Aug 20, 2021 City Council on 2021-08-20 5:30 PM (Council Retreat - Day 1)

It is 5 37 p.m. Today is August the 20th and we do have a quorum so I'll call the meeting to order and turn it over to Mr. Ibarra to kind of give us the paces. I'm just gonna give a quick for those of you who probably you've already met him via Teams or Zoom but Patrick Ibarra owns a consulting firm called the Maharondo Group which means getting better all the time. He's based out of the Phoenix area and has worked with well this year you've worked with 30 different cities but he's worked with a lot of cities in the North Texas area, Carrollton and some of the other cities here and so I had the pleasure working with Patrick when I was in Austin and then when I worked in Phoenix I knew him there so I want to welcome him and make sure that you all know he's a friendly guy, he's easy to work with and you'll enjoy it so thank you. Excellent thank you. Great well thank you well good evening everyone. I look forward to spending tonight with you as well as tomorrow. Regarding logistics we'll help you wrap up here tonight by 7 o'clock. You should have the materials, the binder in front of you we're gonna do tonight. It's a little bit different than tomorrow tonight. It's really about the group and my role is to try to just create an environment where we have a good exchange of ideas. I'm gonna do a little bit more of the talking tonight you're gonna do more of the talking tomorrow but based on my conversation conversations I have with all of you, we thought it would be beneficial to spend some time on the group itself. I don't call it team building because that people's eyes glaze over, but it is about sort of the group development. You know, government traffic's a trust, and people look to you as credible community abilities. How do you maintain that credibility in the minds of your colleagues, the staff, the community? It's ongoing. Trust is the currency we have in all relationships. So tonight we want to spend a little bit of time, I'm going to offer up some ideas about what are the practices of healthy governing bodies, share with you a little bit of observations just about groups, because you're fundamentally a group, and ask you to reflect. And I hope you get a chance to reflect on some of the notions that I'm trying to share with you tonight. I'm not trying to convert, conversion is way above my pay grade. I'm a flashlight and a mirror. So I'm going to shed a light on things, and hold the mirror up and say, what do you think about these? Tomorrow we're going to get into the bulk of the whole notion of strategic planning. And I would just offer you to keep in mind as we go through really about tomorrow, the concept of the community's recipe. What got you here won't get you there. How are you going to refresh the recipe for success? Government struggles and sometimes tries to deal with tomorrow's problems with yesterday's solutions. The last thing that Denton is, is static. It's a highly dynamic community. So as you look at the community, and you're running a 24/7/365 multi-main dollar enterprise, and as I say, after you get elected, you can no longer buy ice cream at the grocery store. Because if you put it in your grocery cart when you get there, by the time you leave, it's melted. People that you don't know, but know you, push and pull you in different directions. Why are you doing this? Why are you doing that? Why don't we do more of this? Why don't we do more of that? So as a community builder, that's really what we want to examine tonight and tomorrow about how do you execute your role? What are those responsibilities? What are the lanes? And hopefully fortify that and clarify that. And by the time we wrap up tomorrow afternoon, and I'll keep emphasizing, execution is the strategy. Most governments have tons of, their bookcases are full of strategic plans that sit on the shelf. So we want to, I'm going to push your thinking tomorrow to say, what does that really look like? You go from what, so what, now what do you want to do? And I would offer to you, money is not the city's most precious resource. Time is. On what do you want staff to spend their time? And by the way, just one final point we'll get to this, is what are the challenges of doing strategic planning conversations, is that we often don't cover the idea of the core services, which consume a tremendous amount of time, effort, and energy for the staff to do on a regular basis. Most strategic planning is really about augmentation enhancement. So I want to make sure and bring that back around tomorrow that this is in addition to, it's not a substitute for. So you have materials in front of you. If you'd open that up, I'd appreciate that. And I'm going to go to tab two. Says the mayor of Andal Group and Denton, city of Denton, mayor and city council strategic planning advance meeting. I call this an advance instead of a retreat. Because I think it's more important about where you're going than where you've been. That's why your front windshield is larger than your rear view mirror. So if you've heard of that, maybe pull that out or just keep that handy. And I'm going to move on to the next stage. I think it's really important in these sessions to start off with this notion about what you're trying to accomplish. Maybe what got you to run for office. What are the benefits from good government? What are the benefits from good government? And I want to open this up to council, mayor, and staff. When you think about when you talk to your family, they ask you, where are you going tonight? You're going to a session of council. What are you going to be doing tomorrow? We're going to be in a session about strategic planning. I mean, I spent 15 years in city government. It took my parents 15 years to understand what a city manager did. Then I left the profession. So we know it's not always so easily translatable about what you're doing. But I want to ask everybody in the room just to have a good quick interaction about what are the benefits from good government? What's it supposed to be doing? It's easy to pick at what it's not doing. But I think it's important to remember that everybody in this room volunteers to be here. Businesses volunteer to invest in them. Residents volunteer to live here. People are here by choice. And when you think about the quality of life, which is what you really are, the quality of life provider, not solely, but you're part of that. What are the benefits from good government? And I just opened this up. And I won't call on anybody, so don't imagine yourself back in like eighth grade algebra class or something. You're rubbing your temples or avoiding eye contact with me. But I need interaction. What are the benefits from good government? What's it supposed to accomplish? What do you think? >> Sustained and controlled growth. >> Okay. Sustained and controlled growth. Okay. There's no right answer to this. I'm simply just trying to sample your points of guess. >> Safety. >> Safety. Okay. Yes. >> A clean and healthy environment. A clean and healthy environment. All right. There. >> Yep. So it would be community amenities. So swimming pool, libraries, et al. >> Community amenities. Okay. Councilman? >> Opportunities. >> All right. Yes. >> Infrastructure, especially transportation and utility infrastructure. >> All right. There. >> Employment. Good gig. >> Council? >> Community connection. >> By the way, everything I captured tonight and tomorrow on this book chart, I will summarize and put in a summary and send it through Sarah to make sure you all get this. We don't want this to dissolve. I think everybody needs a folder of dreams and everybody needs a leadership playbook. I would hope that you find this to be material you can put in your leadership playbook in your role as a community builder. It's good stuff. We don't want it to just get lost. May I pretend? >> Yeah. In our case, reliable, affordable utilities. >> Okay. Reliable, affordable utilities. Yes. >> Positively influencing the balance between wages and cost of living. >> Okay. But that's not like just two words on a bullet. >> I didn't want to claim that we control wages and cost of living, but we can have a positive impact. >> I see. >> I say this as well, you know, do love and respect and admiration. Government does a lot of things well. One of the things not do well is stop doing things. So part of the conversation that's important to factor in really about tomorrow is the city's portfolio continually expands. At some point, it's a place of platters of trade. How do you sustain some of that? What do you shed? What do you adopt as you move forward? Because the community is not where it was five years ago and it's not going to be where it is now. How do you continually be intentional about these dimensions? Because I would offer to you, you're in the outcome business, not so much in the output business. People ask you if they feel safe in Denton, they don't tell you the response time. They tell you what's going on in their neighborhood, don't they? People don't base their opinion on facts. They base them on their own perceptions. I think government often traffics in facts and people respond with feelings. It's often like two ships passing through the night. And what we're seeing increasingly across the country is the notion of empathy. How is government being empathetic to people of all different dimensions? All different concerns. Other thoughts about the benefits from your government? Public transportation and publicly funded social services. Alright. Yes. A connected school district. The school district and the city worked collectively