Item 1B- Draft Minutes of the Rountable Meeting on September 10, 2016Without an effective relationship, just the opposite is likely to occur. The trust level is
likely to be low, policy direction is less likely to be clear, instances of role conflict can
increase, and a lack of clarity regarding organizational direction can result, affecting
both staff performance and public confidence in the institution.
Discussion
Mayor Reeves stated he would like to discuss clear policy direction provided by the Commission. He
felt the Commission, as a group, needed to make the City Manager aware of what they expected out of
him and City staff.
Mayor Reeves explained that during his research, he also found information fi·om the International City
& County Manager's Association regarding the importance of the relationship between the City
Manager and Commission and brought copies for each Commissioner, the City Manager and the City
Clerk. The booklet is entitled "Making it Work: The Essentials of Commissioners-City Manager
Relationships."
Mayors Reeves felt both the Commission and the City Manager were willing to work out the
communication issues. He explained the meeting he had with the City Manager regarding his
perf01mance evaluation and the goals and objectives he would like for him to accomplish noting Mr.
VanLiere's response was that he had not been given any specific goals by the Commission before.
Mayor Reeves stated he did not want to waste time and asked City Manager Van Liere if he was ready
to leave the City or if he is ready to really work with us. Mr. VanLiere stated he plans to stay and work
with any of you that want to work with him; he believes they have accomplished a lot and wants to
continue. Mayor Reeves asked Mr. Van Liere if he wants to stay and Mr. Van Liere replied yes.
(Commissioner Hill anived at 10:15 am)
Mayor Reeves gave a brief summary to update him on the discussion.
Commissioner Hill explained why he never questioned the City Manager's commitment to Atlantic
Beach. He believed, prior to his appointment, there was a culture within the City that was not healthy
and he has seen a huge improvement since Mr. Van Liere took the position. He agreed there were issues
regarding the communications between the City Manager and the Commission as a group.
Mayor Reeves stated he explained earlier that it is the job of the Commission to set policy and direct the
City Manager on how they wanted him to run the City. He explained that he keeps hearing "this is a
new Commission and they do not know how the City operates", and believes maybe it does not take us
two or three years to figure it out. Commissioner Hill thought there is a possibility the Mayor does not
know his role in the Commission/City Manager f01m of Government. Mayor Reeves responded that
Commissioner Hill has been a member of the Commission for two years and that does not make him an
expert. Mayor Reeves added the City Manager is also new to the job. He had no prior experience and is
learning as he moves forward just as the new Commissioners.
Commissioner Hill was excited about the prospect of improving communication with the City Manager.
Commissioner Stinson explained the Commissioners are new because the voters were not happy with
the policy and how it was enacted. He felt it was difficult for City employees when the Commission
changes and employees need to accept there would be a new Commission every two years.
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Commissioner Hill felt instability in staff was a large obstacle and one of the most damaging he has seen
in 30 years. A line of communication needed to be established to stabilize the workforce. He added the
City now has to hire a new Police Chief. Mayor Reeves interjected that Chief Deal resigned in order to
be closer to his family. However, he has laid a foundation that will make it easier to find a new Chief.
Mayor Reeves asked for suggestions on how the Commission can improve communications with the
City Manager.
Commissioner Waters explained the Commission is the policy making body and it is the City Manager's
job to implement the policy. She felt culture played a big role, adding that the City could have the best
policy but still have a culture that was completely ineffective and unpleasant. She gave an example
using her business to explain that change does not happen quickly. Commissioner Stinson asked
Commissioner Waters how she would deal with an employee that was not receptive to change and asked
her to give an example of how the Commission could make changes. Commissioner Waters replied, at
her business she changed a policy and that change did not work; she had to negotiate with her employees
and revise the policy so it would work. It is impmiant to have employees buy into policy changes.
Commissioner Hill stated he worked in government for over 30 years with the fire department and they
were constantly changing policy. He explained in Commissioner Water's example she is the one that
wanted to change the policy and it was her personal goal to change it; the rest of the team had no vision.
In this situation, as a Commission they have to make their goals part of a team effmi and 99% of that is
based on communication. He added that he probably communicates with the City Manager less than
any other Commissioner but when he does, it is clear. He hoped the Commission could focus on a
mechanism to have all questions answered. He thought it is effective and should be mandatory for each
Commissioner to meet with the City Manager prior to Commission meetings to review the agenda.
Mayor Reeves felt the Commissioners were already meeting with the City Manager prior to meetings.
He added that it is also impmiant for all Commissioners to receive their agenda packets and be prepared
to vote before entering the Chamber, unless something came up to have them change their minds during
the meeting.
