The Best Practices Committee needs citizen input to do its work recommending possible changes and improvements to Northampton decision-making processes. Do you have a suggestion? Please e-mail it to the "suggestion box" c/o northamptonbestpractices@googlegroups.com.
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Implementation Research Links
The Community Problem-Solving Project @ MIT
www.community-problem-solving.net
Working Smarter in Community Development
http://web.mit.edu/workingsmarter/
Submitted by Daryl G. LaFleur
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I'd like to call your attention to these cities using online
technology to serve and engage with citizens...
Love Lewisham - Citizens are invited to post pictures of problems they
want the city to address
http://www.lovelewisham.org/Public/Images.aspx
Customer Service Bureaus - Making help and information easy to obtain
http://www.seattle.gov/customerService/
http://stlcin.missouri.org/csb/
http://www.cityofstamford.org/content/25/52/138/164/168/default.aspx
Blogs of Local Officials
http://lowellma.wordpress.com/category/city-services/
http://www.eroundlake.com/blog/
http://www.mayorgordon.com/blog/
Submitted by Adam Cohen
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While people that know me know that I'm a bit obsessed with the issue (I run the RFP Database at www.rfpdb.com), I think the city's recent history with competitive bidding leaves much to be desired.
This can be resolved in a number of ways:
1) posting all RFPs to the city's website as well as the Mass procurement site in addition to advertising them in the Gazette or other sites
2) requiring a minimum number of bids for all projects (3 to 5 is a good number). If the minimum is not reached, put the project out for bid again until that number is reached and/or revise the RFP requirements. Solicitation of feedback on the RFP should be part of the process if a large number of potential bidders choose not to bid.
3) have a clear-cut and public scorecard for how each project will be evaluated with those results being publicly accessible
4) having a process for soliciting public input on projects before the RFP is released for bids
Submitted by David Kutcher
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Regarding appropriate ways for city employees and volunteer committee members to be available to the public, I believe it would be a Best Practice to:
- List all employee and committee member e-mails.
- Provide any necessary employee training regarding the use of e-mail.
- Establish protocols requiring employees to check their e-mail at least once daily.
Submitted by Jack Hornor
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Here’s an idea given to me by another citizen:
Let’s make it easy for citizens to submit comments to public meetings without having to physically attend. Comments could be submitted by mail or email and read aloud at the meeting.
Submitted by Adam Cohen
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I'm asking that the committee consider scheduling some of its meetings during the mornings and/or early afternoons when other city meetings are not taking place. Though I realize that this might not work for all members of the committee, with outreach it might allow for others in the community to participate, like stay-at-home/work-at-home residents and retirees. Of course it might not.
It might also help if you announced a meeting schedule ahead of time, so people can plan to attend by working the meeting into their personal schedules earlier. I notice that there is nothing on the city calendar for August or September. Typically when we're planning our family's appointments/schedule we do this months ahead of time.
Submitted by Daryl G. LaFleur
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Process for review and organization of
final recommendations to the city council
Two members of the Best practices committee and/or one member of the
best practices committee and one member of the public or a sub-
committee member of the Best practices committee should review and
prepare an informational packet for distribution to the general public
on best practices research and previously submitted recommendations
and feedback. This packet should include
*the best practices in other communities packet
(that councilors Narkewciz and Reckman prepared)
*alex ghieslan's report on the meadows forum
*the summarized information from the may 13th forum
*inreach report from lisa depiano
*submitted requests for review and consideration
(review forms of city meetings, submitted requests)
*protocol for a meeting prepared by the best practices
committee
The packet would also include a format for submitting a specific
recommendation for consideration by the best practices committee
This packet would be in electronic form and would be available in it's
sections under one heading of the best practices committee page as
background material.
In addition the packets would be electronically distributed to the
following entities as a form of outreach.