hand in hand on safety and all of those other things. There's other institutions that have skin and games and you sort of, how do you intersect? They have a role, you have a role. I would offer you that city government's always in the car, you're just not always driving the car. Sometimes you're in the passenger seat, sometimes you're in the backseat, you're a convener, you're an aggregator, you're a curator, you're bringing resources together. But you're not always in the driver's seat because I would assume that you have not only time capacity but capability capacity and financial capacity to do all that. So it's trying to be discerning about that. Selectively, yes. And it just so happens that within this city we have colleges and universities, ISDs and a junior college year. So all of those have to kind of come into play, you know, together. I'm sorry. You have K-12, then you have colleges, it's a different ecosystem entirely. Economically and opportunities. How do you interact? Right. A vibrant business climate. Suffice to say, your role is sometimes to be the provider, sometimes to be the influencer, sometimes to be the catalyst. How you make those decisions individually and collectively is one of the keys to your continued success. You have to be intentional and purposeful and deliberate. We are going to do this, this is what we're going to do, and this is how we're going to optimize it. Other things we want to be an advocate for but we may not necessarily be on the front lines of dealing with that, whatever that might be. And that will be a challenge. You know, strategic planning at its core is a priority setting process. Priority setting always sounds good in theory. It's a challenge in application because at some point you're sifting, you're filtering, you're listing, if you will, about what you're going to do and what you're deciding maybe right now is a good idea. But for whatever reason, there's not the support or advocacy to move forward on that at this point. And that sometimes, and even all communities deal with that. Well then on the board needs to be shared responsibility. Okay. Okay. Good stuff. And I'm going to move on, this is good. I'm going to post this by the way so we can refer to it possibly tomorrow. So we'll wallpaper this room with the sheets that I captured tonight. Now I may refer to it tomorrow when I say remember last night when we were talking about this, this seems to zero in on that point. If anything else pops, please holler at me and I'll put it up there. But I'm going to move on. I'm trying to move rather with a good pace tonight so we can get through all the material. I'm trying to make sure both today and tomorrow it's not a sprint, but it's not a marathon. We want to make this process productive, but it's not necessarily efficient. Efficient would be what do you think, what do you think, what do you think, next. But it's productive in the sense that we have meaningful conversation among all of you to determine where it is that you want to take this community. The future is bright for Denton. Your potential is out there, but it's not a guarantee. So how do you realize that? I'm going to move on to page three and I want to just do some sharing here with you. Based on my 15 years in city government and 19 plus as a consultant, my own practice. I mentioned this earlier, your credibility. How do people look at you? Whether it's in person, online, or what other dimensions people look at to the city to maintain your credibility. And I'm just going to offer these for you to think about and if there's anything we need to add, let's do that. But I'm going to go from the bottom to the top. The first one is, what are you achieving? What are the results that you're achieving? Historically, government doesn't do a very good job of marketing success to its own residents. So people take things for granted. There's nothing automatic in Denton. So what are those results you're achieving? How are you communicating those? The second one is, the employees. When you put a city uniform on, you're now omnipotent. You know everything about everything. How are the employees out in the field, at the counter, over the phone, how are they handling that? I mean, that can be smothering for people. You'd like to get calls from residents who said, "Hey, I talked to so many public works, they really went out of their way to help me hide this particular issue." When you work for a local government, you're highly visible. Staff knows that. How employees are handling those interactions, what they say, how they dress, their interactions, people view that. Because in some respects, city employees are ambassadors and they're a reflection back to the public about how the people feel about their community. It doesn't mean they're perfect or fancy or expensive. It means how do they handle that? So the employees are another factor. The third one is financial, which is the most quantifiable. What's the bond rating? What's your cash went reserve? That's probably the most metric driven of all these. People argue and get steward of their tax dollars. When people have faith in your judgment, they're more willing to tax themselves. When they're not, they question it. The fourth one is services, your portfolio of services. How modern is the city's portfolio of services? Ponder that for a moment. The government already fights the stigma that it's a bit out of touch with the public. How modern is this portfolio of services? Cities don't build tennis courts anymore. They build pickleball courts. That's changed a lot. Cities aren't building senior centers. They're building active lifestyle centers. Boomers don't want to go to senior centers, senior center, play shuffleboard, wait for meals on wheel. They want a more active lifestyle. People in the rec department are definitely on the forefront of your changing appetites. When you look at services in this 2020 census data, what's it trending? Demographically, where's debt going? Are you getting younger? Older? What are the socioeconomics? Easy to get lost in the data of the census. I would encourage you to, what's the story? What's the narrative? How's the city continually trying to adapt to that different appetite? You don't just have citizens, you have demographics. There's a 20-year-old in Denton. They don't even know where City Hall is. They want to go on their phone and pay for something. You realize that today, kids born today may never drive a car. You ask somebody under 30 to write a check, they look at you like, "Are you okay?" Just think about people's appetites. As young people get elected, as young people move into Denton, they look at the city and say, "Are you a credible community builder? Do you meet me on my terms?" Whatever the item might be, transactional or policy-wise. So how modern is the portfolio of the city services? What's it shifting? What's it shedding? What's it adopting? And there's no right answer to that. But as I said earlier, sometimes government struggles to let things go. Because there's three people in the community that want that. Whatever that might be. The next one is the citizens. Think of the caliber of conversations you're having with people. What's the volunteer pool look like in Denton? When you get ready to appoint people to boards and commissions, how's that looking? Is it healthy? Is it strong? Are you feeling comfortable about those opportunities for appointments? You want to make sure those decisions are hard, right? Not like, "Oh my gosh, we only have two people." But think of the conversations you're having with friends socially. What do they see about Denton? What's the caliber of conversations you're having with citizens? And it's easy to get pulled in the direction of, "Why are you doing this? And why are you doing that?" So I hope that you're having those positive conversations about, "This is what we're doing." If you're not the biggest advocate for Denton, who is? I mean, you have skin in the game by virtue of being in an elected office. But think of those conversations. And it's easy to get pulled in the direction of people that, you know, they don't like the group. How long have you lived here? Two years. And they want to shut the door behind them. And it's easy to get lost in that. One of the things cities are struggling with in half a year, but especially now, is how to deal with dissent in a community. There's an old saying in government, "Public policy is made by those who show up." So the five people at council meeting or the ten that tell you the whole community feels that way, I think, in a way, it kind of shoe horns you into a certain dimension. That's difficult as policy makers. How do you balance and reflect other points of view in the community of those people that may not be as vocal? The next one is ethics. You don't really get credit for being ethical. You're supposed to be. But if something happens halfway across the country about government, people sort of transplant that idea and say, "Well, you know, government kind of reinforces the notion they may have about it." One of the things I love about being in Texas is you all talk a lot about character. It's rather unique to Texas. I mean, I have clients all over the country. You talk a lot about character, not personality, but values, principles, the character. I would ask you to reflect on what's the character of this council, how you work through issues. I can't tell a whole lot about your character by how you agree, but I can tell a whole lot about your character by how you disagree. The stress reveals character, and sometimes it's late. You've had another in a series of long meetings. It's