In the past many City Council members held full-time jobs.
St. Petersburg Fl
Opinion by: E. Eugene Webb PhD
Author: In Search of Robin
Ten years ago, you could make the
argument that being a City Council Member in St. Petersburg was a part-time
job. Not so any more.
The job of being a St. Pete City Council
member started getting more complicated and time consuming when the City
decided to build a baseball stadium without a team.
From that day, right up to today the
City Council job has morphed into a significant challenge. As time moved
forward from that fateful decision in the 1980’s the City has continued to take
on more and more sophisticated challenges.
In 1992 when the government structure
changed from a City Manager who basically ran the day to day business of the city
like a corporation where City Council served as board of directors providing
overall guidance to a structure where the elected mayor runs the day to day
business the City Council role in detailed decision making has appropriately increased.
In the past many City Council members
held full-time jobs. Meetings were short, outside demands on Council Member’s
time were less.
The rate of change really ramped up in
the late 1980’s when City Council meetings went on the local cable television
system, and later the City’s broadcast television station. All of this exposure
increased pressure on Council members to interact with the public and
participate more effectively in the day to day operation of the City.
Today the job is a fifty to sixty-hour
week many weeks during the year, and the amount of reading, research and
analysis required to properly represent a District are truly overwhelming.
There has been talk in the past about
adding some support staff to the City Council. Usually, it seems just to self-serving and has never been
seriously considered.
That changed this week as Darden Rice
put forth a recommendation to add four positions costing between $250,000 to
$300,000 to provide research, logistical and constituent support.
You can get some detail in the Tampa
Bay Times article by Charlie Frago, Times Staff writer; St. St.Petersburg
City Council wants to hire some help navigating a sea of paperwork.
"I really see this as increasing the efficiency of City
Council," Rice said.
I completely agree.
With operating and capital expenditures, the total City Budget is
almost a half a BILLION dollars. The issues are complex both technically and structurally,
to say nothing of the politics that continues to creep into the City governing
process.
This is a budget item that needs to go into the next budget along
with a policy outlining hiring, duties, responsibilities and limits on turning
these jobs into political appointments.
There will be those who claim loudly this is a waste of money,
but to get good decisions, real constituent representation and a City Council
that comes to the meetings prepared to the right thing for the City the time
has come to add professional support for Council members.
It’s way past time to add functional support the City Council
side of the house, and with the proper structure and controls the result will
be a better City Council, better decisions and improved constituent support.
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