Charter Revisions Make City Administrator Selection Vital to Piedmont. 

Will there be an opportunity for public input on the qualifications sought in a new City Administrator?

The Piedmont City Council is moving ahead to find a replacement for City Administrator Paul Benoit, who is retiring in June 2019.

Minutes from February 25, 2019 Special Council action meeting can be read by clicking > 2019-02-25_special

Public input methods and characteristics sought in a new City Administrator by the City Council have not been publicized.  In the past, the community has been given opportunities to provide comments and ideas on desired characteristics of top Piedmont officials.

The recently voter approved Charter revisions place the decision of retention of key employees with the City Administrator rather than with the City Council.

In November 2018, the City Council and City Administrator Paul Benoit proposed and Piedmont voters approved City Charter changes transferring long-held Council responsibilities to the Piedmont City Administrator.  If the City Council and City Administrator disagree on the retention of key-officers – Police Chief, Fire Chief, Planning Director, Finance Director, Public Works Director, etc., only  the City Administrator has the right and authority to determine these key employees continued employment with the City.

The next City Administrator may require a different set of skills than previous candidates.

The Council selects the key-officers of the City, but the Council cannot terminate or retain their choices if the City Administrator does not agree.  Given a disagreement between the City Administrator and the City Council, the Council by law can terminate the City Administrator and then select another person to fill the City Administrator position who will then make decisions.  The City Administrator, by law, is singularly entitled to make firing and retention decisions regarding top officers and will bear the sole responsibility for those decisions.

This major change in Piedmont governance makes selection of an appropriate City Administrator all the more important to Piedmonters.

Some comments made in the community have suggested the following characteristics be sought in a new City Administrator:

• Understanding of California law and application to Piedmont
• Belief in open and transparent government
• Familiar with Piedmont City Charter
• Proven ability to propose and work within budgetary constraints 
• Ability to encourage varying points of view
• Speaking and writing skills commensurate with responsibilities
• Foster community participation in Piedmont decisions
• Support broadcasts of Piedmont public meetings
• Experience with personnel decisions including terminations
• A previous track record of administering a comparable public entity in California
• Plans for service in Piedmont extending beyond 5 years
• Understand the difference between Council and Administrative decisions
• Willingness to work with the Piedmont School District
• Ability to develop and encourage appropriate employee activities

Alameda County Civil Grand Jury Opens for New Members

Deadline: April 1, 2019

The race narrowed to under 50 votes between School Board candidates Amal Smith and Julie Caskey.

As of this publication, none of the previously announced results changed; only the number of votes changed. 

Apparently, the many ballots sent by mail or placed in the community ballot boxes were not counted on election night, hence the reporting delays in Alameda County.

On November 17, 2018, the Alameda County Registrar of Voter posted the following results.  Candidates elected and measures approved are noted with an *.

Members of the Piedmont Unified School Board:

*Megan Pillsbury      3389      31.71 %

*Amal Smith               2833       26.51%

  Julie Caskey               2785      26.06%

  Hari Titan                    1669      15.62 %

 Write-in                             12        0.11%

Members, City Council – Piedmont 

* Betsy Smegal Andersen     4796     34.38%

* Teddy Gray King                   4377      31.38%

* Tim Rood                                 4255     30.50%

   Sunny Bostrom-fleming       451        3.23%

   Write-in                                        70        0.50%

Measure BB: Reduced requirements for contract bidding and Council meetings, increased years to prevent former council members seeking re-election from 4 to 8 years.

* Yes         3923        65.07%

    No          2106        34.93%

Measure CC: Requires top officers of the City to serve at the pleasure of the City Administrator rather than the City Council.

* Yes           3887       66.54%

   No             1955       33.46%

For any further, yet unlikely, updated results, click below:

https://www.acgov.org/rovresults/236/index.htm

The following Letter to the Editor of The Piedmont Post was sent to the Post, but was not published in the Post.  It is published here for PCA readers.

VOTE NO on CC – Unacceptable City Charter changes.

CC  – the “hire, but can’t fire” proposal –  would unacceptably change Piedmont’s successful government by prohibiting the City Council from acting to retain or terminate their chosen Department Heads – Fire Chief, Police Chief, Finance Director, Recreation Director, etc. 

Piedmonters should not enact this law. It promises problems found in other cities where councils have lost their authority and ability to act.  A new government layer will separate Piedmonters from Council authority. 

Only one person, the unelected City Administrator, would be allowed by Charter to evaluate, direct, retain and terminate Council-hired  key employees -Police, Fire, Finance, Recreation, etc.  

Piedmont’s current Charter works and is coveted by others. 

With 22 years in elected office – Mayor, Council Member, Planning Commissioner, AC Transit President and Director, I have reviewed the Charter proposals and found proposals not in the best interest of keeping Piedmont a great place to live. 

The Charter merits updating, but NOT as proposed by Measure CC.  

