#5 Consider appointments to Sidewalk Advisory Committee
CITY MANAGER’S MEMORANDUM
May 14, 2012
TO: City Council
FROM: Eric J. Levitt
SUBJECT: Appointments to Sidewalk Advisory Committee
Request
The City Manager has evaluated a variety of ways to provide a recommendation for a
citizen committee with the constraints placed on the recommendation of having the
recommendation before the City Council in 9 to 14 days.
Summary
On April 30, 2012 the City Council approved a motion to suspend the order on the
placement of sidewalks in Zone 1 & 2 with additional direction to bring back a
recommendation of a committee.
The function of the committee will be to bring back a recommendation to the City
Council at the first meeting in July for the placement of sidewalks in Zones 1 & 2. The
Committee will be further tasked with bringing back a recommendation on the 2013
program within 120 days and bringing back a recommendation on the entire program by
the beginning of March, 2013.
In conjunction with the City Council’s direction, I am bringing back a proposed
committee.
The committee would be comprised of 8 to 10 individuals. Seven members would be
recommended by each City Council member (1 member recommended by each City
Council member), one individual recommended by the City Manager, and an additional
two members would be City Council members, if the Council chooses to appoint two
Council members to the committee. Not all of the individual City Council member
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recommendations have been provided to my office as of May 9, so the names will be
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distributed separately on May 11
.
Based on the fact that I as City Manager believe that this committee should work more
on a consensus based approach rather than a majority voting approach, I am providing
an even number of committee members.
City Manager Recommendation
I am providing a recommended committee as directed by the City Council. However, I
have several concerns with the timelines.
1. I am concerned with the amount of time to meet the first deadline. Even if it is
met, there is potential that construction may not be able to fully occur this year
due to noticing timelines creating a short window for construction to occur.
2. This approach takes the same plan and breaks it into elements without
necessarily providing the opportunity to look at the plan comprehensively and
determining whether another approach should be taken.
3. It has been suggested that I should try to get something in the paper the week of
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May 7 so individuals could volunteer for the committee. I chose not to do this
because I felt it was too short a response timeline and provided more a
perception that we are reaching out for public involvement rather than providing
more time for public involvement or ability to volunteer.
Another approach that was offered is a concept of Interest Based Bargaining. This
approach would take longer, but I believe may provide opportunity for a positive result at
the end of the process.
I am providing a brief overview of this concept:
Interest-Based Bargaining
Are you looking for an alternative to traditional collective
bargaining?
Interest-Based Bargaining (IBB) is a different way to negotiate.
In the right situation, it is an alternative, replacing traditional
positional bargaining with a process of joint problem-solving.
A Different Way to Negotiate
Known by many names and practiced in many variations and
settings: Win-Win Bargaining, Mutual Gains, Principled or
Interest-Based Negotiation, Interest-Based Problem Solving,
Best Practice or Integrative Bargaining. No matter which
variation is used, Interest-Based Bargaining (IBB) may offer
parties more flexibility than traditional bargaining, not locking
them into predetermined issues and bargaining positions. Instead,
the process begins with understanding the problem and
identifying the interests that underlie each side’s issues and
positions.
When everyone understands the interests and concerns that lead a
person or group to take a position on an issue, they often find
that some of those interests are mutual, that both sides at the
table are trying to achieve the same goal, just taking different
approaches. And they frequently discover that what at first
appear to be competing interests are not really competing at all.
Dealing with each other in this way makes it possible to generate
and consider options to satisfy particular interests that may never
have been considered before.
The Principles of Interest-Based Bargaining
Parties who participate in IBB have learned that agreements tend
to address issues in more depth than those reached using
traditional techniques because they are the result of a process
aimed at satisfying mutual interests by consensus, not just one
side’s interests at the expense of the other. And because
negotiators are dealing with each other on a different level, the
results usually go beyond immediate issues to address longer
term interests and concerns.
Interest-based bargaining is a process that enables traditional
negotiators to become joint problem-solvers. It assumes that
mutual gain is possible, that solutions which satisfy mutual
interests are more durable, that the parties should help each other
achieve a positive result.