Reorganization Plan Continues to Be Source of Controversy in City

One of the more controversial changes enacted under the new city manager has been the City Hall reorganization.  Critics charge that these changes have been instituted to sequester the city manager away from the public, and perhaps more importantly, the employees that he manages.

Other have charged that there is an excessive amount of money being spent on the reorganization at a time when the city is looking to cut back on costs.

On the other hand, the city manager told the Vanguard back in January that he believes these changes could ultimately save the city as much as $500,000 by consolidating duplicative operations.

These ideas were actually presented to the city council as recently as November 29 of last year, as part of the budget workshop.

Instead of having the Finance Department and Parks and Rec Department separately collecting money, the idea is to create a one-stop permit center within City Hall.

This week, the council will have a chance to review the progress made on this item, that has generated criticism from a wide variety of people. It is the most often-cited complaint that people have made about the new city manager, whether it comes from staff, other councilmembers or critics such as Jon Li.

Contrary to some of the claims about cost, the city claims the costs for construction, furniture, ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliance, and other building improvements is “only” $110,000.  Approximately $40,000 of that amount has been used for necessary ADA improvements, which are at least two decades out of compliance, but not applicable unless the city were to have made other building improvements.

The staff report argues, “The consolidation of services allowed staff to restructure departments to and improve efficiencies. The collocation of the Engineering division with Community Development will allow the City to combine development review services, inspection services and administrative functions.”

This has enabled the city to eliminate several positions, including Assistant Building Official, Assistant City Engineer, Planner 60%, Office Assistant II (2), and Senior Office Assistant 50%.

The staff report goes on to report: “Although not directly tied to the development review changes, the City also deleted an Assistant to the Director position located in the Finance Division (City Hall). Four management positions and three administrative positions have been deleted thus far, for a total ongoing annual savings of approximately $730,000.”

They add, “Staff anticipates additional net savings can be obtained once the project is completed and services are collocated.”

The concept of developing a single public services counter to improve service and provide more efficiency, according to the staff report, began with an operational evaluation of the Public Works Department during budget reduction strategy meetings that took place over the middle part of 2011.

“During that time there was much discussion on how the City of Davis could more efficiently use existing staff and increase customer service by changing department proximity, especially those whose work overlaps on projects, to combine resources and essentially eliminate departmental boundaries,” staff writes.

They add: “Consolidation of services and departments will provide a one-stop counter within City Hall for development projects and financial transactions. It will also facilitate the ability to have 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. counter hours without mid-day closure.”

To provide an example for how this at least is expected to work by staff, we use the planning department as an example.  Many have criticized the duplicative nature of the planning department and, more importantly, that the city has too many planners.

Staff writes, “Development services are typically carried out by employees in several city departments and, at times, separate organizations, such as special districts. This is probably the most influential factor that leads to miscommunication, redundancy, conflicting direction and lengthy processing times.”

They argue, “To bring about substantial and lasting improvement, accountability for the entire process should be assigned to a single manager who has the authority to address development services issues that cut across departments.”

They add, “The physical location of Davis’ engineering staff also creates challenges for opportunities to improve development services.”

The first step in the process of moving the engineering division to City Hall was creating vacant space within the building, staff said.  They note what they call an “underutilized” office space in the county building at 600 A Street, due to state budget cuts that had downsized the Child Care Subsidy program.

“Collocating one public counter for recreation reservations and the Child Care Subsidy program both within the Community Services Department and both reporting to the same Superintendent, proved to be an ideal fit,” they argued.

They continue: “This move allowed us to consolidate both divisions’ public counter into one place for the public to go for their Community Services Department needs. It also allowed us to not have to back fill a vacant Senior Office Assistant position since we were able to combine the administrative resources.”

“The Community Services public counter has relocated to the offices at 600 A Street and has made it through the initial phases of summer registration without issue,” the city claims.

Moreover, they created a vacancy in the east side of the building.

“The space previously used by the City Manager’s Office and City Council was needed in order to consolidate the functions of Community Development and Engineering. This required the City Manager’s Office and City Council to be moved to a new location,” they write.

They argue the finance division has been downsized and thus their space needs changed, therefore they decided to consolidate the city manager’s office and the finance division into the space vacated by Community Services both upstairs and down.

“The new space is now more conducive to the needs of both the City Manager’s Office and the City Council,” they write.

Seen in this light, it appears very different from the allegations that were mostly articulated by Jon Li but that have been repeated in a number of other circles that the move was about the consolidation of power.

One of the charges is that Mr. Pinkerton is “redesigning the entire city bureaucracy without regard to Department Heads or the affected employees. “

As Mr. Li charged, “Pinkerton wants to be so hidden in the far back corner away from contact with other city employees (let alone the public) that he doesn’t have to deal with any of the consequences of bad decisions and actually talk with or get to know the people he is ordering around.”

Mr. Li called it “a re-organization designed exclusively to benefit Pinkerton at the expense of every other person who works for the City of Davis, or is a resident of Davis.”

Some may wonder why the Vanguard is again giving voice to the concerns of Jon Li.  The simple answer to that is that, while Jon Li put the words into writing, they are words that have been expressed to the Vanguard off the record from city employees, people who have spoken with city employees, and even some councilmembers.

Back in January, Steve Pinkerton seemed to have support of all five councilmembers.  While no one has gone on the record at this point, that may no longer be the case.

More importantly, by making this informational item and update for the council, hopefully skeptics and critics will be willing to come forward to make public statements about their concerns about this reorganization, because on the surface, at least, what is presented in the staff report seems to make a good deal of sense and any complaints are likely the product more of inconvenience and perhaps frustration than anything else.

—David M. Greenwald reporting