Scott Neal, Eden Prairie City Manager

It’s standard process for employees here at the City of Eden Prairie to set up annual goals in consultation with their supervisors. I’m not different. I propose my goals to the City Council during my annual performance review, which is typically completed in the April/May time period. During my 2006 performance review, I proposed a goal for this year to develop a new set of protocol for the relationship between the City Council and its citizen advisory commissions. I proposed this goal because I believed that we had room for improvement in the way that we are capitalizing the intellectual capital of the

Eden Prairie citizens who are sharing their time and energy with their community as volunteers on the City’s advisory commissions.

I presented the new protocol to the City Council at their meeting last night. They approved it. Staff will now begin the process of sharing it with commissioners and putting the new procedures into place. The fundamental improvement in the new protocol is in the area of communication. Sounds simple, right? Here’s what we’re going to do:

1. The City Council has a standing agenda item on each meeting agenda for reports from commissions. We will establish a rotating schedule which provides an opportunity for one of the commissions to make a 5-10 minute status report to the Council during this agenda item at each Council meeting. During a normal year the Council has 21 regular meetings. This would provide three reporting opportunities each year for the seven standing commissions.

2. Based on my periodic attendance at commission meetings, my discussions with Commission chairs and my discussion with commission staff liaisons, the Commissions would like to receive more direct input from the Council concerning the things the Commissions are working on. OK. The Council be more deliberate in providing input, feedback and suggestions to the commissions. The Council agreed to establish a regular practice of considering the City’s needs and formally assigning defined policy development tasks to commissions.

3. City staff have a standard practice of developing departmental and divisional Work Plans each year. The Work Plans are reviewed and approved by me and my senior management staff. The Council will establish a similar expectation for the commissions. A good example of what I envision is exactly what the Council received at the February 20 meeting from the Airport Commission and what the Council approved at last night’s meeting from the Conservation Commission. I envision a document that describes a commission’s plans and goals for the year that is developed from commission, staff and Council input that is formally approved by the Council on an annual basis.

4. In order to develop and sustain a good working relationship, I believe it is important for commissions, staff and the Mayor (as a representative of the Council) to meet and talk on a more regular basis than occurs today. The Mayor and I will host a meeting twice each year with the Commission chairs and staff liaisons to discuss policies, procedures, progress, ideas, etc. Former Mayor Tyra-Lukens and I facilitated two such meetings during the final two years of her term. She and I found the meetings useful as a means to connect the City’s elected leadership to the City’s appointed commission leadership. The Commission chairs found the meetings to be valuable. They began a dialog among themselves about their respective commission scopes, polices, practices, etc. It was a good learning experience for all involved. Mayor Young has already initiated one-on-one meetings with commission chairs to get to know them better. This practice is a good idea and will further a sense of connection between the commission chairs and the city’s elected leaders. On my end, I am going to initiate a post-commission meeting meeting with commission staff liaisons to get a timelier and in depth briefing of commission meetings and activities. I also plan to continue my past practice of sitting in on at least one regular meeting of each commission each year.

The four points of the new protocol have one common dominator: greater levels of formal and informal communication among Council, staff and commissions. I believe this new protocol will improve the effectiveness of our commissions; provide greater policy value to the City; and increase the sense of connectedness between the City’s elected and appointed leaders.