a controversial item, and you just want to vote and move on. You're exhausted. You're people. That's tough when it's a long o'clock at night and you're hungry and it's late, isn't it? And you're trying to make good decisions. We're going to cover some of that tomorrow just to revisit some of that. How do you make sure the meetings are helping you be good policy makers and not just try to get everything on there? You can be exhausted. And the final one is political, which is what I just mentioned. How you interact. Politics is the art of compromise. It's the art of influence. Hard to be influential if you don't compromise. Each and every one of you wants to be able to vote on policies based on your conviction. I commend you on that. How you blend those convictions with your colleagues is crucial to the community's viability going forward. If everything's a priority, if I'm going to believe about this each and every time, and I'm not willing to bend a little bit and compromise, it's tough to make progress. And meanwhile, the issues of the community, they don't wait. They don't show up on the doorstep with a bow on and say, "Here I am." They sort of bang you on the door and say, "I RSVP. Did you get it? What are you going to do about this growth? What are you going to do about this infrastructure? What are you going to do about filling the blank?" So these are just different dimensions I wanted to share with you to get you to think about your interactions as a group, maybe some new wrinkles for your role as policy makers, elected officials, about how people are viewing you, whether it's from staff, new residents, third generation businesses, people are viewing you through these different lenses. They see one point, they see another, they tie those data points up, and makes an impression on them. I just share that with you to get you to maybe reflect on some of those dimensions. People can be really unreasonable with their expectations. Some people aren't very forgiving. They see something that just reinforces that. I don't know if you've seen that movie on Netflix called Social Dilemma. Anybody seen that movie on Netflix? It's a horror movie. It's funny there. It really unknots the threads about social media and essentially says people are online, aren't looking for information, they're looking for affirmation. Behavioral modification just really unknots this whole notion about where we are as a society with the explosion of social media and how that creates a whole other platform of conversation in communities and what it's kind of the back story to that. Are there other dimensions that I didn't list here that maybe you've seen in your time in office that you've had conversations about with your colleagues or members of the public that you think people are looking at you? Some other dimension, another lens that they might be saying, well, this is really important to me. What do you think? I'm sure this isn't exhaustive, but are there other areas that you think people are looking at your credibility through different dimensions? Yes? Responsiveness. Okay, good. Look, being responsive. Excellent one. Yeah, if you're not responsive, it's hard to be credible. And the challenge you have as elected officials, if I might, really for tomorrow, you're trying to balance between being responsive and being proactive, which is a duality, not a dichotomy. So, you're trying to balance. You've got to be credible and responsive. Like, right now something's going to happen. At the same time, the strategic plan really is trying to give lift to a longer version about where the community's going and how you can be intentional about building that capability to realize whatever that dimension is. So, that proactive and responsiveness, how do you balance those roles? It's important to be conscious in that, deliberate in that. So, thank you. Other dimensions that you think, from what you've seen in your time in office, people talk to you about, things that they evaluate, your effectiveness, other factors. Anything else? I'm thinking about a couple of people in the community that have kind of attached themselves to me particularly. I don't know if it's me particularly, but you have these community folks that are needing to be responded to, like you said, responsive. It seems like there's a little bit of pressure to make sure, absolutely, that they get what they need or it's going to explode. That kind of thing could be a little bit confusing there. So, when you're talking about the responsiveness slash the projection of what's going to happen, that's what came to mind. Some old school people that have been here and they know what they want and we got to get it now. So, put that out there. Good point. I think there's always that notion about, we want things to stay the same. But even if you want things to stay the same, you're going to have to make different decisions to maintain that livability in the community. Again, what got you here may not get you there. So, how do you balance those points of view? I think that's a great point. Remember this, too. If these issues were easily solved, you would have already done them. Something pops into your agenda or discussions tomorrow. These isn't arithmetic. It's scalpelist. There's a lot of moving parts there. Mayor? I think to that point, when you're talking about credibility, it's your analysis. So, data analysis almost. There's 140,000 people in the city of Denton. You're not going to talk to all of them, but you have to read the room, if you will. And if you read it wrong, then that goes to your credibility. Yeah, and I think that's the challenge we have in today's world where it's reading the room literally, who's at the meeting, trying to sample opinions of people that aren't there for whatever reason, exercising your own judgment as policy makers. There's no shortage of points of view, putting pressure on each of you to say, do this, do that. Don't do this, don't do that. So, trying to size that up. Anything else that you think? Other dimensions that you've seen in your time in office that you've heard from colleagues? Yes? Yeah, it's somewhere in the spectrum of representation and political, I would call it more advocacy. There's, you know, there are, and it goes to what Councilmember Byrd was talking about, there's, you know, there are advocates for a variety of interests and kind of causes within the community. And credibility has to do with, in part, attending to those, you know, those interests. Yeah, credibility is rooted in believability, and believability is based in trust. So, you're always trafficking in trust, restoring that, giving people the opportunity to have faith in your judgment. And you're never done with that. So, how do you balance different points of view? You hear these, but you see it from your vantage point. You know, it's the old Henry Ford from Ford Motor Company who said over a hundred years ago, if I asked people what they wanted, they just said faster horses. So, the public can be somewhat pickled about their appetite. They just can't, right? I don't have the dog in the fight, but it can be somewhat pickled. So, how do you balance that through your larger lens? Alright. Let me move on, then I'm going to ask to do a conversation with you, but I wanted to walk you through a little bit on page five. This is information about characteristics of effective groups. I'm not going to read all this to you. I would just ask that you reflect on, you know, the characteristics and the evidence. And how well, kind of, you know, hold this group up, give it an x-ray, and say how's the group doing against these criteria? The group has their goals and understands its purpose. Sometimes the purpose can get lost in the shuffle. It's not just, you know, there's meetings and policies and budgets and authorizations and approvals, but what's the purpose of the city council? What's it trying to accomplish? Back to that mission of advocacy and execution. We're going to come back to that in the next conversation. The group engages in collective decision making when appropriate. A lot of conversations happen at council. I've watched a few of the council meetings. A lot of conversation, a lot of back and forth. Right? How you exchange ideas in that respectful, collegial, professional way. Maintaining that, that goes back to that mission of character. Each and every one of you, as you all know, will be in the spotlight for reasons that you don't like. And each and every one of you will be in spotlight for reasons that you like. Nobody of the seven of you is immune from either dimension. You just never know what that's going to be. But how you're, you know, some of this creative problem solving is happening in real time. You're trying to react to the information from a staff report. You're trying to analyze that. You're trying to soak it up. I do think it's going to be important tomorrow when we talk about the governance side, about the protocols and practices. Some of you shared with me just about the timing of council packets so you get a chance to process information. That's a good conversation to have. You get a packet. The packet never gets smaller, does it? And the portfolio, diversity, are complicated issues. Sometimes it's the little things that make the biggest difference. I think that's a good conversation to have. You're going to feel comfortable. I know Sarah and the staff want to make sure you're as comfortable as possible that when the meeting starts, you've been briefed, you've been prepared. You're not sure exactly maybe how you're going to vote. That's dependent upon the topic. But at least you feel as