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2023/06/02 - Walter's Blog: Council Retreat

Democracy on the Front Lines 
City Administrator’s Blog 
Walter Denton 
 

Being a member of the O’Fallon City Council is a tough job. In what other position are you responsible for setting policy for a $103 million enterprise where there is no experience required, no hierarchy, no specialization, vague task definition, little feedback, and all business is conducted in public meetings? It is difficult for City Council members to be successful in such a challenging environment. 

While the recent City Council elections only gave us one new Council member, 12 out of our 14 City Council members have been in office for five years or less. Despite their relative inexperience, they are required to make decisions on the future of our community. On May 22, we held a City Council training session to discuss how the City Council can work together to lead the community. 

The training session was facilitated by James Arndt, who is a local government consultant and former city administrator. Prior to the meeting, Arndt distributed a survey so the Council members could evaluate how well they believe how effective the City Council is in areas such as communications, meetings, decision making, and responsibilities. Then at the training session, the Council members reviewed the results of the survey and discussed ways to improve operations. 

Here are some of the highlights from the survey and training session: 

  • The City Council supports the Vision, Mission, goals, and objectives of the organization. 
  • The City Council has a good working relationship with the mayor, staff, and each other. 
  • The City Council supports rules and procedures to make meetings operate more smoothly. 
  • The City Council supports the establishment of best practices for effective working relationships between the City Council and staff. 

As a result of the discussion from the training session, James Arndt and staff are developing a follow-up document to articulate the expectations, rules, and procedures that the City Council and staff can follow to be more productive. Arndt will return for the July 31 Committee of the Whole meeting to finalize the document and develop action steps for the future. 

Training is essential for anyone to be successful, and the City Council is no different. The training session was valuable because it provided an opportunity to assess themselves and deliberate how they work better together to make O’Fallon an even better community. There are many exciting things happening in O’Fallon, and this training will help us to maintain the momentum.