City of Hesperia
MEMORANDUM
DATE: Monday, July 10, 2023
TO: All Animal Services Staff
FROM: Melinda Sayre, Deputy City Manager/ City Clerk
SUBJECT: Training Memo – Council- Staff Relations
Recently a City Council Member visited the shelter and was enco untered by staff in non-public and public areas. This resulted in inquiries about the protocol for handling such situations and presents a great training opportunity for management to inform staff of policies and expe ctations surrounding council-staff relations, a topic that is rarely discussed but is important to all and cent ral to the smooth operations of the City.
The City is quite fortunate to have elected officials who are willing to spend time engaged with the community and staff and it’s no wonder that they may wish to visit our amazing shelter, not to mention that management is very proud of the hard work and effort that staff puts into the shelter.
You may wonder how this impacts staff and day-to-day operations . Staff should feel comfortable greeting council members and answering general questions related to their unique job duties and responsibilities followed by locating a supervisor to assist them. Supervisors w ould then do the same and direct the council member to relay concerns or questions related to higher level issues such as policy, resource allocation and budgetary issues to my attention as department head or the city manager. In every situation, all staff members are required to report contact and correspondence with council members to their supervisor.
This chain of command approach to communication with the council is due to the City’s council-manager form of government. A council-manager form of government is one in which city council members are part of a multi- member governing body that collectively makes policy decisions for the City at agendized public meetings.
The city manager provides direction to department heads to impl ement those policies and holds them accountable for progress. Ordinance no. 2 and Chapter 6 Section A(3) of the City Council Procedures Manual detail the framework of internal relations between city council members and staff. Each are available online for reference.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions and as a l w a y s , t h a n k y o u f o r y o u r v a l u a b l e contributions to the City and it’s furry guests.
Attachment 3
City of Hesperia Memorandum Page 2