though you're going into it confident and capable to have a conversation with your colleagues. And that's an outcome. And that's also rooted in if we can re-engineer some of that. So I think that will be a good conversation to have tomorrow about some of that. Which kind of dovetails in the third one is the group uses a shared problem solving process. Yes, democracy is a group problem solving process. It's important I think as policy makers to make the distinction between problems you can solve and problems you can only address. A lot of cities chase problems they can only address and they think they can solve them. And it's vexing. And it's exhausting. And I can't give you either or, but as we get into some of that tomorrow, I'm going to at least tease that out and say, is this an issue that you can mitigate or that you can solve? Or is it even in your wheelhouse of something that you want to do? The fourth one is all members participate actively. Based on the council meetings I watched that doesn't seem to be an issue. People are actively participating. I say that with love and affection. But it's also not just at the meeting, right? It's preparing yourself when you go in there. It's also, I think it's important to recognize, and this can be a bone of contention with councils, you're not all connected to the same groups in the community. You can't, everybody here can't be in all the events for a variety of reasons. Some of you are connected to the small business community. Great. We look to you for the small business community. What's the buzz? What's the pulse? Some of you are really well connected to non-profits. What's the buzz? What's the pulse? Some of you are connected to the soccer people. For the baseball. There's no shortage of constituent groups. And that is there. So if you think about actively participating, who are you plugged into that you can offer a voice to when you're having discussions here? If somebody were to ask you, well how's that working on with downtown businesses? It's hard for all of you to be in all those dimensions. It's exhausting. And one thing I would encourage you to think about, because I did pick up some of this in the phone calls, is without seeming overly simplistic, this should be fun. This shouldn't be a drag. If you're leading council meetings and you're exhausted and you're not looking forward to it, that's not really what you signed up for. Occasionally you're going to have long controversial issues. But if that's a visual, I think it's time to revisit maybe what it is you're discussing and how you're discussing it. Because you're going to run out of gas. This will not only make you make sacrifices from your family, but if you're not having fun, I don't mean fun like every meeting is a picnic and you're doing cartwheels, but I mean just feeling good that this is time well invested and you feel as though you're having an impact. If you're finding yourself drained and exhausted eventually, I think it's important to have conversations like that with your colleagues and say what can we do? Because that's someone with self-inflicted mood. Maybe about the length of the agenda, the length of the meetings, the conversations, sometimes less is more. I'm just offering that up. You want to make sure you're having fun and not running out and going this should be replenishing you, not exhausting you. I hope you get some replenishment from today to tomorrow. This will feel better. There's an emotional energy there. The next one, open, honest, and respectful communication is the basis for working together. It's good to be honest. You don't have to be blunt by being direct, but having good collegial conversations during the course of the meeting. You all have points of view. The only people in this room that were elected for the point of view were the seven of you. Staff is supposed to be neutral and objective. Once you adopt a policy, they're going to administer it based on objectivity and neutrality. But the seven of you as you exchange ideas, hopefully they continue in that healthy professional collegial way. Let some other city be in the news for the reasons that you prefer not to be. If you're finding yourself in the middle of that storm, it's important to reflect on that. What are we doing to create some of that stress for ourselves? You can be the smartest person in the room and be highly ineffective. And I think sometimes that tears at the fabric of relationships. And there's a lot of relationships in there. I'm not naive. Politics can be a contact sport, but it's also you're all volunteering essentially to continually improve the community to help it realize its potential. Sometimes you get cross purposes, but hopefully we can continually foster a sense of cohesion and not conflict. The next one, team members have high trust among themselves and aren't afraid to take risks. Government's not exactly known for risk taking, but you didn't get where you are by people waiting. So you think about risk taking. I know staff can relate to this. I know none of them have ever heard we've always done it that way. That's a conversation killer. This community, to realize its potential, can't just pour new wine in old bottles. You're going to have to explore and innovate and try some new things out. And one of the key elements of that, about that notion of risk taking, is how you handle it as council members at a council meeting. Staff is not intending to have things go awry, to make mistakes. When council members, and again this is delicate, but when council members say things at council meetings that are critical of staff and the decisions they make, it sends a shock, a chill through the organization. People don't need to touch the stone to know it's hot. No staff Sarah can't mitigate that no matter what she does. So if you want staff to continually cultivate and bring you new ideas, you're critical in those conversations at a meeting when three members of the public get up and say, how did you let staff do that? If you want staff to again be smart risk takers, they're going to make mistakes. Mistakes are bad, but what's worse is a culture that doesn't tolerate them and great way not to make mistakes is don't try anything new. And based on the conversations I had with many of you, you're looking to the city to try some new things. So it's not just add water, bake a cake, here you go, we know what to do. There's going to be some level of ambiguity, some level of uncertainty about how you code, how you solve, how you address, how you mitigate. So I just ask you to reflect on that, that if you're looking for staff to continually bring to you recommendations that they don't know for sure is a guarantee, think about how you handle those when things don't go well. Obviously those conversations can happen offline, and they should. The next one is contention is used to surface differences in perspective. Sometimes you're going to have a different point of view, that's no shortage. How you work through that in the confines of a public meeting. And I think you have to be careful, especially right now under that item. You seven are accountable for the performance of this organization and how this community evolves. Make sure you're not handing over the authority of the decision making to somebody who thinks they're the eighth council member. Because some people like to think they have that status. They want the responsibility, they don't have the authority. Because you're in the arena and you're having those conversations with your colleagues. Some people like to tee that up and say, well, how could you agree with him? Why do you know that you're not supposed to agree with her? There's always people that want to be the armchair quarterbacks. And I think for each of you, you're trying to reflect on who am I really listening to? How do I expand that audience of people that maybe not always be the same people I hear from all the time. Who else can I listen to? And the last one, which I think is healthy, is that you use periodic self-assessment. How are we doing? What are we doing well? What are we doing that we need to work on? I mean, this is a chance for the group to pause tonight and tomorrow and really reflect. Some self-examination, some self-awareness. Hopefully you're doing that periodically just on your own accord. Sometimes I know it's delicate when there's hard feelings. So how do you resurface that? And try to make the best of those relationships. And say, we're all here. You all have a deep, seeded passion for debt. Sometimes that manifests itself in ways that you're going to be across purposes. Hopefully that's not diminishing your interaction and trust with your colleagues. Because I did sense some of that in some of the meetings I watched. And it's easy to sort of get, to allow that to interfere at the next meeting. We're not robots for people, so we remember things. And this is all done within the public sphere, which makes it even more challenging. Because everything's on display. And so sometimes that can be stressful. That can be smothering. So I just ask you to reflect on it. So I'm curious to know, based on those dimensions I shared, what do you think about this group? Are there areas that you think you're doing well? Are there areas that you think the group might want to reflect on and think about? Maybe spend a little bit more time examining for yourself or for the group? I'm just curious. What do you think about those? Yes, Council? I have been really pleased in the way that our group takes its time to get through, you know, their conversation. And we've been doing a great job in asking the right kinds of questions. And