CC MINUTES 09091986 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

-6- • City Councils .and .the School Board. Councilmember Enrooth said he perceived that would be "a complete turn-around from past practice.when. the Council -was never able to find out just what the Committee- was doing".; Councilmember Marks indicated that he perceived that if the program is set up .to require accounting to the..Council , Councilmember Ranallo would no longer be able to say he "had no idea -what the Committee had actually done in the last five years the City has supported them". Mayor Sundland said he was convinced there would be even more accountability required by outside organizations who agreed to help fund the programs who would probably demand each year to know just what the Committee had accomplished to justify its existence and their further involvement, He later commented that one way to- guarantee production from the Committee would be the knowledge that "the sure money wouldn't be there if they didn't produce". Councilmember Makowske indicated she could see where having the City directly associated with the program would give it greater credibility when seeking funds from other organizations but said she had to concur with Councilmember Enrooth that, although it might be necessary for the City to fund the program until the Committee hs started its own fund raising efforts, eventually the organization should be able to carry on under its own name and the Council should no longer have to be the "main push"- for the program. Mayor Sundland said he thought the credibility should still be there whether the City "donates one dollar or a hundred dollars". Councilmember Ranallo said he perceived that by appointing two people to the Board the Council would be automatically be providing the credibility and he suggested • the City' s funding could even come from the Community Services. Mr. Childs commented that he understood one of the initial arguments for supporting the drug awareness program had been that "the City, as a purveyor of chemicals (alcohol ) , could be said to have a certain role in the process that supporting the work of the Committee was sort of a way of balancing off thatr.esporzsi=bili;ty by providing information about the responsible use of those chemicals." Mayor Sundland questioned whether, if that was true, the $1 ,200 shouldn't come out of the liquor revenues which "would make its credibility even stronger". The Manager said that might not be a bad .idea but "the expenditure would still have to 'be approved by the Council". Councilmember Marks thanked the Mayor and other Council members for the candor of their response to the by-laws. Councilmember Enrooth told him "the direction we' re seeing the program take under your guidance the last two years is certainly different than what we've seen in the last six years." Mayor Sundland agreed, saying he had always felt rather uncomfortable voting to support a program about which he knew so little and some of what he knew he disagreed with because he questioned whether some of the pamphlets which were being distributed around town weren't just duplications of efforts from other agencies. Councilmember Marks said he had experienced the same sense of frustration when he had served on the City's Human Relations Committee and had never been able to "get a handle on" just what the high school counselor was doing about the drug problem in the school that year when there was a fatal traffic accident during school hours which was perceived to have been drug-related. He agreed that although he hadn't wanted to be provided confidential information concerning that case, he had wanted "some sense of whether something useful was being done or not." The purpose of restructuring the Committee, the Councilmember said, had been to assure that the Committee's future pronrams would be both useful and effective. He would be content to wait until they had .the,.,opporturLi ty to study the proposed changes carefully before asking for a Council decision, Councilmember Marks said.