Commissioner Stinson gave an example of a communication breakdown by explaining that at the
previous budget meeting he made a suggestion to challenge employees to help the City save money by
giving them an incentive that part of the savings would be shared. He felt like he hit a brick wall when
the only comments he received was "what is the police department going do? The police department will
have to lay people off." Commissioner Stinson explained he would like to have heard some suppmi and
discussion from fellow Commissioners regarding the merits, or lack of, for the idea. He would also have
liked for the City Manager to perhaps respond that "it was a good idea, and state that he would look into
it to see ifthere was oppmiunity to do that." Mayor Reeves, Commissioner Waters, and Commissioner
Hill all agreed they misunderstood Commissioner Stinson's idea and would try to recognize that moving
forward.
Commissioner Harding felt the communication issue began with the Commission as an elected body.
The Commission sets policy and it is the City Manager's job to acknowledge and implement policy, but
the City Manager receives mixed ideas from the Commission when they do not all agree. He thought
the Commission failed to provide good solid guidance to the City Manager after policy is made.
Commissioner Hill suggested compmimentalizing ideas to help with communication. He stated due to
the Sunshine Law, Commissioners do not have the oppmiunity to speak with each other outside of a
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public meeting. Mayor Reeves interjected that Commissioners can communicate with each other as
long as the meetings are advertised as a public meeting. Commissioner Hill felt those one-on-one public
meetings were uncomfortable.
Commissioner . Harding stated the main question at hand is "how do we improve communication
between the City Manager and Commission." The communication has to start with the Commission.
They need to stop the confrontational tones at the meetings that put everyone on the defensive. He felt
Commissioners need to think about how they communicate to others. He questioned how the
Commission could effectively communicate with the City Manager when they cannot seem to
communicate with each other.
Mayor Reeves felt Commission communications have far improved over the days when they would
actually challenge each other to take things outside to settle. He stated they needed to give the City
Manager ideas on how he could communicate better with Commissioners.
Commissioner Waters apologized and explained she misunderstood Commissioner Stinson's idea that
he presented during the budget meeting. Although she thought she was participating in the discussion,
she felt she may have left him with the impression that she thought it was not a good idea and that was
not her intention. She felt there needed to be checks and balances regarding ideas to ensure the savings
would benefit the City. She was willing to revisit the idea.
Commissioner Harding felt that was an opportunity for the Commission to set a policy and have the City
Manager bring a proposal back to the table.
Commissioner Hill explained his thought when the idea was brought forward. In his mind he did not see
much opportunity for the City to save. He did not discount the idea and was willing to reassess it at a
future meeting.
Mayor Reeves stated there is already a policy in place for employees to save the City money. The City
Manager has given out bonus checks to employees in the past for saving money. He felt it was also
important to publicly recognize those employees. City Manager Van Liere explained the cunent policy
is if an employee has a cost savings idea that is implemented that employee receives a percentage of the
savmgs.
Commissioner Waters stated the budget meeting was not the conect venue for setting policies. She felt
those ideas should be presented during a Commission meeting. She also thought it was a good idea to
introduce, but found it frustrating that she thought he was trying to implement the idea during this
budget cycle. She added that if a Commissioner wanted to implement something during a budget cycle
the idea needed to be brought and discussed prior to the meeting to approve that budget. Mayor Reeves
agreed that ideas and discussions regarding budgets needed to begin on October 1st for upcoming
budgets.
Commissioner Hill stated City Manager Van Liere does not have a policy requiring Commissioners to
come directly to him with questions. There is no filter between him and his subordinates. Department
heads are exposed and available to speak to Commissioners. That is not the case in most Cities. He
complimented Mr. VanLiere for implementing that policy and added that has not always been the case
in the past.
Mayor Reeves also approved of the concept that there were no rules regarding Commissioners speaking
directly with staff. He has anywhere from five to eight inquiries from citizens on a daily basis. Instead
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of trying to get answers for the citizen, he always directs them to contact the conect depmiment and tells
them to contact him if they do not receive a response from that department so he can follow up. He
explained the Florida League of Cities offers a program once a year to Cities wherein the citizens are
invited to attend a "City 101" class." The program offers an oppmiunity for citizens to learn how the
City operates, the duties of the Commission, the duties of the City Manager, the budget, etc. It also
allows citizens an oppmiunity to get to lmow the staff. He would like for the City to offer the class
when they have enough staff available to participate. Commissioner Hill questioned if there was a civic
organization that would offer the class. Mayor Reeves felt it would be nice for the citizens to
understand how the government worked and get to know the City Manager and depmiment heads so
they are comfmiable contacting them if they have a problem.
