Politics is not for everyone.
But for city residents, municipal politics has a deep impact on living in Humboldt.
Even though the committees are separate from one another, staff and council still work together to ensure that the best decisions can be made.
“Council’s job is to steer the boat, and staffs’ is to row.” Says City Manager, Roy Hardy.
Hardy is the connection between staff and council, since he works with all the senior management of the departments on making common policies that all departments use.
There are 217 programs that the municipal council and staff has a role in. This not only provides a division of work but staff and council work together to provide quality programs and services that fit the needs of the community, says Hardy.
The committee system is not something every community has and provides a deeper conversation with the management and directors about what is going on, says Mayor Malcolm Eaton.
“As a result of those discussions, which also quite often involves the community...they make recommendations to council.”
Community & Leisure Services Director, Darrell Lessmeister, says that staff and the Community and Leisure Services Committee are well connected through different managers and small committees.
“I have a number of managers...that all make recommendations and reports to those committees as well.”
Smaller committees also break up the bigger Leisure Services load and reports to the larger committee who reports to council.
“We want to make sure we are engaged with the community and have community consultation and we’re meeting those needs.” Says Lessmeister.
The committee work plays an important role in making sure council has good information.
City Councillor, Roger Nordick, says committee work shortens the amount of time councillors and staff have to spend in council meetings.
“That’s the intent of it, we can banter back and forth at a committee meeting and then we can cut to the chase at the council meeting and get the job done in a more orderly fashion.”
Public Works and Utilities Director, Peter Bergquist, says that everyone works together as a city “motor”.
“You can’t have missing pieces or it just doesn’t work. It’s very crucial to have all those pieces in order to communicate properly to your residents.”
These different pieces of the motor also provide different insights that might have been missed, says Bergquist.
Sometimes there are points of view that he would not exactly see, says Berquist. Bringing the information to committee, different sets of eyes are looking at the same issue from different angles.
“There will always be things staff and I didn’t think about when creating a report, or consider to be necessarily valid at the time. That’s where committees are key.”
Staff and councillors are very open to ask questions, says Eaton, which is part of the committee structure that is very beneficial.
“If councillors see something in the community that they need some information about or get an inquiry from a resident, then they can certainly speak to the city manager or department heads to get an answer.”
See parts 1-7 by clicking on the links: Mayoral Duties, Communications, Corporate Services, Public Works, Leisure Services, Cultural Services and Council.