# the Paradise city forum listserve
# the sustainable northampton listserve
# the Hamp.com listserve
# the best practices listserve
and through the email list of the following neighborhood groups
# ward 3
# florence civic and business
# bay state village
# north st neighborhood
# sent to ward 6 by snail mail
# leeds civic association
as well as the local political blogers
# Northampton redoubt
# northampton media
# paradise city kelsey flynn
We would also ask for 5 minutes of time from the city council
meeting to ask all the councilors to distribute this information
through their email lists as well as the mayor and provide 10
summarized hardcopies in the event that people who don't use or have
email would take interest. Additionally a notice would be sent out to
the chairs of all other city boards and committees to make an
announcement of this during a regular meeting of their committee or
board
We would in that packet state a specific time and date for a special
best practices meeting or set aside a large chunck of time or a whole
regular best practices meeting for the following (It may require 2
meetings or a 3 hour meeting)
1) discuss recommendations and make the effort to clearly word them
2) Using a laptop to record submissions for recommendation to the
best practices committee (either bob reckman or I could be the
stenographer), submitted requests need to include contact information
for the person(s) making the request and additionally we should
recommend that the person making the request have a petition or list
of persons who support the request to gage interest and priority
3) the list of recommendations would then be submitted to the same
outreach channels and an attempt would be made to publicize the list
in the gazette. Furthermore we would ask for written statements
opposed to or in support of the recommendations (with contact
information provided)
4) a future best practices meeting would then be use for the entire
best practices meeting to review the list of recommendations and vote
on recommendations for inclusion in the final report
The final report would then be submitted to the city council and a
special city council meeting or a large portion of a regular meeting
would be dedicated to a hearing process by the city council to review
and vote on the recommendations. The hearing process would be
presenting each recommendation, opening it for discussion by the
council, statements from a limited amount of proponents and opponents,
and then a vote on the recommendation. This section of the meeting or
special meeting would be chaired by a member of the best practices
committee who is not on the city council. Previous contact
information from the submitted recommendations would be used to
contact proponents and opponent of recommendations.
After that, all recommendations that citizens wish to continue to
pursue would be referred back to the best practices committee (which
would require the council to extend the life of the committee), or it
can be referred to a new permanent citizens advisory committee, to
give northampton residents a second venue for recourse in the event
they felt that existing venue leave them dissatisfied with a city
process or decision. The citizen advisory committee would be two
members of the city council, who would be non-voting members of the
committee who are present to inform the committee of city process,
secure venues for meetings and forums, and search for and acquire
documents for review by the committee, and at least 7 members of the
public who do not serve on any city board, committee or council, with
at least one person from every ward in the city. The committee would
be at least 9 people and to prevent stagnation should be no larger
than 12 people. The committee would be an ad hoc committee but would
otherwise operate as a normal city committee, requiring a quorum for
voting and decision making. Outreach for the committee could be
submitted through the previously mentioned channels.
Submitted by Jesus Levya
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I am writing to you because I am becoming increasingly concerned with our city's decision making process especially as it regards to the proposed landfill expansion and I would like for there to be a discussion and review of the following items, please consider them and invite others to the discussion
1. the Mayor, the executive branch of our local government chairing the city council meetings - It is my understanding that in Easthampton the mayor sits in the audience as every other member of the public. The city council president could just as easily chair the meetings as Jim Dostal has in the absence of the mayor or the chair could rotate among the 9 councilors. More than anything, I think it is questionable that the mayor or for that matter any chair of any committee inserts dialogue into the meeting that is outside of the context of an agenda item or an item that has been presented for discussion and I have seen this occur on many occasions.
2. the charter of the BPW - It is my understanding that the BPW is not responsible for waste management in our city, and they certainly are not responsible for waste management outside of this city, but as a function of the northampton landfill being a business, that is exactly what has been the standard. Furthermore there is no defined waste district which the northampton regional landfill is serving and I think residents would be unhappy to know that we have accepted waste from outside of the state, even if in limited amounts. If the city is concerned of illegal dumping than clear measures can be taken to educate the residents about waste reduction and laws can be enacted and enforced.
3. The formation of a solid waste committee for the city of northampton - waste disposal is something that the municipality should be concerned with and a committee should be formed either as a sub-committee of the BPW or as a stand alone committee of the city. The purpose of this committee would be to create and implement plans for voluntary city wide waste reduction as well as to create plans for effectively dealing with violations of mandatory waste reduction measures. The committee can also be an outreach committee to educate the public on waste reduction measures and explain the environmental impact on poorly managed waste removal.
4. The Mayor's overall role in local government - The responsibilities and powers of the mayor are many by charter of this city, and in the event that you take issue with a city decision that the mayor is a proponent of there is little recourse for the northampton citizen. Just in the issue of the landfill expansion I have come across the following barriers; the mayor appoints the members of the BPW (the acting directors of the DPW that have decision making power over the northampton landfill), the mayor must approve items before they go on the city council agenda (what if the mayor is a proponent of the item that a citizen wishes to place on the agenda), the mayor has executive power to hire or fire city staff (including legal council for the city council in regards to the landfill issue) and this is while the mayor chairs the meeting in which legal council is advising the city council.
