01/23/1995 (2)
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COMMISSION
City Commission Minutes
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CITY COMMISSION SPECIAL MEETING
Strategic Planning Session
January 23, 1995
The City Commission of the City of Clearwater met in a strategic planning session
at the Solid Waste Complex Conference Room, Monday, January 23, 1995 at 9:00 a.m.,
with the following members present:
Rita Garvey
Fred A. Thomas
Richard Fitzgerald
Sue A. Berfield
Arthur X. Deegan, II
\ Mayor/Commissioner
Vice-Mayor/Commissioner
Commissioner
Commissioner
Commissioner
Also present:
Elizabeth M. Deptula
Kathy S. Rice
William C. Baker
Pamela K. Akin
Cynthia E. Goudeau
City Manager
Deputy City Manager
Assistant City Manager (arrived 9:05 a.m.l
City Attorney
City Clerk
The Mayor called the meeting to order. The City Manager announced there was a
''-'''\ need for a special closed meeting regarding union bargaining. Consensus of the
'-..-I Commission was to set this meeting for January 30, 1995, immediately after the regular
Commission meeting.
Ms. Deptula reviewed the meeting of January 12th stating the Planning Team
completed planning to plan. She reviewed the next steps to be taken stating that today a
values scan would be done.
She pointed out at the last meeting decisions were not made regarding how to tell
people about the strategic planning sessions and what is being done. She suggested a
letter be sent to subgroups of the stakeholders telling them the Commission has embarked
on this process and is asking for help. She distributed a draft letter.
She stated her recommendation is to send out this letter and then a questionnaire
would be sent to certain individuals a couple of weeks later. It was suggested the letter be
specific that a, questionnaire would be sent.
A question was raised regarding whether or not the letter should be that specific as
all recipients of the letter would not be receiving a questionnaire. It was agreed the letter
should remain generic but state that input would be requested and may include a
questionnaire, a town meeting, etc. Additional adjustments were made to the letter and it
was agreed all strategic planning team members would sign the letter.
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Discussion ensued regarding to whom the letter should be sent. It was agreed the
letter should be sent to the employee ~takehold8rs with it being indicated that the process
should be completed sometime during 1995. It was decided that the taxpayers and
citizens would be notified of the process by use of the bulletin board on the city's cable
channel 35. It was indicated this could also be played during City Commission recesses.
Business people will be notified via the letter to Ctlamber individuals, their regional
councils, the Downtown Clearwater Association and the Downtown Development Board.
A question was raised regarding whether or not religious organizations should be
added to the list of stakeholders. It was agreed this should be done. The City Manager
reiterated the business stakeholders would be contacted through the Chamber and
partnership members and there would be an attempt to identify other business people to
notify. The public will be contacted through letters to each of the homeowners
associations. The school system will not be asked to participate at this point. Letters
would be sent to individuals in the health care community. It was agreed that in order to
contact governmental agencies. the City Manager and Mayor of the surrounding
jurisdictions will be sent a letter. It was pointed out that Belleair should be added to the
list of surrounding municipalities. Fred Marquis, Pinellas County Administrator and agency
directors of elected regional boards will also be sent a letter.
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A question was raised regarding whether or not the City'S Advisory Boards should
be requested to provide input. It was agreed a letter would be sent to the Chairperson of
each Advisory Board. It was further determined that the following groups do not need to
be contacted for input at this time: the next generation, vendors, customers, grantors, and
regulators.
Discussion ensued regarding whether or not lobbyists should be included and what
that term entailed. Commissioner Thomas felt that individuals who are commonly at
Commis'sion and other Board meetings on behalf of others should be included in this group.
It was the consensus of the Commission that the lobbyists group will be used as a focus
group at a later time but will not receive a letter for now. There was consensus the media
be included in the current group of contacts but religious groups would be contacted at a
later date.
A question was raised regarding how much property is owned by religious
organizations throughout the entire City. Ms. Deptula indicated she will add this to the
data being gathered by department directors at this time.
Ms. Deptula reiterated the letter referenced will be sent out within the next few
days and the questionnaire will follow in a couple of weeks.
Further reviewing the last meeting, Ms. Deptula indicated the strategic planning
team assessed their readiness to do strategic planning. Potential problem areas identified
were the City's history of strategic planning, communication, reward for down board
thinking, the organizational culture, and a willingness to take risk. Issues still open for
determination throughout the process are: change in the format of the town meetings,
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how to publish the completed plan and to market it, how to encourage calculated risk
taking, how to engender a proactive mind set with the homeowners associations and
legislature. The City Manager also pointed out a memo had been distributed by
Commission Thomas requesting that special events be included as a topic in the strategic
planning process.
