NAFF’s latest video provides a good summary of Tuesday night’s council meeting and confirms, to me at least, that the rage over the Mayo expansion, the G&L donations, the campaign contribution changes and a myriad of other issues and problems has reached critical mass and boiled over.
It’s taken quite a while to get to this point. Let’s review where we are and how we got here.
For years we’ve heard from TimBen Boydston, David Gauny and others on that side of the camp that something is sick in the City of Santa Clarita. They (Boydston more than Gauny) have alleged, along with many others, that the City’s Staff and its Manager (Ken Pulskamp, or as Bruce McFarland calls him, “The Don”) have too much power and influence over City affairs, over development and such. They allege that, contrary to the natural structure of a Council-Manager form of local government, it is Ken Pulskamp who is calling the shots and directing the Council to do things.
Oh sure, it’s probably more subtle than that, this group would say. It’s not like Ken Pulskamp calls up the City Council and tells them how to vote. It’s more like KP and the professional City Staff exercise an inordinate amount of influence by determining what rises to the Council’s attention, and they, as a result, get what they want.
Which isn’t always what the people of Santa Clarita want, at least according to TimBen Boydston and David Gauny.
So what about this theory? Well, consider this from the City staff’s point of view. These people are professionals, having trained for years in their respective disciplines. They went through what by all accounts is a pretty rigorous hiring process. They obtained certifications, credentials and advanced degrees specific to their disciplines and to local government and, what’s more, many of them live here as well. They win awards. Magazines write about them. They’re justifiably proud of their accomplishments.
The City Council, in contrast, only works part time and has a few weeks off during the summer. Some of them are pretty adept at the technical odds and ends of city planning, finance, and perhaps traffic and transportation. Few are probably adept at engineering or interfacing with other technocrats in other segments of government. The bottom line is they are part time citizen representatives, and they depend on the staff for professional and informed advice because, let’s be honest here, they’re largely clueless when it comes to running a city. But they love showing up at ribbon cutting ceremonies.
The staff, meanwhile, is interested in furthering their local government careers. They read the planning and transportation journals, they attend society meetings and conferences, they educate themselves further. In general, they know their stuff, they want to do a good job and put some cool projects on their CVs.
And -this is key- no professional planner thinks generic, low-density suburban projects have a real future in our community or elsewhere.
And so, as technocrats are wont to do, they think big and dream up big plans. Like One Valley, One Vision. Like the Non-Motorized Transportation Plan. Or the North Newhall Specific Plan. And a dozen other large-scale, multi-year planning efforts that, in their considered opinion, rationally address the economic and infrastructure challenges facing Santa Clarita in the years and decades ahead.
And Ken Pulskamp is their voice to the City Council. I repeat that: Pulskamp is not just in charge of the staff, he is the public face of the staff.
Which is why the Gaunyites and Boydston camps hate him so much. Because they look at these big plans and think, “Holy shit! The City staff is remaking us brick by brick into the San Fernando Valley! They are planning to bring another 250,000 people* here! What about we the people?”
To some extent, I see their point. Is it right for a City Manager to not just implement policy, but to formulate policy as well? After all, Ken Pulskamp is not elected by the people, but Bob Kellar is. Shouldn’t policy making be left up to the elected officials?
In our case, I’d argue that the City staff and Pulskamp can and should attempt to formulate policy for the reasons I cited above. The City staff is professional, educated, and knowledgeable. We should consider their plans, opinions, and knowledge.
Why? Other cities do it. In a 1997 survey of City managers, the International City/County Managers Association reported that 80% of City Managers think they should be involved themselves in policy formulation. What’s more, a 2001 survey of City Councilmembers in Council-Manager cities revealed that a majority of elected council members considered the City Manager to be a very important part of the policy formulation process.
On the Council side of things, a National League of Cities study in 2001 reported that Council Members of cities with populations between 75,000 and 200,000 spent only about 25 hours per week working “on council related matters.” My bet is that number would be even lower in Santa Clarita. Does anyone honestly think the five of them spend 25 hours a week working on policy matters related to Santa Clarita?
I can send you the sources I cited by email if you like (they are not linkable), but the point is this: many cities depend on their staff and management to formulate policies. The elected leadership, in contrast, has neither the time nor the chops to really create successful policy in all circumstances. This is the reality, and it’s not just in Santa Clarita.
And so there you have it. The vocal and boisterous discontent we saw at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting is a direct result of the City of Santa Clarita’s Council-Manager form of government. It is a form of government that relies heavily on a full-time, professional staff to not just manage city affairs but also to create responsible policy for the entire city.
And the discontent is also a direct result of having part time Councilmembers who lean, in a big way, on the City staff for ideas to solve problems.
This feels undemocratic to some. It feels particularly undemocratic when 100 people show up in the Council Chambers and are ignored.
But guess what? This structure works for most of us, at this time. Life is pretty good here. I think we under-represent some segments of the population and I’m tempted by the idea of Districts, but by and large, I see the City staff making good-faith efforts to plan for the future of the SCV, to grow it economically in an era of rising gas prices and increasing environmental awareness. Whereas Gauny and Boydston see Mayo as a canary in the coalmine, I look at a revitalized Old Town Newhall with a Metrolink station, a community center and a new library and see smart planning paying off. Whereas Bruce McFarland claims The Don is ignoring the will of the people, I see a survey that says most people are happy and want more local jobs, businesses, and things to do (I also see a lot of silly people claiming traffic is a problem and the City, as a whole, cowering in the face of that absurdity).
So in the end, Boydston and Gauny camps are right. The City manager & staff do push policy**, but it is, by and large, good policy that most of the community probably supports.
* The Signal headline that has made more NAFF videos than any other is the one that says SCV will someday have 400,000 people. NAFF and his pals think that’s what the City staff are doing: trying to build out the SCV so that an additional 150,000 people move here. The reality is the staff is responsibly thinking about a future in which 400,000 people, of their own volition in a free market, might want to call the SCV home. And they are planning for that in a rational and logical way.
** And yes, I suppose you could say the staff have an interest in having the people they like on the City Council, because the councilmembers have shown themselves to be amenable to the staff’s good policy
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