Commissioner Hill explained how he wanted the citizens to lmow City Manager Van Liere, stating
before he became City Manager the City was installing new water meters throughout the City. Usually
one out of 50 of the new meters would leak. When the property owner contacted the City due to the leak
they would be told the water leak was not on the City side and the property owner would be required to
repair the leak. When Mr. Van Liere became City Manager things changed and now the city employee
that knows they created the leak comes back at 11 :30 pm to fix the problem. He explained that City
Manager Van Liere told his employees that they do not replace a meter and then not come back to repair
it because the leak is not on the City side of the prope1iy.
Commissioner Hill felt the biggest problem facing the City is staffing issues. Mayor Reeves stated that
was the City Manager's responsibility. He questioned why staff members have quit or resigned.
Mayor Reeves suggested the City be proactive by conducting the "City 1 01" class. He added that he got
involved in a problem a citizen was having with parking and tried to help solve the problem which in
tum created another problem. He admitted that he learned a valuable lesson from that experience.
Commissioner Hill stated when it comes to parking issues, the City needed to consider the law so that it
did not fall back on politics.
Commissioner Waters stated the Commission does not work for one individual citizen; they work for all
the citizens and need to consider how the outcome of conecting one problem would affect everyone
else. She added there needs to be city-wide support for those types of problems.
Commissioner Waters stated the culture established is the City Manager and City Clerk repmi to the
Commission but they are not pmi of the Commission so their input is not as valued as it should be. She
felt that culture created the reason why they were not receiving effective input from them and it needed
to be changed to give them better expectations of what the Commission expected in their reports. She
asked for some feedback from the City Manager.
City Manager Van Liere stated it is interesting listening to how the Commission communicates with
each other; they badger one another so that it appems they are not enjoying their role as a
Commissioner. It presents a culture that makes his staff uncomfmiable. When staff approaches the
podium to speak to the Commission, they sometimes feel as though they m·e approaching a firing squad.
Depending on the topic, some discussions with staff go well and others are derailed. He suggested if
Commissioners have questions, that they meet with staff prior to meetings instead of calling them up
during meetings. He added that recently staff spent months revising the schedule of when the agenda
packets are put together for the Commission so they would receive them 10 days prior to the meeting
and the press would have plenty of time to review them so articles could be placed in the paper
regarding upcoming agenda items. He was concerned that he was not receiving input from the
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Commission on agenda items. He stated he would like to hear from Commissioners prior to the meeting
if they have a question about an agenda item so that he would have time to find an answer to the
question or place additional information in the agenda packets. He felt the City and staff has responded
to the requests of the Commission as to how they want the process to work but the Commission was not
meeting him halfway or giving staff the opportunity to make the process work. He understood
Commissioners had busy schedules but asked them to consider calling him, if they could not meet in
person. He stated he is always available. He requested the Commissioners let him lmow what they want
from him that they are not receiving. He explained he is aware of a building report requested by Mayor
Reeves and he has discussed the situation regarding the software. The report is under construction and
will be provided in the agenda packets as a regular monthly repmi. He added that he was unclear if the
Commission had a consensus to actually hold this meeting today.
Mayor Reeves responded there was not a consensus to hold this meeting. He called the meeting to
discuss communications. As Mayor, he felt it was impmiant to have a roundtable to discuss ways to
communicate. He stated he requested the building report so he could report the City's building activity
during the Chamber of Commerce meeting. It's been months and he has still not received the report.
He would also like to receive briefings from the City Manager regarding incidents in the City.
Commissioner Hill questioned Mayor Reeves as to why he would request a repmi from the building
department when he lmew they did not have the staff or software to provide the information. Mayor
Reeves responded, the previous Commission authorized the City to purchase a $100,000 software
program and paid to train staff to learn the program and it does not work. He hoped the new software
program would function properly and be able to create reports.
Commissioner Hill felt the Commission needed to prioritize their requests for infmmation. He felt the
City has fallen into a trap of restricting infmmation from the public to serve project needs. He explained
he would like to remove that restriction. That is his only complaint about the City Manager.
Mayor Reeves explained a citizen asked him about a pe1mitting project that was requested 3 or 4 weeks
ago to replace their screen enclosure for their pool. He asked the citizen to contact the building
depmiment. That citizen called and received the infmmation they needed. However, that citizen was
concerned about why the City would send an employee to attend a conference for a week when they
were shorthanded. His response to that citizen was that the City had to retrain and certify employees.
Commissioner Waters stated it did not seem wise to request repmis from staff when the City is
shmihanded and citizens m·e waiting on pe1mits.
Mayor Reeves replied he has been asking for the repmi for months. He felt the City Manager should
lmow the answer without having to create a repmi. He suggested staff provide the information on the
number of permits pulled and the number of new businesses established within the City during the City
Manager's weekly staff meetings.
