McGill, Pam
From: Silja Paymer
Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2024 4:00 PM
To: , City Clerk
Subject: Comment letter for City Council meeting 8/27
Attachments: Comment Letter 8_27. pdf
CAUTION: EXTERNAL EMAIL - Ensure you trust this email before clicking on any links or attachments.
Hello,
I would like to submit the following letter for comment on tonights meeting.
Thank you,
Silja
Dear Councilmembers,
We are writing to share our concerns with city staff leadership. We hope you will consider them during the closed session discussion of city manager performance.
In the past four years community members have seen our input considered, but then discarded before implementation. What little additional park space has been added includes over 50% pavement.
Alternative transportation projects have been stagnating even after approval by council. We still can't get the city to cover the liability of volunteers (though there are rumors this was supposed to happen?). The pollinator habitat was turned down by city staff and we needed the City Council to overrule them.
We are constantly told that action cannot be taken until there is a plan: The ATP, the Parks and Rec Strategic Plan, the Biodiversity and Urban Forestry Master Plan, the precise plan in the neighborhood, etc etc. These take years under our current city management. Together, this means that top level city goals are ignored for years.
Even when there is a plan, like the Shoreline Wildlife Management Plan, city staff then feels free to ignore it. The interruption to the burrowing owls support plan and loss of scientific data collection shows that the plans in themselves can't make positive change.
We need staff to align their actions to Council goals with and without plans. As a community we gave input to the city vision setting process, which built the goals, but then staff just ignored all of that input and work.
All of these problems seem to be a result of a toxic culture within the city staff organization.
Organizational groups are siloed and seem to lack information on what other groups are working on. Staff culture encourages saying "no" as the default response to requests within the city, from community members, and even by commissioners and city council members.
I think there needs to be an audit of city staff effectiveness and alignment to council goals. For example, if parks and rec got more money right now, they would try to pave parks to put in courts or a splash pad, even though the commissioners and community survey identified that as low level goals. We spend ages on community input meetings to then have staff ignore it. Commissioners aren't included in planning until it is too late for them to give input. City council isn't consulted until high levels of resources have been invested in projects that ignore their direction.
Putting this all together, community members do not feel heard or respected by city staff. This is leading to a campaign against the current Tax Measure G. Poor management of city resources, specifically staff time and project direction, will possibly mean a loss of this potential tax revenue. I argued for the city to keep the North Bayshore tax money over giving it to MVWSD specifically because I thought it would be used to protect the burrowing owls. Seeing as it isn't, I will also become an advocate of moving that to the district in the future.
These funding challenges cannot be blamed on our City Council members who work so hard to collaborate with their constituents. This is a city staff culture issue, and the culture is guided by top level management.
Thank you for your time,
Silja Paymer
GreenSpacesMV Founding Member
Li Zheng
GreenSpacesMV Member