City Council gives tentative nod to eliminating 12 civic committees

The city council seemed to agree, at least until individual members get push-back from certain civic volunteers, a recommendation presented tonight from City Manager Scott Sellers to streamline the city’s board/commission/committee structure by eliminating 12 committees, converting two others to standing sub-committees and maintaining in one form or another 10 others.

Expect to see on an upcoming council agenda an item that repeals all individual committee resolutions and then another item that re-creates others as boards or commissions along with establishing the conditions under which their members will be appointed, the number of persons on each one, their terms, etc.

For all practical purposes, the city will no longer have any standing committees, per se. Those that will be kept, such as the Economic Development & Tourism Committee and the Library Committee will be referred to as "boards" under the new guidelines.

The committees recommended to be eliminated are Community Relations, Strategic Planning & Finance, Long-Range Planning, Public Works & Service, Mobility, Safety & Emergency Services, Advisory Redistricting, Council and Mayor Compensation, Council Advisory, Impact Fee Advisory, Development Services and Streets & Alley. Some of these may resurface later as temporary ad-hoc committees.

The city manager recommended making the Pie Festival and the Historic Design Review committees into sub-committees of the Parks & Rec Board.

During an extremely brief discussion following the presentation of Sellers’s recommendations, nary a single member of the council said anything against the proposal. Of course, that silence has no legal standing and individual council members may find some reason to object later, especially after they get an earful from one or more of their constituents serving on a committee slated to get the axe. However, council member David Wilson did argue that many of these committees unnecessarily cost taxpayers money and Mayor Todd Webster also opined the current committee structure is an unnecessary drain on staff members’ time.

(Update: This post has been updated to correct the name of the mayor.)