Calabasas hires facilitator to improve decorum at city council meetings

By Michael Picarella Acorn Staff Writer

For years, the Calabasas City Council has experienced difficulty with long-running meetings, setting priorities for agenda items and with personal outbursts that have embarrassed some residents. Last week the council hired a facilitator to enhance its organizational performance.

Many council meetings grind on past midnight because of packed agendas and councilmem-ber disagreements. They just don’t get along or they’re passionate about diversified topics.

Occasionally, the meetings deteriorate into personal attacks and name-calling.

City staff members last week suggested a facilitator might enable better cooperation. It came in response to a council meeting in August when City Councilwoman Janice Lee called for a discussion of the roles of the mayor and councilmembers; to define their duties. Lee said she didn’t like the way Mayor Lesley Devine "unilaterally" handled a library grant application that nearly missed a deadline.

Devine was absent at the meeting in which Lee accused her of irresponsibility. Afterward, Devine only said Lee’s comments were silly and uninformed.

But at last week’s meeting, Devine said she was shocked by Lee’s attacks and embarrassed that the council had become "guilty of enabling bad behavior."

"What everyone here knows is that we all are tense and stressed, not knowing when another outburst will erupt," Devine said to the council. "As parents, we would not put up with such temper tantrums from our children ... It is up to all of us to say, ‘Enough.’"

City Manager Donald Duckworth said he and the city’s executive staff believed a facilitator would help the council work cooperatively.

Calabasas resident Carmen Brower spoke of the council’s behavior during public comment at the meeting. She offered a newspaper article called "Why Courtesy Counts" and said the councilmem-bers could learn from it. Hiring a taxpayer-funded facilitator to help councilmembers deal with their own immaturity, Brower said, is shameful. Brower previously ran unsuccessfully for a city council seat.

But hiring a facilitator isn’t rare, Duckworth said. Several major cities, he said, use similar professionals to keep organized. "It’s entirely appropriate," Duckworth said.

Councilmembers James Bozajian and Michael Harrison, who both practice law, agreed and said many organizations and law firms use facilitators.

"Long agendas make us more tired and testy," Lee said.

But a facilitator could prioritize the agenda, supporters said, so that only the most important issues are scheduled. Shorter meetings might then be possible.

It’s no secret, said City Councilman Dennis Washburn, that the council argues. "But it’s always been about the work," he said. "These aren’t easy issues," Washburn said, and many cities don’t deal with topics as controversial as those in Calabasas.

Hiring a facilitator at $2,100 per day was unanimously approved by the council, which calmly discussed the issue without outbursts and without a recess, which commonly occur during disagreements.

City staff asked the sheriff’s department to be present at last week’s council meeting to intercede if a feud broke out, but the peace officer in attendance was dismissed early in the meeting when the councilmembers showed respect for each other.

"The entire (city) organization and community would benefit from council workshops to reach consensus about organizational roles, norms and protocols," Duckworth said. "Increased efficiencies and organizational effectiveness would dwarf the costs of the work."

The council will begin working with the facilitator individually within the next two weeks and jointly–open to the public–within the next 30 days.