HomeMy WebLinkAbout2. Council / Staff Relationship DiscussionOf Rosemount
MAYOR
2875 - 145th Street West, Rosemount, Minnesota Edward B. McMenomy
PHONE (612) 423-4411 Mailing Address: COUNCILMEMBERS
FAX (612) 423-5203 P.O. Box 510, Rosemount, Minnesota 55068-0510 Sheila Klass
James (Red) Steals
Harry Will=
Dennis Wippermarm
ADMINISTRATOR
Stephan Jilk
TO: Mayor E.B. McMenomy ts Willcox, Wippermann
Council Members: Klassen, Staa
FROM: Stephan Jilk, City Administrator J
DATE: April 24, 1992
RE: Special Council Meeting April 28, 1992
Council/Staff Relationships
e scheduled a
On Tuesday we have meeting with our department heads
to discuss issues relating to communication, leadership, council -
staff relations and other issues which relate to our efforts in
working together.
It was felt that we should take this opportunity prior to our
goals and objectives work session. As with any other
organization it is important to work on establishing and
maintaining a healthy understanding of our individual roles and
how we can best work together as individual members to create a
real team effort.
In order to support our discussions on Tuesday I have asked for
input from my department heads as to their conecerns the relating tong
these upcoming discussions and they have suggestd followi
for discussion items:
our staff is made up of hard working and positive people who
are here to serve the community. We are all proud of the
people we have to work with and we believe we are worthy of
support. We want to provide the best services we can to you
and the community.
2. The staff looks to the City Council for leadership in
establishing direction and policy for the community and for
staff to carry them out through the direction and
supervision provided by the City Administrator.
3. Staff also looks to the City Council for support. When
issues are difficult to resolve and the public is not always
pleased with decisions made, it is important that the public
understands that staff is carrying out your directives and
policy decisions. if staff is not doing this, Council
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«tecvUed pane'
should act through the City Administrator to insure that the
policies and directives are being followed. The Council and
staff, as team members, act as one and the public needs to
believe this. If there are problems between Council and
staff, Administration needs to be addressed by Council.
Council interaction, or attempts to interact with individual
department heads to change policy or give specific direction
causes a breakdown in the overall team effectiveness of our
operation, causes loss in employee moral and confuses staff
as to who is responsible for administration and policy.
4. Staff is looking forward to the goals and objectives session
to allow those policies to be established and to assist you
in establishing priorities to work with.
5. Department heads look to provide as much information and
assistance as is reasonably possible to Council members in
order that they can make quality decision. They expect and
hope that Council members will contact them before Council
meetings and after they receive their packets in order that
Council members are informed as they can be in preparation
for Council meetings.
Council packets are not always as complete as they should
be, there are many issues you are addressing and the
complexity of these issues continues to challenge all of us.
Your preparation for meetings, with our assistance will help
us all to process through the items on our agenda.
our process now as it relates to agenda preparation, packet
development and report generation is not perfect, but we
continue to try to improve on the process and working
together we can improve it.
6. We like to believe we are a team and as team members we
offer our support to make our product (service to the
community) the best we can. We look to the City Council for
the same support.
These are issues which we hope to discuss with you and believe
that as we begin our formal process of establishing goals for the
community we can develop a higher quality relationship in hearing
each others concerns and addressing them.
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