we've been, and I think that the public, they tell me, I can't speak for anyone else, that it just seems like we get along fairly well. And so I appreciate sitting in that seat. I appreciate listening and learning from other people. I personally want to wait and ask my questions. And I'll generally ask the question if I hadn't heard the answer that I need to know yet. Because there are a lot of questions, there are a lot of clarifications that come ahead of what I need to know. And then that helps me think about the way that my people would want me to vote. And so I like that. I like that about our group. They were very curious, a very curious group. And so I'll just leave it right there, but that's where I am. And that's a great attribute, absolutely. Being curious, asking questions, trying to knock these and learn from your colleagues. There's a lot of experience and expertise both from elected officials and from staff. How do you blend that all together? And that can be a painstaking process. It's somewhat of a thorough process that you're willing to revisit your own point of view, listening to your colleagues. That shows great humility. And sometimes that's not easy to do, I think, because of the item. So at least putting that out there and saying I'm willing to listen and learn from each other and possibly change my point of view based on the access to new information. Yes. I think you kind of started hitting on the point that I thought about when Vicki was talking about. I think there are issues where we're really good at that, where we do have those conversations and ask those questions and are willing to change viewpoints. I think there are other issues, though, that, and I won't name any examples right now, but there are other issues where the room is ready for a fight. Like, people have their hackles up. They've put their views out there. They've kind of staked out their ground politically. And it makes it very difficult to have those collaborative to have that kind of air of humility or that posture of humility coming into the issue. Because none of us are really subject matter experts in a lot of the things that come before the city council. And so sometimes we go into these conversations, depending on the agenda item, and it feels like we're not there to ask the questions. It feels like we're there to stake out a political position and fight towards that position regardless of what might unfold in the meeting. Okay. Alright. Thanks, Thompson. Other comments? Other thoughts? Other insights? I'm going to double off both of those. I think the issue sometimes that we can, is when we are asking questions, if we're not of the right mindset, they seem confrontational when what you're doing is asking questions and gathering information. So I think that that's not just the body of seven, but it can include staff as well, where you're trying to dig in and figure out information and depending on your demeanor, I guess, can be perceived as confrontational. So I think that is a strength and an area of development. Other thoughts? Insights? Yes, man? I think we'll get to, like you said, get to the details tomorrow. So I just kind of summarize it to say, the pessimist side of me says I'd give us a grade of a 75. The optimist says 80, so the truth's in the middle. So I think it's like, and you know, it's across the board, right? It's clear goals, understanding its purpose, you know, that probably scores lower on the spectrum. But when you're talking about shared problem solving process, I think there's, we're a little better there, but then it also goes into then you go to your perspective silos, right? So there's not that kind of lateral movement across those silos, so you lose a little bit there. And the weighting's different, right? So if I weight my silo heavier than someone else, then you have kind of, and we're not crossing over, you know, it leads to that. So yeah, I think it's anywhere between a C and a C plus, I guess, my read on the entirety of the eight things. And building on that, I would say that you're going to have some dysfunctionality. Every group does. Every relationship does. You want to make sure the dysfunctionality adds interesting dimensions. It's not destructive. When the dysfunctionality is destructive, it tears at the fabric of the relationship, and it's hard to restore that, especially in public office when everything's on display. None of you want to be embarrassed by a colleague. None of you want to feel just feel inadequate in the conversation. The fact is you all have passion about certain items, and you're trying to kind of help cultivate that in other people to move those items forward. To some people it's not as high priority. Some of your priorities may not be theirs. How you work that together, democracy is messy. It's supposed to be. Tomorrow we're going to go from making spaghetti to doing surgery. We can't just stay at the spaghetti level. And I think that's one of the challenges for this organization, is there's a lot of spaghetti up on the wall. And that's not sustainable. That volume. Because things are just going to intensify. There's no shortage of priorities. So how do you winter those down in a meaningful, collaborative, professional way, and can live with those results, knowing that it may not be pressing right now? That takes a lot of grace, I think. Takes a lot of professionalism. And accommodation. You know, valor is the better part of discretion. Concession sometimes is the better part of discretion. Not always easy to do. To work through those items. Because you all have a lot of passion. So building on that, I would direct your attention back to page I'm sorry. Lost my pages here. To page four. Which is strategies for creating a more collaborative, effective government body. I speak at a lot of different conferences, including I've spoken at TML, different state leagues, I've spoken at national league cities. As you know when you get elected, you go through new elected orientation. And what I've done is I've put together sort of the best of, new elected orientation materials from all different states. And that's what I put on here as the top twelve. Not in any particular order. One, think and act strategically. Tomorrow we're going to toggle between being strategic and being operational. But I'm going to try to keep you at the strategic policy level. We'll touch on some operational issues, I'm sure. But think and act strategically. Two, as I mentioned earlier, respect shared constituency among you and your colleagues. Not everybody's plugged into every group of the community. You rely on each other to bring a voice to some people that may not necessarily have a voice. You're plugged into that segment. Number three, something we've tried to touch on tonight, understand and demonstrate the elements of teams and teamwork. Kind of classic. How you work together. There's only one ball, if you will. How do you share that? How do you work together? Number four, have clearly defined roles and relationships. We're going to cover that here in just a moment. Which builds on number five, honor the board/staff partnership. Use the governing body as the board. How do you partner together? Through the city manager and with the organization. We're going to cover that here in just a minute. Number six, allocating governing body time and energy appropriately. It's important to have boundaries. If not, it's exhausting. If you have school kids, sometimes you're missing out on things that they're doing because you got a late meeting or you're here tonight or you're there, you know, you're going to be together tomorrow. This job can be all consuming. It can take up a lot of hours. If you don't put that, when you're out having dinner with your family, you're out having dinner with your family. There'll be people that want to pull it. Hey, can I talk to you? You got a minute. How do you put boundaries on that? Staff's in that same boat, but it's a different ecosystem in which they're in. But I'm just encouraging you to reflect on that, because, again, you don't want to be in office six months or twelve months ago, and this is exhausting. Because if you don't put boundaries, other people won't put them for you, and you're going to feel, find yourself overwhelmed. And then you're exhausted and not replenished. Number seven, have clear rules and procedures for board meetings, for council meetings. We're going to cover some of that tomorrow. About the governance, the process, Robert's Rules of Order, some of those dimensions. I want to make sure that's clear. Number eight, practice continuous personal learning and development as a leader, whether that's attending a TML conference or council government or national league of cities, or just staying abreast about what's happening. We were talking as we were all getting assembled here this morning. You have clients in every time zone. Some of the issues that may be unique to Denton because of your history are not unique to cities around the country. So whether it's homelessness or affordable housing or some of these other dimensions, I was in Oregon in March, a beautiful place, a city of 15,000 people. They got an affordable housing issue. They got a homeless issue. I have a lot of cities in the Los Angeles area. They obviously have lots of those same issues. I have clients all across the country. I was in Osage Beach, Missouri a few years ago, Lake of the Ozarks, my home state, 5,000 people. They got an affordable housing issue. Affordable housing and homelessness have knocked off economic development as the top topic discussed at these sessions. I've been doing these a long