Keep Piedmont’s Council strong. Await appropriate Charter change proposals.

VOTE NO on CC at the end of your ballot. 

Alice Creason,

Former: Piedmont Mayor, Council Member, Planning Commissioner, AC Transit President, Director, Piedmont Beautification Foundation Trustee

Keep the current reporting structure of Piedmont’s City Charter.

Measure CC is a power grab and proponents of CC completely misstate the way City Hall is run as justification.

Measure CC is completely ineffective at telling voters what it will do.

First, as written, Measure CC is completely ineffective at telling voters what it will do. It should have read: “Shall the measure to amend the City Charter to reassign authority to terminate City department heads from City Council to the City Administrator be adopted”. Same word count. Such text would be much more informative to the voters and the fact that Measure CC is drafted so poorly should tell you something.

Measure CC reassigns important oversight authority from Council to the City Administrator with no justification on the record.

Second, from the Mayor in a recent news account: “[The Charter] contains language that suggests that the City Council is responsible for managing and directing the work of City officers. The Piedmont City Attorney strongly recommended that this ambiguity be clarified…” Read that carefully – “suggests” and “ambiguity” – if true then simply clarify the Charter language and keep the current reporting structure in place. Instead Measure CC reassigns important oversight authority from Council to the City Administrator with no justification on the record.

Grab or giveaway, Measure CC is bad for Piedmont and reduces the authority of our elected officials. Coupled with Measure BB (fewer meetings, less voter choice), these measures weaken good governance in Piedmont and should be rejected by the voters.

Garrett Keating, Former Piedmont City Council Member 

Why I believe that Measure CC should be rejected by Piedmont voters.

Measure CC has no credible factual support in the public record. It is void of any demonstrable need. It is poorly designed. It is totally without conceivable merit. It turns good governance on its head. If adopted Measure CC would only underscore the present Council’s abdication of its responsibility to the public and waste of public resources in proposing to the voters such a vacuous and worthless proposition.

I was a California public agency lawyer for the 34 years before I retired in 2006. One of my primary responsibilities as a lawyer was providing legal advice and legal services regarding the Oakland City Charter provisions applicable to the independent Oakland Port Department. I was certified by the State Bar to provide legal instruction to members of the State Bar regarding the Oakland City Charter, and Bar members who received my instruction received credit toward their mandatory continuing legal education requirements.

The Oakland City Charter provided that the Board of Port Commissioners was responsible to both hire and fire Port officers and employees. Neither the authority and responsibility of the Port’s Executive Director for the day-to-day performance of all non-Port Attorney staff Port officers and employees, nor the authority and responsibility of the Port Attorney for the day-to-day performance of all Port Attorney staff, ran into any conflict with the Board’s exclusive power to hire and fire all Port officers and employees.

Practically, the Board acted on recommendations of the Executive Director or Port Attorney regarding proposed hiring and firing, but importantly the necessity that the Executive Director and Port Attorney justify to the Board in advance of proposed and recommended hiring and firing avoided serious disruptions, damage and liabilities that a runaway Executive Director or Port Attorney could cause.

The hiring and firing authority for top City officers should be unitary so that the authority to hire and authority to fire rest in the same hands, and that authority rightly belongs to the legislative body, not one of its appointed officers. No better day-to-day measure that combined hiring and firing authority will timely inform a City Council of the health and status of the public agency than its receiving advance notice of proposed and recommended hiring and firing of the public personnel responsible for carrying out the very public functions for which the Council or board is primarily responsible.

In Measure CC, the present Council for no good public reason effectively proposes to grant a veto power to the City Administrator over the Council’s hiring decisions. The Measure CC proposal by the present Council and each of its Councilmembers is a disgraceful failure to carry out their public obligations. The lack of any credible rationale for the proposed Measure CC suggests, at best, unanimous Councilmember thoughtlessness and laziness.

Thomas D. Clark, Piedmont Resident

The City Charter currently states the elected 5 member City Council has the hiring, retention, and dismissal control over the top employee positions – Fire Chief, Police Chief, Finance Director, Recreation Director, etc.

Measure CC  takes authority and control from the elected Council regarding Department Heads and gives authority and control to the unelected City Administrator.

Measure CC forbids the City Council by Charter from continuing to determine if their Fire Chief, Police Chief, Finance Director, Recreation Director, etc. should remain in their positions.  The City Administrator will be the only person in Piedmont able to retain or dismiss the key-employees the City Council recruited and hired.

MEASURE  CC asks, “Shall the measure amending the Charter of the City of Piedmont to clarify the duties and reporting structure for officers and employees of the City be adopted?”

Voters will decide whether to keep the City Charter as written or change it by voting Yes or No on Measure CC. The choice is as follows:

• Keep the City Charter, as is, with City Council controlling  = Vote NO

• Change the City Charter placing City Administrator in control = Vote YES