just like the PTO, it’s going to take elbow grease and a commitment to recruitment and reaching out to potential volunteers. I would like to see an annual open house for Ann Arbor folks interested in serving on the city’s many boards and commissions, just as the School Board does for its potential board candidates.
2. The appointment application process is relatively straight-forward. There’s an application form for Mayoral appointments (available online). I’ve spoken to many, many people who’ve submitted an application to serve on a board or commission, and heard nothing. Not a peep one way or the other. It’s crucial to make sure all applicants get treated respectfully.
3. Mayoral appointments are just that—made at the pleasure the Mayor and voted on by Council. I would like to see Council bring multiple recommendations to the table in addition to the Mayor’s, and to have deliberative, open discussions concerning Mayoral appointments. There are emails that were released to the public as a result of Freedom of Information Act requests made by citizens and various media outlets that show board and commission candidates questioned via email concerning how they would vote on particular issues. That kind of questioning, if pursued, must to be done openly.
4. I will, if elected, make bipartisan appointments to all of the city’s boards and commissions. I intend to encourage diverse points of view.
Citizen involvement is democracy, and can get messy. However, I believe increasing the transparency of the appointment process, along with the number, and expanding the diversity and viewpoints of folks involved on our boards and commissions is well worth the time and effort.
Popularity: 35% [?]
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Comments on your suggestions:
1. I used to think that retiree’s could effectively pull this off (volunteer with multiple boards, committees or projects) due to them ‘having more time on their hands’. But I’ve seen two problems to this over the years. First, with the same person on multiple committees you receive the same opinion over and over. Not that the opinion is bad, but I’ve usually found that ‘One size fits all’ translates to ‘One size fits all – poorly’. It’s kinda like using the same spice over and over in different soups. After a while it all begins to taste (or sound) the same. Diversity on these boards (which I think is the at the heart of your post) is what sparks originality and debate. And without debate you might as well just get out the rubber stamp. Second, professional volunteerism. I’ve seen this personally with certain members of school boards, who’ve left one board only to become school board members someplace else. Again, same spice, different soup. This community is much more diverse than the single voices we hear over and over.
2. The appointment application process is online, but it’s just a pdf to be printed out, filled out by hand and mailed in. It could be automated (the county could help with this) as an online form, routed via the city’s email system to the correct departments/recipients with an auto-receipt reply back to the submitter’s email. Then it would be up to the Mayor’s office to follow-up and keep ALL candidates informed. By taking these applications digital, this follow-up could be automated within the city’s calendaring and email program (and, yes, I know how to do this, and, no, I won’t do it for Ann Arbor
, allowing reminders and notifications to populate the appropriate city employee’s schedule. Then at least the opportunity for follow-up would be inherent in the system to begin with. Any final results determinations and actions would still be in the hands of humans, which is where such things should be, but at least they would have all the information available to them in a timely fashion.
3. Questions: Is the Mayoral appointment the only way find yourself landed onto a city board? It there another way? Should there be? Is this appointment right of the Mayor’s office part of the city charter, or is this a tradition?
Depending on the answers, maybe each Council member should be able to offer appointments to each board, say 5 times a term. They could use the same nomination process as the Mayor. Maybe there should be a citizen’s nomination process. And maybe changing the process radically will lead to process-bloat and a worse system than the one already in place. Whatever paths are taken in addressing this issue, I echo one of the main points from your PTO story: Diversity in debate can only lead to good results. Too many times I’ve found myself, say, at the start of a meeting, entrenched in my belief/idea only to be convinced by others that another path would be the better way to go. How did they convince me? It was a two-way process. They talked, using facts and reasonable argument, and I listened to that argument. As long as I listened reasonably they stood the chance of changing my mind.
4. Bipartisan appointments would be good. I have quite a few Republican friends that I actually respect. But I think the entire nomination process needs to be revisited and, if warranted, new means of appointment need to be instituted.
Sorry for the long comment post. As always, just my opinion.
WSC
Comment by WSC — February 6, 2010 @ 9:43 am
I was a parent at Northside when this happened, and I want to say that it was slightly more traumatic for those parents who had been running the PTO and re-electing themselves year after year. The PTO was a clique run by a small group of women who recruited their friends and never bothered to hold elections that included the wider community. The PTO president at the time began a witch hunt against the new black principal and dragged the PTO into the middle of the mess. It was mortifying. The PTO was totally dysfunctional and parents stayed away from the group.
These women were absolutely furious that Pat pushed to open the PTO elections up to the wider community. The PTO president who had been roosting in office for five years quit in a snit, spreading the ridiculous lie that she’d been pushed out. Others on the board responded similarly to having to follow the bylaws and have elections open to the rest of the parents.
I was one of the 300 parents Pat called, and I got involved. A lot of other people did. I thanked Pat then, and I’ll thank her again now. Her portrayal of these women is beyond generous, and her willingness to work to open the group up to parents who were “strangers” was a gift to the school. When Pat did this, there were a handful of parents involved. When she was finished, there were almost 20 parents on the PTO Board. Every position was filled. There were multiple Vice Presidents and a full slate of parents who served as members-at-large.