time. So when you think about it, it's not to say, well, they're doing this in Knoxville, we should do it here. It's not cut and paste and plug and play. But how are other jurisdictions outside the metroplex dealing with some of these issues? I'm just sharing that with you. So that number eight is something you can do on your own or go to a conference or a webinar or what have you. But just kind of staying abreast, how are other jurisdictions dealing with it? And I would encourage you not to worry about the size of the city. Well, they're a smaller city. It's all scalable. Number nine, this is actually in the meeting. So adultery here for a moment when you're actually in the council meetings. Communication and problem solving. Being attentive. You mentioned earlier asking questions. We all know eye contact is the equivalent of oxygen. So when some citizen is at the lectern or they're bringing something up to you, they want to see that you're fully engaged, even though your mind's moving a million miles a minute about something else. But they want to know that you're in the moment. You're present. Sometimes it's easy to get distracted for other reasons. Your phone or something's going on, but people want to know that you're giving them their undivided attention. Number ten, this is something in particular to the group. Distinguished between values, interests, and positions. Some of you might play the "devil's advocate," the contrarian. Like I'm just going to bring this point up to see if we're really thinking about it. Got to be careful not to kind of kill the messenger. We've heard that phrase a lot in our different walks of life. But that number ten is some of you might not have the same point of view as your colleague, but you want to make sure that point of view is heard. And I think to your point, Councilmember, is how do you put that on the table in a collegial collaborative way and say, "We're really thinking through all the factors." And I may not necessarily believe in a point, but I think it's important that we at least discuss it. Remember, you're creative problem solvers. Notice that first word, "created." And while your fifth grade teacher may have said you're not an artist because you couldn't draw, not all artists draw. So, in order to be an artist in your role as a community builder, you have to use creativity. So, how do you blend those ideas from your colleagues, from staff, recommendations? How do you blend that all together in your role as a creative problem solver? It goes back to what you said earlier as well. Curiosity fosters our imagination, which helps us be creative, which facilitates innovation. I mean, that's all part of an equation. 11, civility and board member, Councilmember, behavior. You're in that spotlight. It can be exhausting. All your tendencies are amplified. I don't know how many people in the room, just a little bit of soft humor here. Anybody in the room have children? Anybody work with people who act like you? Maybe I get you. How many of you agree that our kids pick up their bad habits from our spouses? Raise your hand if you agree that's right. Definitely. Isn't it weird to see in kids case, habits they picked up from you and you didn't know they were watching? It couldn't be us. Had to be your spouse. I just got a sense of self-awareness. I think number 11 is also in the sense people are watching you. And you love that people, you know, they say, "I watched you on the meeting last night." You're like, "Okay, how'd I look? How'd I go? What'd you think?" People want to be proud of each and every one of you. Whether or not they elected you directly, they want to be proud of their local officials. And number 11 is really important, especially right now. People wonder if democracy even works. I think it's important to sometimes say at a meeting, if I could be so bold, and you've just had a long discussion, to say to your colleagues, "I really appreciate all the input I've heard from my colleagues." It reminds us that we're really trying to do the right thing by the residents of this community. I think sometimes you have to let people know that democracy is messy. Doesn't have to be, you know, contacts forward. But if democracy is messy, we're going to work through it. We're going to continually find a way. We're going to invest the time and effort and energy to help this community realize its potential. And it was easy. It would have already been done. And number 12, which is a whole new dimension, is effective public engagement. Notice I put effective. Usually you get a lot of engagement. It's just not always balanced. I mean, it was on next door. It must be true. We'll cover a little bit of that tomorrow because social media is the new channel to create social currency. And a lot of governments are trying to figure out how to use social media to create social currency to help drive change in a community. There's a digital divide. So when we say public engagement here, it's not just doing more online. There's still some people that want to physically be in the room. Or they still read the newspaper. What have you, right? You have, again, a big cross section. Those are just 12 strategies for creating a collaborative, more effective governing body. I hope that you receive these in the spirit that I offer them. Just good reminders. Good reminders to reflect on things that practices you might want to maybe reconsider. Or consider. Alright. I'm going to move on now to let's see. I'm sorry. Page six. And I'm going to do some writing on this. This is a refresher on the form of government. These are good to do at these sessions, even if you have been a long-experienced group. I do this with councils even if the council's been around for a long time. This is a good chance to reflect on roles, lanes, and expectations. Especially considering the circumstance with Cerebine and interim clarity. Where do those roles and lanes intersect? One of the outcomes we want to accomplish tomorrow is clarity about priorities, which is mission critical to a healthy council/manager partnership. Sarah, from what I understand, is a pretty good dancer. But she can't dance seven different ways every day of the week. She'll get whiplash. So if she's constantly just trying to accommodate this and accommodate that and accommodate that, that can be all time consuming and progress isn't made. So that's one of the "I'm going to try to push you tomorrow" is trying to write some clarity about priorities. But tonight, it's really about roles. The role of the different players, if you will. The role of the mayor, the role of council, the role of the manager, and so forth. And I want to try to push your thinking beyond the ceremonial functions. Running the meetings, that sort of stuff. But what's the role of the mayor? And I'm going to jot these down, and again, I'll capture these and you'll have them back to you. What's the role of the mayor? Yes, council? -Leadership and consensus building. -Okay. By the way, I put spell check up here in case I misspelled any words. Leadership and consensus building. Alright, thank you. What's the role of the mayor? No one defines it like the incumbent. For each of these roles that we're going to cover. Whether it's manager or staff. Yes, mayor, go ahead. -Tone setting. -Tone setting. Alright. Council? -A summarizer. -A summarizer. -I don't know if that's a real word or not, but it sounds good. -Some people would say chief explainer officer. Thank you. What else? What's the role of the mayor? -Being the public face for the city. -Okay. Alright, mayor? -It's already up there in a few different ways, but kind of liaison, right? -Okay. -What else? -If he had money, his face would be on the money. -Right. Bitcoin. -I'm going to assume I don't need to write that down. -Advocate for the process. -Okay, good. -Alright. Thank you. Yes? -Cat herder? I'm one of the cats. I know it. I'll admit it. -Remember, dogs have an owner, cats have a staff. -Cat herder. -What else? What's the role of the mayor? What do you have expectations of the mayor? What's the lane of the mayor? Again, you all define it based on your own capabilities, your own passion. It's not static. Again, it's highly dynamic. Yes? -I mean, I think in a lot of ways, the role of the mayor is mostly the same as the role of other council members with perhaps the addition of the things that we discussed. -So it's similar to council members? Is that correct? -Yeah. I mean, we have a weak mayor system. I wish there were a better word for that, but right. I mean, the mayor has a vote on council and is a council member for the purposes of voting, right? -If I can take a stab at that, a leader among equals. -Okay. Alright. Other thoughts? -Should be for all seven of us, but a role model. -I would put up there that this applies to a lot of the players we're going to be discussing. I said it a little bit earlier with a tongue in cheek, but CEO in the sense of the chief example officer, you're all setting an example, each of you and all of you. The question is what kind of example are you trying to set? These people pick up on that. They view that and they interpret it through their own filter. Let me move on to the next. Do you have something else about the mayor? Again, I'm going to post these tonight, so we'll have them around the room for long. What's the role of council members? What are your expectations of each other? What are you trying to accomplish? -I would say, well, first of all, I think that anything that we're going to say here is something that also applies to the mayor, but to set policy. -Policy, absolutely. Mayor? -I'd say advocate. You have your segment