The September 10, 2013 meeting of the City Council has nothing earth shaking on its agenda but there are several items of note. There are 11 actions on the Consent Agenda (out of a total of 17 items) and 3 are note worthy. Item 7 is a Memorandum of Understanding with the Mesa Police Department. In it Glendale will pay $500 each ($1,000 total) for 2 police officer training slots. Typically Glendale sends its recruits to the Arizona Law Enforcement Academy (ALEA) at no cost to Glendale. With the recent economic recession ALEA reduced its program capabilities; hence the need to find an alternative training facility. The good news is that Glendale has already reserved training slots at ALEA for future recruits. But it brings up an interesting question. Glendale has a great deal invested in its Public Safety Training Facility. Perhaps it’s time to assess its functionality and to make plans for its use as a AZPost certified training facility for its police officer recruits as well as those from other NW valley jurisdictions.
Items 10 and 11, also on the Consent Agenda, deal with changes to council meetings and council guidelines. Item 10, if approved, will institute a prayer/invocation rather than a moment of silence at the start of council meetings. In an informal poll hosted on this blog site asking whether council meetings should begin with prayer, 67% polled said, “No” and 33% said, “Yes.” Humm…So much for representing the people. Unscientifically a majority of the poll respondents preferred continuation of a moment of silence. Item 11, if approved, formally institutes the Vice Mayor’s term running according to a calendar year, from January to January; term limits of 2 years for council service on council subcommittees; and staff will have 60 days rather than 30 days to respond to council items of interest.
The last item, Item 17, is an action I suggested would take place rather quickly and it has. On August 13 and August 23, 2013 a council approval of update of signature authorization occurred. After the removal of 4 city staffers and the appointment of Julie Frisoni as Interim Assistant City Manager this item will formalize those changes. If approved, authorized signators will be City Manager Brenda Fischer; Interim Assistant City Managers, Julie Frisoni and Jamsheed Mehta; City Clerk Pam Hanna; and Executive Director Stuart Kent. The City Manager will also be appointed as City Treasurer. It was just a matter of time. Remember the decks had to be cleared first.
Recently council moved its start time for evening meetings to 6 PM. This should prove interesting to all those who show up at 6 PM only to discover that council has called for an Executive Session at 6 PM and that the regularly scheduled meeting will occur at 7 PM after the Esession. It could make for some very confused, unhappy people.
Sometimes the best part of the meeting is the section allowing for council comments. Often they are quite ordinary – thanking someone or some organization or the offering of special recognition. Every once in awhile a councilmember gets off script and throws a bomb. Will there be any bombs at this meeting? Ya never know!
Two other events have occurred recently – IceArizona’s hiring of former Glendale City Attorney Craig Tindall and council’s alleged rapprochement with the Tohono O’odham. They deserve blogs of their own. Look for them in the coming days.
©Joyce Clark, 2013
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Aug 13
12
They’re b-a-a-a-ck…City Council reconvenes after summer break
Posted by Joyce Clark on August 12, 2013
Posted in City Council Actions • City of Glendale • Glendale elected officials | Tagged With: Acting Assistant City Manager Julie Frisoni, City Manager Brenda Fischer, Glendale City Council, prayer, public comment, voting meetings, workshops | 1 Comment
Glendale City Council
Don’t expect any fireworks at this first voting meeting on August 13, 2013 of the Glendale City Council after their summer break. They are still feeling the warm glow of sand, surf, summer and best of all, having been away from one another. Wait until the contentious issues surface such as the results of the external audit. This item once had a relatively small price tag and has now ballooned to half a million dollars.
This meeting will probably last an hour or less. Although there are 24 items to be decided and voted upon 19 of them are on the Consent Agenda and can be voted upon in one action. Only 5 items are not on the Consent Agenda.
This is the last night meeting that will convene at 7 PM. Ordinance 2858 (which we can assume will be approved) will change the evening meeting time to 6 PM at the next meeting in two weeks. It seems counterproductive to move the meeting time up by one hour. To what end and to whose end? It makes it more difficult to arrive by 6 PM for those who work and want to attend. It is tied to another change whereby public comments will be at the beginning of the meeting rather than at the end. This change was made under the guise of accommodation of the hoards of citizens wishing to publicly comment and being made to wait until the end of the meeting. It accommodates the hoard consisting of Ken Jones, Arthur Thruston, Bill Dempski and the Marwicks, regular speakers at every meeting. After all they do go to bed rather early. Ironically, the Marwicks live in Phoenix, not Glendale. In Glendale they have a forum. In Phoenix they do not.
Other changes that will probably be approved on August 13th are: adjusting the term of the Vice Mayor from January to January, a calendar year rather than a fiscal year; instituting a two year term limit of service for councilmembers on subcommittees (too bad it’s not term limits as an elected official); granting staff more time to respond to council items of special interest. It had been 30 days, now it is 60 days; and formalizing the council workshop meeting location in B-3. Mayor Weiers had insisted workshop meetings be held in council chambers. That didn’t last long because it was more expensive and frankly, logistically it simply didn’t work. One action yet to be decided and that will be discussed at the council workshop on August 20, 2013 is the addition of time for prayer at the start of each voting meeting. This item alone could make that workshop session very entertaining.
City Manager
Fischer
Item 23, the next to the last item on the agenda, is interesting for the very nature of what it does not contain. It is an update of city signature authorization for banking transactions. It recognizes the new City Manger Brenda Fischer. It retains Horatio Skeet as Assistant City Manager and Jamsheed Mehta as Interim Assistant City Manager. Yet Ms. Fischer placed Mr. Skeete on paid administrative leave pending yet another investigation which she institued. This action to recognize signature authorization could merely be procedural. It is quite conceivable that in 2 weeks they will do it all again and add Julie Frisoni as Acting Assistant City Manager. In her role as acting assistant city manager she will oversee communications, information technology, community and economic development, planning and building safety, intergovernmental affairs and the mayor and council
Acting Assistant City Manager
Julie Frisoni
As an Acting Assistant City Manager, what is Frisoni’s expertise and what are her credentials? There is little public information to be had. She studied communication and broadcasting at Arizona State University – but did she graduate? With a degree in Communications? She worked at KPNX-TV and applied for a communications position with the city. She has no formal training in public administration or business administration and no credentials in managing in any field other than communications/marketing but she has plenty of political savvy. When the former Communications Director left Ms. Frisoni quickly rose to the position of Director of Communications/Marketing. She was part of former City Manager Ed Beasley’s inner power circle and worked closely with him in a position of trust. Which leads one to ask, when Beasley gave direction or approval to move Trust fund revenues was Ms. Frisoni in that staff meeting? Probably. What did she know about the transfers and when did she know it? Ms Frisoni’s temporary promotion shouldn’t come as a surprise since Ms. Fischer’s early career included public relations in Henderson, Nevada and communications in North Las Vegas, Nevada. Sisters under the skin?
So, folks, city council is back along with a new cast of characters. This season’s political dance, fascinating yet often cruel, is about to begin again. What will be the result for the people of Glendale?
©Joyce Clark, 2013
FAIR USE NOTICE
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to:http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
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