Pat cleaned up what was a longstanding mess and reached out to hundreds of people. She’ll have my vote, and she’ll always have my thanks.
Comment by Amy B. — February 6, 2010 @ 10:11 am
There were uncharitable comments posted by what appeared to be ex-members of the PTO board posted on AnnArbor.com. The situation illustrates that entrenched interests can do a lot of damage to the public interest and when challenged, will display a massive sense of entitlement.
It is interesting how this gets spun into the claim that Pat Lesko is not a leader or a natural “people” person. You can have dysfunctional public institutions that are run by leaders part of an “Old Boys” or “Old Girls” cliques where everyone of the “Old Boys/Girls” are team players who don’t rock the boat. Or you can have transformational leadership where the old guard is going to squeal like stuck pigs when they get shunted aside, but the public benefits massively.
Comment by ChuckL — February 6, 2010 @ 10:51 am
WSC you have some great suggestions. I really like your suggestion about routing applications electronically. The Mayor could get applications and supporting materials as electronic documents and share them electronically, as well. We always have to remember that there are people who don’t have Internet access, or necessarily feel comfortable applying electronically, but your ideas are terrific. Part of my job is to oversee the company’s electronic resources (web page, e-newsletters, etc….) and so I have about 15 years of experience with web page architecture, and the technical aspects associated with the improvements you propose.
As for nominations, at the moment board and committee nominations are handled in a manner that is very tightly controlled and drawn from a rather small pool of citizens (thus overlap on boards and commissions). My hope in opening up Mayoral appointments to public scrutiny, and regularly inviting Council members to draw from their constituencies to make recommendations, would be to take advantage of the counsel of Council. This way, we’ll work together, openly, to find the best possible candidates to volunteer on the boards and commissions that advise Council and Mayor.
I, too, have Republican colleagues whom I respect, and whose opinions I believe would benefit any and all discussions on our boards and commissions.
The nomination process does need to be revisited, and by making just a few adjustments in policy and procedure I think the citizenry will benefit enormously, as well as the city.
Comment by A2 Politico — February 6, 2010 @ 10:55 am
@ A2Politico – Thanks for your reply. Apprecitated. One thing I’d like to clarify is my comment concerning my unwillingness to set up electronic routing for A2. It’s not that I’m unwilling… it’s just that the city doesn’t need me to do this. It already has a fine IT/Applications department who can handle any reconfiguration necessary to achieve these goals.
WSC
Comment by WSC — February 6, 2010 @ 11:56 am
Darn right the City has an IT Department. We’re paying $7 million dollars a year for it, too.
Comment by A2 Politico — February 6, 2010 @ 2:30 pm
Well, I’m very glad this was posted, and doubly glad Amy B. responded. The people who have posted their negative comments to AnnArbor.com have some rather large axes to grind. Contrary to those comments that point to a potential lack of leadership ability on the part of Ms. Lesko, this pinpoints and illuminates a much-needed skill set. The ability to stand up to bullies and those who would subvert the rules for their own gain. One sees a sadly familiar correlation between the PTO leaders and those on our own City Council. I want a leader who can to stand up for the people of Ann Arbor. We haven’t had that.
Comment by Yale89 — February 6, 2010 @ 2:44 pm
WSC, a few commissions (two that I’m aware of, anyway) are appointed by council, and in the case of the environmental commission at least, without much input from members. The ordinance that created the EC designated that mechanism. My guess is that other commissions would have similar language in their originating legislation that designated them as being appointed by the mayor.
I’ll put in a vote for non-partisan rather than bipartisan appointments — not everyone belongs to a party — and also for open-minded, multi-perspective discussion over two-way debate.
Comment by Steve Bean — February 6, 2010 @ 4:30 pm
I never heard back regarding my applications for city boards/commissions. It was never even confirmed that my application was received. Not only does this discourage people from participating, it’s also rude.
Comment by Janelle Baranowski — February 8, 2010 @ 9:16 am
It is just inexcusable to not even let someone know the application was received. Then again, I get the feeling that not everyone is welcome to serve. I am thrilled with the idea we’ll have a mayor who’ll make bipartisan appointments to boards and commissions. Why is local government a clique?
Comment by Robert Smith — February 8, 2010 @ 9:29 am
Pat,
What is your position on restoring the staffing and budget for the Ann Arbor Human Rights Commission? Hieftje cut the staffing and funding a few years ago.
Comment by ChuckL — February 8, 2010 @ 12:05 pm
“Why is local government a clique?”
Why is any clique a clique? Seth Godin might say that it’s for one of reasons: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/sethsmainblog/~3/Kdbz-7IDfls/frightenedcluelessuninformed.html.
Let’s ask the next question and consider what to do to address the fear, ignorance, and confusion. There are tools and practices that we can all use to encourage, educate, and clarify the thinking of each other and ourselves. Realizing that is the first step. The trick is to step outside of those states long enough to do so.
