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Palo Alto Online

Budget battle highlights split on City Council

by Bill D'Agostino

Three weeks of extremely tense city budget hearings concluded last week, amid personal and philosophical differences between the Palo Alto council members who serve on the Finance Committee.

The committee's recommendation for a balanced budget wasn't unanimous -- Councilwoman Hillary Freeman voted against it -- and was mired by conflicting attitudes about how to balance the city's budget, the best way to run the city and a perceived lack of trust with top city administrators.

During the hearings, there were many 2-2 splits on items pitting Freeman and Councilwoman Yoriko Kishimoto against the other two members of the committee: Councilmen Bern Beecham and Jack Morton, who served as the group's chair.

Given that the city is reducing the budget $10 million this year -- on top of $11.5 million in reductions last year -- it's understandable there is some tension on the council and in the community, City Manager Frank Benest said.

"It gets a little messy," he said. "It's OK. That's the way it's supposed to work. Why do we want to be perfect?"

But maybe Benest should be worried. An apparent lack of trust in the expertise of top staff underlies some of the disagreements, at least according to Morton.

"There is not the recognition that we have a level of expertise in our administrative staff that most other communities would die for," he said. Freeman and Kishimoto's frequent questions were seen by Morton as "challenges to staff, in effect criticisms of the decisions or the information staff has presented."

Kishimoto said she is not on the council to "rubber stamp" staff's recommendations. And Freeman said she wants a flatter organization, with less administrators. But neither admitted to distrusting staff.

One suggestion that did pass the entire committee, made by Beecham, was to have a report summarizing and justifying all managers or supervisors who have four or less people reporting to them.

The motion, and others made by Freeman and Kishimoto but not approved by the other two, are apparent indications the council is listening to factions in the community who question whether the city is overstaffed and overpaying its employees.

Yet ironically, the two councilwomen who appear to share those concerns the strongest also voted for fewer cuts in services.

A proposal to keep the Terman Library branch open was made by Freeman and supported by Kishimoto, even though one of the reasons it's closing is because there aren't enough librarians to support it.

The library is still marked for closure.

Part of the disagreements were apparently exacerbated by what some describe as Freeman's and Kishimoto's lack of understanding about the city and its budget.

Members of city staff sitting in the audience were visibly laughing at Freeman when, during the very end of the hearings last Thursday night, she made a motion to reduce the amount the city spends on postage back to the level it was a few years ago.

But that was dropped after a city administrator told her doing so would mean there wouldn't be enough money to pay for the utility bill that is sent to residents, since postage rates increased over the past few years.

"That kind of direction is simply unproductive and silly," Morton said afterward.

That same evening, Kishimoto proposed that the entire $300 million city organization be studied by an outside consultant. Kishimoto was also mocked from some audience members when she suggested the proposal could be completed by September and merely cost $50,000.

"That's the height of naivete," said former mayor Larry Klein, who observed many of the budget hearings. "It didn't seem to me that they were doing their homework."

A similar study from 1990 cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and required a lot of time, both by the consultants and by city staff, Assistant City Manager Emily Harrison pointed out.

"I'm not sure there's an understanding about how much effort that's really going to take," Harrison said.

Kishimoto said she felt it was important to have the study "to give us an independent answer to the question whether we're the right size organization."

Freeman said she wanted the organization to be "leaner and meaner."

Another big rift among the council members appears to center around the role of the council itself.

According to the City Charter, the council acts as the policy makers for the community, similar to a board of directors, while the city manager is the administrative head, like the city's CEO.

But Freeman and Kishimoto are perceived to want more of a role in administrative affairs.

"Two members of the committee do not believe there is a clear line between the job of the city manager and the job of the City Council," said Morton, referring to Freeman and Kishimoto.

"There are differences in how much my colleagues would have to be involved in the day-to-day operations," Beecham agreed.

One proposal by those two members would have violated the city's charter if it had been passed by the entire council, according to Benest.

The proposal, made by Kishitmoto and supported by Freeman, was to have the council review every vacancy in City Hall.

"I believe it's inappropriate to have that kind of mechanism," a visibly troubled Benest said in response. "Very respectfully, I request that you not do that."

The idea was dropped in favor of Beecham's motion to study the organization's structure.

The line between the council and the manager isn't always an easy one to quantify. Benest frequently refers to himself as a "policy partner."

"It probably goes both ways," Kishimoto said. "If we're partners, we're partners."

"It's not black and white," Assistant City Manager Emily Harrison acknowledged, "but it's absolutely not appropriate for them to be making hiring and firing decisions."

Freeman said Benest is "very strong willed" and she is "trying to ensure that the appropriate balance is there. ... Because he is very tenacious, one who is assuring the checks and balances generally has to be at least to be on that same level of tenacity."

Often, most of the biggest disagreements and outward displays of annoyance were only present toward the end of the meeting, when defenses clearly dropped.

Freeman said she had even more questions to ask at the end of each meeting, but was rushed along by Morton.

"I personally would have handled it a different way but I'm not the chair," she said.

At a meeting three weeks ago, Morton, who is chair of the committee, asked his fellow committee members to vote for or against the proposed budget for the city's Planning Department.

Still having a question to ask about the budget, Freeman shot back, "I just have one more. I'm sorry Jack, I know it's hard."

E-mail Bill D'Agostino at bdagostino@paweekly.com