The purpose of today's meeting is to do a value scan. Ms. Deptula indicated this
will determine what is important to the organization and what its deep seated beliefs are.
She stated this can be a sensitive issue and there is a need to be totally honest or the
wrong tone will be set for the strategic planning process. She stated there is a need to
reconcile the different values of the team members; the values of the organization as a
whole need to be determined through the strategic planning team's perception and
information from the organization; the organization's operational philosophy needs to be
determined; the organizational culture needs to be identified, and stakeholders' values need
to be determined.
Commissioner Thomas suggested the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of
Rights be the starting point for establishing values. The City Manager indicated the team
will get into philosophical discussions and will need to explore actions and behaviors.
The City Manager indicated the values scan will indicate whether or not the top
management walks the talk, in other words, does its values match its actions. She stated
culture is to an organization what personality is to an individual and again stated we need
to determine if the stated values match behavior.
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She distributed a case study regarding Action Company and Multi Company and
asked the strategic planning team members indicate the assumptions they thought were a
part of these companies' cultures.
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The Action Company was seen as a very unstructured, informal, risk taking
company while the Multi Company was seen as very structured and more conservative.
Commissioner Thomas felt that as one of the companies was a European company
and the laws were different, that accounted for the differences in their underlying
assumptions.
Commissioner Deegan stated he would not put too much stock in European versus
American as he has been in companies that have the varying attitudes throughout the
company.
Regarding the assumptions about human nature in the City's organization, Ms. Rice
indicated that when she first started working here, she noticed many attitudes were: keep
your head down, do not take risks, cover yourself, the organization owes an individual a
living, was rule driven, and status is everything. Mayor Garvey pointed out that when
awards are given to staff members, there is always a listing of when they started and
promotions. She questioned why. She stated she was told that the individuals'liked to
know from where they started.
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Commissioner Fitzgerald expressed concerns that it sounds as if they are saying
something is wrong with listing a person's startIng date. promotions, etc. He stated that
allows a sense of belonging which is not all bad. Commissioner Thomas stated he felt the
City was a pension and security driven work force with a strict structure.
The Mayor stated this is the same thing for organizations such as GTE and
Honeywell. Commissioner Thomas agreed this was true for Fortune 500 companies but
smaller companies do not have this same attitude.
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The City Attorney stated she has only been here four months but sees a perception
that people will only make as much effort as required. She stated this is an untrue
assumption. She stated she came from Tampa's government which is similar to the
picture painted by Ms. Rice.
Commissioner Berfield expressed concerns there is a majority of the citizens who do
not think City employees give an eight hour day and think they are lazier than most
workers and have a cushy job. She stated this is an assumption regarding government
workers.
Mr. Baker indicated the City has always had to fight with the lazy government
worker perception. He stated Clearwater has more and more employees who recognize
they have good jobs and are adequately paid. He stated the City of Clearwater is not like
eIther the Multi Company or Action Company but is somewhere in between. He stated a
City of Clearwater employee is not prevented from standing out.
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r..~J Commissioner Thomas stated that as a outsider, he had a totally different
perception of city employees. He stated he has found them to be better, with a higher
level of competency than he thought. He stated there is a problem with perception versus
reality.
Commissioner Fitzgerald questioned how to change the perception. Commissioner
Thomas indicated some of this perception comes from the first line that interfaces with the
public. He cited the example of when the post office increased its postal rats, they did not
print enough 3 cent stamps and the Downtown Clearwater Post Office closed because
they could not meet the demand.
Commissioner Deegan stated that his assumptions for Clearwater were that people
needed security, they resist taxation, and do not care to get involved. He felt change is
taking place in the city government from previous administrations where the attitude was
do not speak unless spoken to, etc. He said there is now a different feeling and
willingness to speak up.
Commissioner Thomas stated he would hate it as an employee if he had to work
under the perception that people will disrespect your work no matter what you do. He
stated that is a terrible thing and must be done away with.
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Mayor Garvey stated she felt that in working with city employees, she had found
alot of honesty. truth, cooperation, and hard work. She did not believe the general public
thinks that city employees are not hard working. She stated decisions are made slowly
and carefully after much staff work. She stated the City of Clearwater has a strong
organization and a good management team. She felt the City should be allowed to use its
assets.
The City Manager stated she appreciated the comments but she questioned the
response from the level below the strategic planning team. Mayor Garvey stated she felt
that wa:; why it was important to get department directors and employee input from the
beginning of the process.
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Mr. Baker pointed out that the City of Clearwater has employees working all over
town and it only takes one or two "bad eggs" to spoil everything. He cited an example of
a TV station following Tampa work crews and only televising the ones that were not
working.