Commissioner Hill felt it was safe to say the previous Commission's attempt to purchase software that
did not perfmm was not the first time a City has made that mistake. He agreed the information
regarding new building permits and business reports should be on the website but it was cunently tied to
the old software and the building depmiment was in the process of updating new software.
Mayor Reeves explained during every Chamber meeting, each Mayor repmis on the number of new
building permits and other stats of the City. He simply wanted to be able to repmi the same infmmation
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Commissioner Harding believed everyone needed to work better at communication. He meets with the
City Manager on a regular basis and sometimes one forgets to follow up on the discussion. He felt the
City needed to review the way they are doing business because the loss of one employee in the building
depmiment should not be so detrimental to the depmiment that it can no longer function efficiently. The
reason the City is shmi-staffed is because they have not been able to find qualified people to fill the
positions. The City has to be able to continue to operate when an employee leaves. To tell citizens the
City cannot be productive because we are short on staff is not productive and unacceptable.
Commissioner Waters believed when it comes to giving the City Manager direction, the Commission
has to work harder at coming to a consensus, clarifying it, and making sure the community supports it.
When it comes to creating a productive environment, the Commission needs to do a better job of asking
for input from staff and respecting their input, instead of being accusatory. She felt in tenns of
communications, there were some good ideas. She stated the City Manager was conect about the
agenda. If a Commissioner has something on the agenda they felt was impmiant, it was a reasonable
expectation to notify them. She felt hiring a media specialist would help with providing information.
When it comes to City responsiveness, she suggested the City Manager bring forward a policy about
how citizen input was going to be handled by each department head and how it would be tracked.
Commissioners also needed to structure their requests for infonnation and provide a time and date for
when they expected a response. If the infmmation involves a cost or extensive staff time, the
Commission should approve the request.
City Manager Van Liere believed everyone should respect one another and not make requests for
information that was umeasonable. Agendas m·e prepared every two weeks and they provide a lot of
information. The documents prepm·ed that are placed in the agenda as well as his comments at meetings
are his way of communicating what is happening in the City. The agenda is an ongoing packet of
infmmation provided to the Commission that has been sufficient in the past. Infmmational departmental
repmis are also provided in the consent agenda. They m·e consistent and equally shared. It would be
valuable for him to meet with each Commissioner prior to meetings to review the agendas and fill in any
gaps or answer any questions. He questioned all the discussion about hiring a media specialist when
staff provides infmmation when requested as fast as they possibly can. He did not see cost as an issue
because there are not many requests for reports. He relies on the City Clerk for some documents but
would like to give staff credit for doing a great job. When someone leaves the City, staff has to
prioritize duties and do what is necessary to get the job done. In some cases, they will hire a contract
person to fill in on a temporary basis. Overall, he believed staff was doing well, but could do a better
job at tracking complaints. The new building permit software will be up and running and should be able
to provide a lot of information. He encouraged Commissioners to meet with him anytime.
Mayor Reeves thanked everyone for attending the meeting. He felt they all had a better understanding
of one another. He questioned the pmiion of the agenda titled "Staff Repmis" adding there were never
any items under the title. He was unsure of its purpose. City Clerk Bmile explained Item 9 was the
City Manager repmi and Item 10 was for other departmental reports. Mayor Reeves asked about
"Committee Repmis." He stated he has never seen anything under those reports. City Manager Van
Liere responded committee repmis were only provided twice a year. Mayor Reeves stated the City
Chmier calls for Commission, City Manager, City Attorney and City Clerk to comment at the end of the
agenda. He would like to have that revised and moved forward to the beginning of the agenda. He
agreed Commissioners needed to meet with the City Manager prior to meetings to get questions
answered. He also felt the City Manager should reach out to the Commissioner to set up an agenda
review meeting if he did not receive a call from them. He thought that would help open the door to
communications. He also felt these types of meetings were good for communications. He believed the
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City Manager was sincere in his response that he wants to continue working with the City and the
Commission needs to support him and help him to succeed.
Mayor Reeves stated he provided copies of the booklet "Making it Work-The Essentials of
Commission-Manager Relations" to each Commissioner and the City Clerk. The booklet was written by
a City Manager and designed for a City Manager. He wants the Commission and the City Manager to
be good leaders and managers. He also encouraged Commissioners to meet with the three appointed
officials to review their performance evaluations and provide support to help them succeed.
Mayor Reeves stated he asked Chief Deal to attend the September 26th Commission meeting to say their
farewells.
Adjournment
There being no further discussion by the City Commission, Mayor Reeves declared the meeting
adjoumed at 12:29 p.m.
ATTEST
Donna L. Bartle, CMC
City Clerk
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Mitchell E. Reeves
Mayor/Presiding Officer