that you advocate for. -What else? What do you expect of each other? What's your guess? -Creativity. -Okay. Yes? -This is my sound moment. Collaborator. -Collaboration is really one of the most common references with councils today. I think it's important as you think about it in this domain that collaboration requires patience. If I'm going to collaborate, I'm willing to listen to your point of view. Maybe back to what you said earlier, I may refresh my point of view. We like to say we're collaborators, but can you just agree with me? That's sort of the dilemma I think sometimes people have is I want to collaborate, but that requires patience to listen to your colleagues. So, council member? -Communicator. Communicating to our fellow council members what we hear in the community, but then also communicating the things that we do on council back to the community. Explaining sometimes. -You're a very visible symbol of that. Yes? -Sort of obvious, but voice of the average person. Well, I think you referred to it somewhere in your article versus the technical professional point of view. -Yeah, you're trying to listen to points of view maybe that aren't always as evident. You're trying to look beyond. As part of your creativity, you hear from certain people, but what are the people that you're not hearing from? People that you know in different walks of life, people that you've met in Denton, people that you come across either close or acquaintances or conversations you hear. Each one of you are sort of a, you distill all that down. Amplifier. -Pardon me? -An amplifier. -Yeah, you're an amplifier as well. Steward of public funds. -Okay. Absolutely, yeah. Do you want to have faith in your judgment? Yes, we have faith in it. -Okay, and this is a little grandiose, but steward of the future. -Yes. We are going to bust out a crystal ball tomorrow, just so you know. Yes, ma'am. -I would say, and you can say it better or write it better, but unique to our city because we are the board for the Municipal Electric. We're in the business development business, right? We chair a board for a major utility. -Right. You have a different skin of the game that way. You're a provider all over the world. -Listener? -I would consider us finishers. -Expectation managers. -Yeah, I think you're regularly trying to manage expectations. Yes. -To some extent, ombudsman. -Yes. Back to that notion of your liaison between the community and the organization or what have you. So you definitely play that. People see you as an advocate, possibly, about an item. I would offer you, government is a solutions provider, and when they're not getting a solution, whether it's a minor thing or a big thing, they come to you and say, what are you going to do about that? I need this done. Sometimes it's transaction, sometimes it's policy. But you're the business of providing solutions, the common good, the social good. Fundamentally, that's what you're doing. I'm going to keep moving here just to keep our conversation going until we get out of here on time. The role of the city manager. What's the role of the city manager? Yes. -To oversee and direct the actions of our very large city staff. You don't have to write all those words. Okay. All right. Hiring. -That's the hiring. And all that goes with that? -Yep. Coordinating departments. Do we get to contribute? Do we get to contribute? What else? Yes. Advocate for the staff. For their staff. Captain of the ship. Engine running on course. Things operating. I want to get a uniform. -Yes, Council. The executive. They make it happen. Think what the city manager brings to the table. The capabilities. The person's role. Your expectations. I'm trying to push your thinking here a little bit, right? These are functional. What else do you need for the manager to help you be successful? Truth teller. -Truth teller, okay. That's not true. Details person. Council sets the policy direction, but the city manager is the one who figures out the details of how to actually implement that. Definitely a translator of that, right? Policy to implementation. Other thoughts? Yes. Kind of following on that. Organizer. I'm going to offer one up for you to consider that people that are successful in this profession, like Sarah is, learn very quickly in order to be effective partnering with the governing body. They also have to have a high political IQ. You rely on them. The city manager is your primary advisor. Correct? Back to that truth telling. How is this going to work? He has to be able to read the political terrain without deferring to it, without getting caught up in it. That's a delicate dance, right? But having a high political IQ. Do we bring this now? Has the city dealt with this before? Is this a good time to do it? What are some potential opportunities? What are some potential impacts of this? None of you want to be surprised. We rely on the manager and her staff to point out, which sometimes can be awkward, the impacts of that. Unintended consequences of policies. As opposed to you adopt it and it gets put in place, no one wants to deal with that when it didn't go well. There are things going to happen, but I'm just offering that to you to think about. It's beyond just sort of the regular job description. It's sort of that notion of the political IQ. Fluent in that. She's also an information broker. She works for each of you and all of you. How do you broker all those relationships and all that information? I'm just offering that up. Just something to think about. Kind of expanding that lens a little bit, if you will. Prognosticator. Pardon me? Prognosticator. Yeah. Yeah. Do you need us to second the ones you said to the list there? Pardon me? The ones that you said, do you need one of us to kind of second those onto the list? I agree with both of those, yeah. That political IQ and the advisor. That information broker. Yeah. What you rely on Sarah to do. That's what I'm trying to get you to think beyond what she's doing, but what you rely on her to do. What you need for her to do to help you be successful. Yes, ma'am? She's a crusher of dreams. Because you're elected, you come in with grandiose ideas, and then she just crushes them. Sarah, you haven't crushed any of my dreams. Reality chick. Yeah, that's a better way to say it. Reality chick. I think being a mediator between staff and council. I like that. Could I get a t-shirt that says crusher of dreams. I like that. I think she's going to have a can crusher in her office. [laughter] Well, I think part of what you're allowing her to be into that point, you expect her to be a pragmatist. To say, that sounds good theory, how do we get to translate that in a way that's meaningful? And also, back to that truth teller, is trying to have those honest candid conversations about what the organization's capacity and capability is. I think that's going to be a good topic to have tomorrow. Remember, the merit of an idea does not always carry the day. So, you have to kind of reflect on what are you asking staff to do that may be not just beyond their capacity, but may also be beyond their ability. Again, government does a lot of things well. One of the things not do well is sometimes, and that's tough to acknowledge. No one wants to say that's not something we do well, but it's important to have that conversation. There are things that government does well, there are things that government struggles to do well. Obviously, COVID has shined a light about certain things that government does well. I think it's a renaissance time, by the way, for local government. I'm ever the optimist. People are paying attention to things more than they have in a long time. Which gets us to the next one. I'm sorry, I dropped the head, but I want to do this one. And then that final one, which is what's the role of staff? I'm sorry, the role of department directors. And I singled them out because some of you deal with them. They're at meeting, they're at council meeting, some of them are here tonight, city manager staff. They're different than mid-managers or frontline staff, your expectations. What are the role of department directors and people in the manager's office? Yes? To be experts in their field? And I would, if I may, just augment that a little bit. I think what you're expecting them is to stay current to be an expert, right? So investing in themselves, their own learning and their staff learning just because the world is changing under their feet. How do they continually give you advice that's not from a bygone era? And sometimes that's a challenging government. Back to that pouring new wine in old bottles. Yes? I could put it nice so like educators, communicators or whatever, but they have to dumb it down for us. They have to help us understand the subject matter. Oh, especially Terry needs to dumb it down for me. Yeah. They're not the audience for the message, you are. And that takes a lot of patience from staff to crack the report or the message in a way that you understand it without diluting it so much it's lost its substance. I like the, I like for my, I like to see the passion, the interest. They're just not in a job, but this is something that they really want to do. I can feel that. Idea leaders. Idea leaders? I think department heads need to be in touch with people at all levels of their department from the bottom up. Yeah, I do a lot of leadership development and one of the items I share with leaders is your open door policy means you leave your office. Cause that's where you build relationships to your point. You gotta get to know your people and that's, you gotta be assertive about that. And the relationship building. A