Dear Mayor Ohtaki and Council,
I’m writing with public input for the January 29, 2018 special meeting.
I was concerned to find that the Menlo Park City Council Procedure Manual (linked to the Jan 29 agenda) is almost identical to the
"Procedures Manual City of Oxnard. [https://www.oxnard.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Procedures-Manual.pdf]" (I learned about
this accidentally while searching for examples of citywide strategic plans.) The order of the information across both is extremely
similar and extensive amounts of large sections of text are identical. The similarity is too extensive for this to possibly have
occurred randomly. Either MP or Oxnard “borrowed” from the other city and/or collaborated to develop their documents jointly –
possibly deriving their work from yet another unnamed source.
The facts need to be ascertained. The first question would be to find out if staff relied on the Oxnard one. If so, I think that
MP would need to follow proper attribution guidelines for these types of documents so as to avoid plagiarism. For example, do we
need permission from the original source and to name them explicitly? Should all direct quotes have quote marks? And so on.
If MP “borrowed” its content from Oxnard, is it desirable to basically “cut and paste” another city’s approach? While some areas
of governmental work might be the same, surely other important areas need to be customized to Menlo Park. For example I notice
that the Mission statements for the City of Menlo Park and the City of Oxnard are essentially identical with an important
difference:
City of Oxnard Mission Statement: It is the mission of the City government to ensure Oxnard is a desirable, safe, and vibrant
community in which to live and conduct business and to respond to the values and priorities of the residents in an open and
transparent manner.
City of Menlo Park Mission Statement: It is the mission of the City government to ensure that Menlo Park is a desirable and
vibrant community in which to live and do business, and to respond to the values and priorities of the residents so as to provide
for the community’s current and future needs
MP’s mission omits the words, “open and transparent manner” that are in the Oxnard Mission Statement. If MP “borrowed” its mission
from Oxnard, why omit the words “open and transparent” from MP’s mission statement?
The Oxnard document explicitly states that its procedures manual was developed by the “Oxnard City Council Procedures Committee in
January 2011.” Oxnard’s Council also developed the Oxnard Mission statement, which was adopted on March 3, 2011. It does not seem
reasonable for MP to have the same mission statement as Oxnard. What was the source of MP’s mission statement? This source should
be stated in this type of document for transparency and historical record purposes. (I have lived in MP for almost 22 years and I
cannot recall a time when the public was formally involved in developing a mission statement for MP.) If staff alone provided the
MP mission statement it's time for a new collaborative and public effort across Council, resident and staff to develop the mission
statement.
Suggestions:
1) Determine the source of the MP City Council Procedure Manual and any ethical and legal obligations (and changes to the process)
that might derive from the answers.
2) Instead of approving the Manual, borrow the City of Oxnard’s method of creating their document. Specifically, appoint a
Procedures Commission (composed of Council, Staff and representative members of the Public) to develop a document customized to
our city and one balanced across Council’s and Staff’s responsibilities. For example, the MP document omits staff’s responsibility
to carry out council decisions even if they disagree with them. The section for the advisory committees also omits staff’s
responsibilities to provide timely and relevant information to the commissions. This section also needs revising to better reflect
the stated expectations for individual MP advisory commissions/committees. In short, it’s too “cookie cutter” of an approach.
3) Establish a goal to develop an adaptive, citywide vision and strategic plan for Menlo Park, such as the City of Fountain
Valley, the City of Chula Vista, City of Norwalk, Salem, Tacoma and other innovative and proactive cities have done. While clearly
a time-consuming practice, MP would benefit from having an overarching plan that guides decision making -- and one that was
developed with considerable collaboration across Council, residents and staff. While we have a General Plan, that guides
development, and a Council work plan, we are missing an overarching plan.
Thank you for taking the time to read this email.
Lynne Bramlett
