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ATTY/POLICIES/A GUIDE TO CITY COUNCIL COMMUNICATIONS & BUSINESS <br />REV: 09-14-23 VR <br />Page 14 of 16 <br />5. Be inquisitive, collaborative, and support the leadership development for all <br />Councilmembers. <br />VIII. CITY COUNCIL - STAFF COMMUNICATIONS <br />A. To support clear roles and responsibilities for the City Council and City staff and <br />constructive working relationships, both the City Council and staff will: <br />1. Respect boundaries between policy and operations; Councilmembers will focus <br />on “what” the City Council would like to achieve and staff will focus on “how” to <br />achieve it. <br />2. Be open-minded and realistic. <br />3. Strive to ensure each other have timely and complete information, avoiding <br />surprises. <br />B. City staff serve the City Council as a whole, therefore: <br />1. A Council Member shall not direct staff to initiate any action, change a course of <br />action, or prepare any report. Except as provided below, Section X.B. City Council <br />Member Referral, a Council Member shall not initiate any project or study without <br />the approval of the majority of the Council. <br />2. A Council Member shall not attempt to pressure or influence discussions, <br />recommendations, workloads, schedules, or department priorities absent the <br />approval of a majority of the Council. <br />3. Requests made by individual Council Members for information must be directed to <br />the City Manager, or the City Attorney regarding legal matters, or the City Clerk <br />regarding matters within the City Clerk’s authority. Such requests will be addressed <br />as quickly as possible under the circumstances, provided that, in the judgment of the <br />City Manager (or the City Attorney depending on the nature of the request) the <br />request is not of a magnitude, either in terms of workload or policy, which would <br />require that it more appropriately be assigned to staff through the collective direction <br />of the City Council. In general, if more than one hour of staff time will be required to <br />complete the task/project, the item will be agendized to ask the City Council if time <br />should be spent on preparing a report on the proposed item. <br />4. Staff responses prepared to Council informational inquiries shall be distributed to all <br />City Council Members. <br />C. Requests by City Council Members for assistance with City services should be handled as <br />follows: <br />The City Council Member may contact a department head, use a customer service <br />application such as MyRWC, or use other publicly-available means of requesting <br />services available to the public. Examples include reporting problems with utilities, <br />graffiti or public safety issues. <br />9.A. - Page 17 of 19 <br />154