Commissioner Thomas agreed with Commissioner Deegan that things have changed
in the management and the employees were more free to speak out. '
The City Manager indicated the team needed to think about organizational culture,
who the heros are, the rights and rituals, etc. She indicated one of the heros is Tony
Shoemaker, a former City Manager, that many employees still speak about in positive
terms. She stated regarding rights and rituals, longevity in the organization is rewarded
.' '.." and there may need to be some change in that. She stated there used to be company
'......,./ picnics, baseball teams, but that no longer exists. She also stated there was a network
and there are war stories, storytellers and structures.
The meeting recessed from 10:40 a.m. to 10:50 a.m.
The City Manager distributed a personal values worksheet and asked the team
members to complete it. The worksheet included the following values: getting along with
colleagues, earning/maintaining a professional reputation, preserving the environment,
achieving business goals, respecting diverse points of view, having leisure time for family
or fun, achieving material wealth, contributing to society, accomplishing personal goals,
helping others to empower themselves. Each of these values was ranked on a scale of 1
to 10 where 1 was the most important and 10 the least but the team members. The
results were posted on a board.
Contributing to society was ranked fairly high among the team members and
material wealth was rated relatively low. It was pointed out that empowering others and
professional reputation had widespread rank;ngs. Ms. Rice thought it was interesting that
meeting business goals was not ranked that highly. It was pointed out there was a wide
span of ranking for getting along and yet accepting diverse views had been ranked fairly
high by all team members.
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Commissioner Thomas stated he felt there were strong common issues among the
team. The City Manager indicated after the discussions are finished, the team members
may wont to re-rank their items. She stated it is important to know how others feel.
A personal values statement worksheet was handed out and each team member
completed it. The results of that worksheet provided rankings for the ,following values:
political, aesthetic, social, theoretical. and econom'rc. All team members, upon completing
the worksheet and scoring the results, ranked social either 1 or 2. The City Manager
stated this sheet reflects at least what the team members think they are.
An organizational norms opinionaire was distributed. This is to find out what the
team members think the organizational culture is. She stated the team will then get input
from the employees to see if the profiles match.
Concerns were expressed the Commission does not have contact with many of the
rank and file employees. It was stated this is the team members' impression of the
organization.
The results of this exercise was to have a ranking for 10 scales,
organizational/personnel pride, performance/excellence, team work/communication,
leadership/supervision, profitability/cost effectiveness, colleague/associate relations,
customer/client relations, innovativeness/creativity, training/development, and
candor/openness.
i "', Percentage scores were developed by each team member and then plotted on a
,.",.~.i graph. The Mayor indicated she had only one scale that went into the negative side and
that was openness and candor. Commissioner Deegan stated he had
organizational/personnel pride, performance/excellence, team work/communication and
candor/openness in the negative.
Mr. Baker questioned how deep into the negative side Commissioner Deegan's
profile went. Commissioner Deegan indicated it was 50% for the performance value. The
City Manager questioned if Commissioner Deegan would know a reason for that ,
assumption. Commissioner Deegan stated it was his contacts with the unions, that they
do not support differences in work. '
Mr. Baker indicated all of his values were on the positive side of the graph. He
stated he tended to discount the selfish elements in the work force.
Commissioner Thomas indicated he had a negative indicator for all the values
except one was at zero. He stated he felt that may be because he is considered a conduit
for the negativity in the organization.
Commissioner Fitzgerald indicated all of his values were positive with the exception
of candor/openness.
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Commissioner Berfield indicated she had negative indicators for
organizational/personnel pride and performance/excellence. She had
innovativeness/creativity at zero and the others were in the 'positive range.
The City Manager stated she had some in the positive sums and some in negative.
Commissioner Deegan questioned if any wore above 50%. The City Manager,
Deputy City Manager and Assistant City Manager indicated they all had greater than 50%
rankings for colleagueslassociate relations.
The City Manager questioned if the team felt there would be a benefit to asking
department heads and division heads to do the organizatiot1al norms opinionaire. It was
indicated it was felt this would be a benefit.
Commissioner Thomas questioned whether or not this should be administered all the
way through the organization. The City Manager indicated that when they do the
employee satisfaction questionnaire, that some of this information will be forthcoming. It
was recommended that the organizational norms opinionaire not be done for the rank and
file until the contracts are settled.
The City Manager indicated that at the next meeting a values scan of the
stakeholders will be done and then the team will begin writing mission statements. She
stated also at the next meeting, the questionnaire to be sent out to the stakeholders will be
refined.
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The meeting adjourned at 12:20 p.m.
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