Cotati City Council
Agenda Staff Report
Item type: REGULAR AGENDA (ACTION)
To: City Council
Subject: Part-Time Clerk for the Sonoma County Mayors and Councilmembers Association
Date: April 26, 2022
Written by: Damien O'Bid, City Manager
Recommendation
It is recommended that the City Council support the creation of a part-time contract Association Clerk for the Mayors and Councilmembers Association and by motion authorize the City to support the same and direct the City Manager to budget for the City’s contribution to the costs, which will be shared amongst all Sonoma County cities.
Background
Historically, the focus of the Sonoma County Mayors and Councilmembers Association (MCA) has been the exchange of ideas among fellow elected officials - both by educational presentations and by providing an opportunity to network with peers. The MCA Board of Directors (Board) also makes appointments to select regional bodies, as well as serving as the City Selection Committee for Sonoma County, as required under Government Code §50270. The MCA Board and General Membership meetings are held quarterly, per the current by-laws. The MCA also has a Legislative Committee, which our Cal Cities representative (Nancy Hall Bennett) has graciously hosted on behalf of the MCA.
By 2019, it had become clear that the speed, volume, and types of issues confronting Sonoma County cities required enhanced coordination to address issues of common interest. Additionally, the rotational system to manage the various MCA functions is time consuming, inefficient and lacks continuity. Therefore, on September 16, 2019, the Board met and developed an outline of the recommended changes to the MCA, which is attached to this staff report (Exhibit A). In addition, the Board Chair appointed, and the Board approved, an ad hoc subcommittee of the following elected officials tasked with updating the by-laws to implement the recommended changes:
• Tom Schwedhelm (City of Santa Rosa)
• Teresa Barrett (Petaluma)
• Melanie Bagby (Cloverdale)
• Neysa Hinton (Sebastopol)
However, after an initial meeting to develop a purpose statement, work paused as the region grappled with multiple emergencies, including wildfires and COVID-19. On November 18, 2021, the MCA Board re-appointed the ad hoc subcommittee to continue their work, with staff assistance from Jeff Kay (Healdsburg) and Damien O’Bid (Cotati).
Given that cities are currently in their budget development process, the ad hoc focused on developing a draft scope and cost for a contract part-time Association Clerk to inform their budget processes. This will be followed by updating the by-laws for review by the cities.
Analysis/Discussion
Currently, the MCA is an association without any staff or administrative infrastructure. Therefore, the cities in Sonoma County rotate responsibilities as Chair City and Program City, in alphabetic order so that each city serves in one of these roles every 9 years. The Chair City is responsible for chairing the meetings, updating the MCA handbook, creating and publishing the meeting agendas through close coordination with the Program City, the Host City and the County Clerk for City Selection Meetings, recording the meeting minutes, pushing out information to the member cities, and establishing a website to host MCA information for that year. The Program City, which is the next in line alphabetically, is responsible for arranging for the speakers’ program at the General Membership meetings. For each General Membership meeting, there is also a Host City. The Host City rotates with each General Membership meeting and is responsible for securing a meeting venue and related meeting logistics, choosing and developing the menu, securing potential sponsors to offset meeting costs, and collecting meeting reservations and payments.
The current rotational system is problematic in a number of ways. Rotating the administrative functions each year is inefficient, leads to a lack of continuity and focus between years, and requires extensive staff time by the Chair City, and to a lesser degree, the Program City and Host cities. Under the current system, many of these administrative tasks essentially need to be re- built every year, leading to staff impacts for the Chair City and unnecessary confusion for the membership. The part time Association Clerk is intended to provide basic administrative structure to the MCA, including record keeping, hosting of an MCA website, and general coordination and continuity of all functions currently performed by various cities, as described in the attached scope of work (Exhibit B). Employing a part-time contract employee is fairly common in other Mayors & Councilmembers Associations in the Bay Area, so while the proposed scope of work fits our unique needs, the role is relatively common in other associations.
The MCA is not an entity with legal standing to enter into agreements or employ staff.
Therefore, the part-time Association Clerk is intended to be an independent contractor, who would contract with one of the MCA cities that volunteers to serve as the Fiscal Agent. The Fiscal Agent would be responsible for contracting with the part-time Association Clerk, as well as managing funds for MCA functions. Determination of which City will serve as Fiscal Agent will be made at a later date. Additionally, the draft Association Clerk scope may be further amended once the MCA by-laws are updated, as necessary or desirable.
Financial Considerations
In the first year, there will be some initial start-up costs, such as developing a dedicated website for the MCA, which will be less in future years. The following table includes the estimated costs:
Description Year 1 Future Years
Contract Part-Time Association Clerk $40,000 $40,000 + CPI Association Clerk Incidentals $2,000 $2,000
MCA Website/Event Management $10,000 $2,000
Total $52,000 ~ $44,000
It was initially proposed to split the costs equally among all 9 MCA cities. However, in recognition of the staff time required to manage and support the Association Clerk, as well as acting as the Fiscal Agent, the ad hoc subcommittee has recommended that the City who serves as the Fiscal Agent be provide a 50% discount on the costs related to the Association Clerk contract.
Using the above Year 1 estimate, each city would be required to contribute $5,778 for the year if equally split. If the MCA ultimately elects to provide a discount to the City acting as the Fiscal Agent, the cost would be approximately $6,139 in Year 1, if 50% of one city’s cost is distributed to the other 8 cities. Future years are expected to be less after initial startup costs.
The hiring of a part-time contract Association Clerk is expected to save significant City staff time by avoiding the need to support many of the MCA administrative functions that are supported by the Chair, Program or Host cities today. This time can instead be spent on supporting local city priorities.
Environmental Issues
This action is exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) because it is not a project which has a potential for resulting in either a direct physical change in the environment, or a reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment, pursuant to CEQA Guideline section 15378.
Attachments:
Exhibit A - Outline of Proposed By-Law Changes (PDF)
Exhibit B - DRAFT MC Assoc Clerk Contract (DOCX)