Comment by Steve Bean — February 8, 2010 @ 5:13 pm
How much money is spent on staffing time with relation to all of these commissions? Is there any other city with a blueprint that has no commissions? Any way of changing Ann Arbor government to a strong mayor format (the only way a2politico is going to get the change she wants is to have a slate of people for board as well)?
The $7 million for the IT department, how does that break down? From my dealings with the folks there they are capable with Open Sourced software (which means they have a fiscal clue). If a2politico is jamming on the $7 million like she jams on Spark, I’d like the see something to back it up.
Comment by Joe Hood — February 8, 2010 @ 8:41 pm
@13 The IT budget number comes from the city budget available online. The comment about the size of the budget is based on the fact that the IT budget for our city is twice that of other similarly sized cities. The IT Director posted a job for an intern to work using city equipment, and to be supervised by the IT Director on city time, to design a web site for the Director’s professional association. When this was brought to the attention of the City Administrator, he told the Council member who inquired to, basically, butt out. I’d say IT deserves a closer look.
Comment by A2 Politico — February 8, 2010 @ 9:46 pm
Fair and I found the budget. Of the $7 million, $3 million is payroll and benefits for 22.69 employees. Of the list of employees, there don’t seem to be many junior positions, only 5.29 seem to be non-managers and non-senior level positions. I can’t figure out where $3.9 million goes in the “Other Services” and “Other Charges, there is no explanation of that in the budget.” My reference: http://bit.ly/b81haQ (page 240)
As far as an intern goes for an association, I can see that practice happening in private enterprise. An intern is comparably cheap and doesn’t pull away an IT Director’s thought time.
Oh, and which similarly sized cities are we comparing? Many of the goals this staff appears to be striving for are top notched (though as an IT guy myself, I might have tried to obfuscate one of the items, due to liability). My thoughts are most cities are not converting all water meters to wireless, that meter reader cost won’t show in others’ IT budgets. Other cities, like Washington DC, are contracting work out to the likes of Lockheed Martin, for a piece of the future revenue pie (red light cameras and parking meters).
Comment by Joe Hood — February 8, 2010 @ 11:18 pm
Unions are bankrupting our city government, as well as all levels of government across the cpuntry. They are paid excessively, over-benefited, and over-pebsioned. This is why the city is broke. What are you going to do about that?
Comment by chas — February 11, 2010 @ 6:16 pm
@16 In 2005, the current administration put together a blue ribbon panel to deal with just these issues. You might drop Mayor and City Council an email and ask what happened to the recommendations of the panel and why they haven’t been implemented over the past five years. I can’t answer that question.
I can tell you that several of the recommendations deal with reshaping the employee retirement and health care plans for future employees. I would be prepared to bring those recommendations to Council for an immediate vote. One recommendation involves a change to the Charter—changing the composition of the Board that oversees the employee pension and retirement system, removing the City Administrator from the Board, for example.
Unions are very leery of administrations that play games with money. Since 2003, City Administrator Roger Fraser’s budgeting methods have resulted in significantly inflated general fund loses. Then, when the actual numbers have come in, there have been surpluses. This is a problem. It creates mistrust between unions and their employer. Second, the City Administrator bargains using methods which I consider unprofessional and antagonistic. This must stop, and the relationship repaired. Then, we can work together with the unions to close what is a $13 million dollar gap, and to find other savings.
It’s going to be a process, but it can be done providing Council is willing to oversee the process more closely. I toured the Midway Aircraft carrier two summers ago, and the tour guide said that if a sailor fell overboard, it took five miles to stop the carrier to turn it around. The sailor in the water now is our labor unions. Public policy can be changed, but it will take patience and time to rebuild the trust necessary to negotiate the contracts we need to negotiate, and determine how to stop balancing the general fund budget on the backs public safety workers.
Thanks for the question.
Comment by A2 Politico — February 11, 2010 @ 8:11 pm
@16 Let me see if I got this right. The auto unions were successful in gathering more and more benefits from the big three. The public service unions then used that success to strengthen their own hands. But now the auto unions are coming back down to earth but there is nothing to bring back down the public service unions?
Surely there was data that the public service unions used to bargain and the data should be used to back these benefits back down to the level of the rest of us. Well, unless unions are better than us.
I hate to seem like a “union basher” but I sure feel our government is held hostage here.
Comment by Joe Hood — February 11, 2010 @ 9:50 pm
Payrolls will go down no matter what, because revenues are down, but there are better and worse ways of reducing payrolls.
No one wants a pay cut, but at some level, everyone understands that the auto profits and wages that made Michigan one of the three richest states per-capita are gone, that nothing yet replaces the car business, and that deflation is here to stay for the indefinite future. It will take trust and good faith to more fully adjust to this reality without a train wreck. Ultimatums are not likely to be helpful, they tend to push people into corners, lock them into irrational positions.
Comment by John Floyd — February 12, 2010 @ 12:44 am
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