lot of this I would say what you're really describing tonight for all these different players is you're all in the people business, you're all building relationships. And you're never really done with that. In the room with your staff, with the manager, with each other, with the public, directors with their staff. I mean people, you're in the people business. Let me move on to the next one. I'm just trying to monitor the time here. The role of city staff. So these would be the people that report to the directors. Mid managers, front line people. What do you, what's their role? Make everything work. Implementers. Implementers make everything work, okay? Yes, as you pointed out earlier. Face of the city. Yeah, they definitely are. Excuse me. I would offer you that they seem, they have the most power in the community cause they come in direct contact with your customers. You're a service centric organization. So then you can hijack or highlight the city as a service provider. People on the field, on the phone, they're the ones dealing directly with people. So they create that impression, they create that experience. So in some respects they're invested with a lot, there's a lot of gravity to that. Any thoughts about role of city staff? Yes. Nuts and bolts of implementing policy, which I said about the city manager, but it's true it's a different way for city staff. Yeah. Which I would offer to you just as a kind of a cautionary tale. For all of you going forward is when you have that next policy discussion, some of which may be tomorrow and then at future council meetings, it may sound really good in theory, but sometimes the people that are implementing it aren't asked about how's this going to work. And then they're the ones obligated to administer it or enforce it, and it may not be as easily done as the policy says it's. I'm just sharing that with you. Sometimes the people on the front lines don't have their point of view surveyed to say how's this going to work in the reality of dealing with it. So it may sound really good in theory. Yes. Anything else about Santa? Yes. And then over here? They're service professionals. Yes. I was going to say civil servants, but that fits with service professionals. Yeah, you're a service-centered organization. And let me start to wrap up here because we're getting close to the time. And that's the role of community members. You've got to be more than just voting. To give continuous appreciation. Email us every single day. Continuous enforcement. They're the boss of council. What's their role as well? What do you expect from community members? If I saw you at the grocery store and you haven't put ice cream in your cart yet and I said I'm so delighted I moved to Denton two years ago and now my kids are off and I want to do something. What can I do to help this community thrive? What would you say to me? I'm a third generation person and I know you're on council and I want to be able to do something to give back. What would you say to me about what can I contribute? Frank input. Okay. What's my role in this community to help it realize its potential? I can share with you, but sometimes that's the scales tip, don't they? Yes. It seems like you're fishing for boards and commissions, but I would concur with that. I think advocate for them to get involved. Get involved, yeah. Formally or informally, right? Yeah. Stay informed. One of the things I've heard in the last few years when I asked this question, a lot of councils were saying get to know your neighbors. It's kind of what's old is new again. Know your neighbors. All you gotta do is talk to the police department how many times they show up on the scene between two neighbors. People don't even know each other. It's this real kind of invisibility, this abstract notion of what it means to be a community member. Let's face it, sometimes the notion of civics was not always people's strong suit. So they're not always understanding what their opportunity is or responsibility is as a member of a community. It wasn't always, again, we're all in here kind of nerdy about government. We can walk into a city hall anywhere. We're comfortable. You've learned that. Well, I'm just sharing it with you, right? You understand me. When we travel, we notice things other people don't. I was with my wife not long ago on a trip and I've been out of this business a long time. I'm driving down the street and I'm saying, do you see that curb and gutter? She's like, just drive. My son was about 10. We were going somewhere. He's 15 now. I said, Dad, there's a lot of visual clutter on the street. We're all kind of nerdy. We've been here. We notice things people don't notice. That's where government can come off tone deaf. So I think how do you help close that understanding gap between where they're coming from and what you're trying to do on their behalf. Trying to work on their behalf. Trying to help them. Yes. I appreciate the advocacy. They have something that they want to see accomplished. And they're just staying right on it. And that's what we're having to make sure that they're comfortable knowing that it's not going to happen tomorrow. But we are working on it. And it's got to be a connection there. It goes back to the trust fact. Yeah. And I think part of that advocacy sometimes being in public office or being in public service can be heartbreaking. If you haven't been to a meeting like this, you might be at some point where there's a controversial item on the agenda and the council chambers are packed. And as soon as the item is over, those people leave. And you're like, you know, we have some really heating things on the agenda. You're like, stay! And I think that's the challenge, right? It's the classic what really gets them to come down or go online or be an advocate. There's so many other things that are compelling in the community that may not be as visible. May not be as appealing on the surface. And you're trying to involve them in a way that's helped them feel a little bit inspired that they can have a real impact. There's nothing automatically that. Yeah. I'm going to be kind of careful with this one, but subject matter educators, you know, sometimes people think they know about things, but a lot of times in our community especially, we do have some folks who are very knowledgeable on the things that we're working on. Yeah, they have a point of view that's rooted in some critical thinking, some analysis, some capabilities, some education. They're not just being whimsical and throwing it up there. They're trying to bring you a seasoned point of view. Or Googling it a couple times and presenting it as fact. Yeah. Well, I mean, to Councilor Davis's point, we are a three college town, so there's like literally subject matter experts in practically everything in this town. I was just going to say, kind of telling us what's broken so we know what needs fixing. And just being engaged to tell us your priorities. You know, we seek community input a lot. I think maybe more than other towns. Maybe be able to show up and tell us what's important to you. So what we tried to do tonight was set the table just to have some good reminders. About how you're working together. Your role as public servants. Your opportunities to strengthen relationships with your colleagues. Your understanding about different expectations of each other and all these other players. The staff. This is not, you know, this information is not necessarily going to be found in some policy manual. It's not going to be found in some book or some document at City Hall. These discussions tend to be very reflective and helpful as reminders. Sometimes they're aspirational, sometimes they're inspirational. Again, I will capture all these. We'll have them on the walls tomorrow. I may refer to those. I'll capture and make sure you have them. And I would encourage you to put them in whatever you reference in your roles as an elected official. Because by large, these are your phrases from your colleagues. This wasn't handed to you. It was really described by you. So we wanted to have the focus tonight on that dimension. The group. Your governance. A little less about government and a little bit more about the group. Tomorrow as we start today, we're going to get more into the operational side, the strategic side, the strategic planning side. So get a good night's sleep tonight. We're going to start tomorrow at nine o'clock. So I think breakfast is being served. Is that right? There's muffins in here. We'll have coffee, muffins, some apple juice and some cranberry juice. The muffins are prepackaged. And so if you would rather have a heartier breakfast, I would suggest you eat that at home. Or bring it with you. So we'll be here by eight thirty. We'll start at nine. Again, we'll have lunch brought in, similar to what Sarah just described. And that we are planning to have a hard stop at three o'clock tomorrow. So again, tomorrow's discussion, we're going to try to have a good flow to it without it seeming like a sprint. We'll give people a chance to have a really good conversation. It'll be up to me to manage that process. So I would encourage you to look over your binder tonight. Looks over the material. Kind of get your head ready. Get your thoughts ready. Get your mindset ready for tomorrow. Good night's sleep. And we'll see you here tomorrow morning. You can leave your stuff here I assume. Yes. I put out some Meheron under her swag. Those pins are magical. So all your dreams come true if you use that pin. I put a pad in my business card. Other than that, good night. Thanks so much for your participation tonight. Thank you.