5. Protocol for conduct of members of a city committee and protocol for conduct of the meeting - with regard to the BPW, if an resolution is proposed and is to be voted on during a meeting all members of the board should have inspected the resolution before voting on it. If an amendment is proposed to the resolution the chair of the committee should ask for the amendment to be seconded for discussion and should be formally addressed as an amendment. With regard to the city council meeting, the city council should at the end of any discussion consider recognizing members of the public for expert testimony or citizen imput. I specifically recall sitting through a meeting where an amendment to the city code was being discussed where the councilors we concerned that the amendment before them was not forwarded by citizen desire or initiative and yet they voted the amendment down without addressing the members of the public in that meeting who could have easily offered testimony of the amendment's importance and function.
6. Multiple roles of the city councilors - the multiple rolls of city councilor with regard to the landfill expansion and the city in general makes independent review and oversight of the democratic processes difficult. The city councilors cannot effectively act as representatives because they will be a quasi judicial body in this process, 3 members of the city council are on the best practices committee and most likely cannot participate in the review of this issue, and one member of the city council is on the BPW.
Submitted by Jesus Levya
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I have some suggestions for better empowering the City Council:
* Raise the pay of councilors substantially, to better reflect the
effort they put into it. This could help expand the pool of potential
council candidates.
* Increase the staff support available to the council, especially
secretarial/research support and legal support.
* Each councilor should hold open office hours at least monthly to
interact informally with citizens.
Submitted by Adam Cohen
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For citizens to give quality input into city decision-making, they
need quality information. Here are some suggestions to that end:
* Study the CitiStat Springfield program to see what might be applied
to Northampton:
http://www.springfieldcityhall.com/citistat/
* Make crime reports available to the public in a free, electronic and
searchable way (protecting the identity of individuals as necessary).
This information is already available on request at the police
station, but you have to go there in person and pay a small
reproduction fee. One goal is to empower citizens to map and identify
crime hotspots by neighborhood and location. Ideally, a citizen could
request to be emailed every time there is police activity of any kind
within a certain radius of a given location.
* The city should provide an online site for citizens to post pictures
of visible problems (e.g. graffiti, broken equipment) that need
attention, similar to http://www.lovelewisham.org/Public/Images.aspx
* Consider establishing a Customer Service Bureau like
http://www.seattle.gov/CustomerService/about.htm to direct inquiries
and resolve problems that individual citizens are having
* The city budget should be posted online in fine detail with the same
monthly updates that the mayor receives. The text of all labor
agreements should be posted as a matter of course.
* Each of the departments listed at http://www.northamptonma.gov/departments/
should have a blog with an RSS feed to allow citizens to receive new
posts via email or monitor them with RSS readers like iGoogle. These
blogs would announce all public meetings and other public news and
notices.
* In coordination with the above, every notice that the City Clerk is
legally required to post should also appear on a blog with an RSS
feed. There should be nothing posted on the official bulletin board at
City Hall that does not also appear online in a readily accessible
form.
* All meetings of working groups and subcommittees should be publicly
posted in the same way as meetings of full committees.
* Agendas of all meetings should be posted online before the meetings
take place, so citizens can better identify meetings they want to
attend.
* Preliminary minutes of all meetings should be posted online within
48 hours of the conclusion of the meeting.
* The minutes of all meetings should be accessible online for at least
10 years.
* All new proposed ordinances and regulations should include at least
a one-paragraph statement explaining the motivation and goals for the
new rules, similar to the statements found in Voter Guides with
respect to ballot propositions.
* All new proposed ordinances and regulations that impact urban design
should include pictures and illustrations so laypeople can understand
what is being asked. In particular, special permits should not be
granted without illustrations being made available beforehand.
* A version of cityschool should be presented that can be video
recorded so citizens may view it at their convenience.
* Make the Best Practices Committee a permanent body that organizes
forums and issues annual reports to gather continuing feedback on the
health of democracy in the city.
Submitted by Adam Cohen
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All new proposed ordinances and regulations should include at least
a one-paragraph statement explaining the motivation and goals for the
new rules, similar to the statements found in Voter Guides with
respect to ballot propositions.
Submitted by Jesus Levya
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