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• <br />Mayor Bergeson's Remarks <br />on Behalf of City Council to City Staff <br />on March 11, 2008 <br />Good morning: <br />Yesterday the City Council spent several hours in a team building session facilitated by <br />Carl Neu. <br />The Council has asked me to present to you a summary of yesterday's discussion. When <br />I am done, I will ask Carl and the other council members to fill in anything that I missed. <br />Then we will turn it back to Carl for any further discussion of team building and then we <br />expect to spend most of this morning working with you on goal setting. <br />First we want to say: <br />Thank you for your service to the City of Lino Lakes. We appreciate all the work that <br />you do for us and for the people of Lino Lakes and that we appreciate your expertise, <br />your dedication and your perseverance in difficult times. <br />We spent most of yesterday talking about relationships: relationships between council <br />members, relationships between staff members. But we spent most of our time talking <br />about the relationship between the City Council and staff. We acknowledge that what <br />was once a relatively healthy and productive relationship between council and staff has <br />significantly deteriorated in recent months. We understand that some statements and <br />actions by council members have been inappropriate, hurtful, and sometimes have <br />created hostile situations. If you have been the recipient of these behaviors we want to <br />apologize to you. <br />Going forward we, the City Council, are committed to making significant improvements <br />in our behavior and our working relationships with you. We also expect that each of you <br />will make a serious commitment to improved relationships. If these issues are consuming <br />your time and energy we ask you to re- engage in the duties of your position. <br />Carl Neu, in his role of facilitator, has tried to capture the essence of our rambling <br />discussions of yesterday in a series of summary statements. There are 8 of these <br />statements that I am going to read. Our hope is that you will hear two themes running <br />through these statements: <br />1. our commitment to restoring healthy relationships with the staff <br />2. our expectation that you will be our partner in these efforts. <br />Statement 1 <br />Staff should not be subject to hostile or demeaning behavior by council members. The <br />council has an obligation to call inappropriate behavior on the carpet and deal with it <br />constructively and we are committed to do that going forward. <br />16 <br />