09/22/2008 Council Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Search

• • CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION SEPTEMBER 22, 2008 APPROVED 46 CHARTER AMENDMENT COMMUNICATION PLAN 47 48 Chris Deets, Dustin Deets LLC, reported. He had provided the council with a "food for 49 thought" memorandum earlier to prepare for this brainstorming session. From that he has 50 brought options for council review. 51 52 In reviewing the document, Mr. Deets pointed out a spreadsheet of considerations that 53 lays out four options — ranging from highly strategic to maximum investment, and 54 including the estimated cost of those options. He suggested that the council must 55 consider how much time, energy and resources they want to put into communication on 56 this issue. One thought is that if a minimal or medium investment campaign will land the 57 city in the same position as in the past (a soundly defeated charter amendment), perhaps 58 only options A or D are considerations. The elements of communication within each 59 option are more fully explained within the report. The council discussed that they have 60 an obligation to provide information to voters since there is no doubt that that the 61 petitioned question will be on the ballot. The question is what is an appropriate level of 62 effort? 63 64 A council member suggested that this communication plan became harder after the past 65 week, since the issue of the allegations of an illegal meeting relative to the charter issue 66 arose and now must be a consideration. That matter is now being discussed by the public 67 and that will detract from communication efforts on the matter of the amendment. 68 69 Mr. Deets concurred, adding that there are several distractions including how people view 70 the charter (why citizens have soundly defeated proposals in the past), the open meeting 71 situation and also the economic climate. Also, there is a presidential election involved. 72 Those are things that do not necessarily favor the passage of an amendment. It is 73 important to look at the past and not repeat the same thing and expect a different result. 74 That led Mr. Deets' discussion to Option A, a situation where you can use the opportunity 75 of the upcoming election to plan for a future effort. Option A does assume that the 76 measure will be defeated but it speaks to the fact that the election is a jewel of an 77 opportunity to get those questions answered (with an exit poll) about how people feel 78 about the question, perhaps what's inhibiting change and where do they best get their 79 information. 80 81 It was noted by a council member that one of the conversations that the citizens task force 82 had was that the city should be prepared for multiple efforts. Both Options A and Option 83 C would fit into what that group envisioned. 84 85 A comment was offered that the council should make at minimum a moderate effort on 86 communication because this amendment wasn't proposed by the council but came 87 forward as a citizen petition. Also this could set the precedent for fairness for how the 88 city deals with petitioned questions that come forward in the future. 89