01-12-2022 Workshop Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

public attending the meeting or watching it on television or online. The cycle then repeats — for the worse. Elected officials’ lack of civility impedes g overnance in many ways, such as stalling the decisionmaking process, under mining employee retention and recr uitment, fueling political apathy and discouraging public par ticipation. Over time, the standard set for acceptable behavior becomes increasingly lower. Although cities periodically conduct ethics training for officials as required by state law (AB 1234, Chapter 700, Statutes of 2005), most don’t take the time to discuss how they g over n. This is puzzling because local gover nment can be seen as the ultimate team spor t, where ever yone must play their roles well for civic prog ress to occur. Fostering Focused and Productive Dialogue How often do councils and senior staff take time to discuss what is working and what can be improved in the ways they interact and car r y out their duties? What benchmarks do they use to measure their behavior? Most importantly, how do they hold themselves and each other accountable? Many cities have adopted codes of ethics for their org anizations and/or city councils, which is positive and appropriate. Some are taking the additional step of defining how the elected leaders and staff are to behave in carr ying out their duties. These policies are typically called codes of conduct or council guidelines or nor ms. In such policies, the local g overnment leadership sets the r ules and expectations for how they g overn their cities — defining a civil and respectful gover ning culture consistent with best practices.