By Patrick Adrian
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CLAREMONT — The three newly elected councilors may play a key role next session in deciding new checks and balances for councilors serving on the finance and policy committees, or whether to make them standing committees or dissolve them entirely.
During a late-hour discussion at Monday’s regular council meeting, councilors raised a lengthy list of concerns about the governing make up of two council-created advisory committees: the policy committee and finance committee.
While councilors said they found value in the work of both committees, there is a desire for more regulations and rules in place to prevent individual councilors from having too much influence.
Additionally, these two committees are scheduled to dissolve on Dec. 31, 2019, unless the current council extends them. Some councilors expressed hesitancy to make that decision ahead of a new council in January that will have three new members.
The council delays vote to extend
The council created the policy committee in 2016 for the purpose of reviewing and updating city policies. In 2017, the council created ad hoc finance committee to meet as needed to develop fiscal policy recommendations for the council on issues including debt, fund balances and investments.
At the time, the councils only authorized these committees a temporary trial period.
On Monday, Mayor Charlene Lovett wanted the council to consider establishing these committees as “standing committees,” permitting them to operate on a regular and continuing basis without a date of expiration.
While Councilor Andrew O’Hearne opposed an outgoing council creating standing committees, Councilor Kristin Kenniston said she did not see a problem in the council acting now. In addition, she said that a majority of the current council will also be a majority in the next, and that deciding to extend the committees now does not prevent the next council from making changes.
However, the council opted to move the discussion to the next council meeting, scheduled for Wednesday, Dec. 11.
Councilor Scott Pope raised the possibility that the council must provide a public hearing before creating a standing committee. The council did not know the procedure and wanted time to research.
Concerns about councilor roles
Even when in support of the continuation of the policy and finance committees, councilors expressed numerous concerns about how they have operated so far and noted their roles would need to be more defined and regulation increased if made into standing committees.
Councilors were particularly concerned about Lovett serving on both committees, in addition to serving as the policy committee chair. While Assistant Mayor Allen Damren chairs the finance committee, Lovett sets the agenda for both the policy committee and the City Council. Additionally, Lovett and Damren were the only council members actively serving on the finance committee, which councilors said gave them too much influence over agendas and issues that reach the council.
“Having the same people making the agendas for all three meetings is very problematic,” said Councilor Jon Stone.
O’Hearne and Koloski pointed to recent examples in which Lovett’s role in all three groups posed problematic situations.
“Basically, I’ve seen that the agenda of the policy committee becomes the agenda of the council,” O’Hearne said.
In one example, O’Hearne said that Lovett had placemarked a discussion for a proposed holiday display policy onto the council agenda before the policy committee met to discuss it.
Koloski criticized the ability of Lovett or Damren to use their council role to move items to the finance committee, where they serve, for review.
“Part of this body is making the decision to refer a council decision to another body that is basically yourself,” Koloski said.
Even more concerning to councilors is that since June, when former city councilor Jeremy Zullo resigned, the finance committee has only had two council members instead of the required number of three.
Stone found on the city website that the mayor has the authority to appoint new councilors to the finance committee. However, the issue of needing a councillor to replace Zullo never occurred.
While acknowledging that the committee should have raised the need for a third member sooner, Damren said there was no intent to deceive. Due to time constraints as Damren served on the city manager search committee, the finance committee did not hold any meetings between June 3 — when Zullo was still an active member — and the most recent meeting on Nov. 8.
Damren also pointed out that the reason Lovett was serving on both committees was because other councilors did not express interest.
“Any council member can be appointed to the finance committee through the mayor,” Damren said. “I was appointed only because I had the interest at the time in finances.”
Lovett said that she has not used here multiple roles to control agendas. She reiterated that these committees do not make decisions for the council, for their role is to research information for the council’s behalf.
“Before we had these committees, we’d often be here until midnight or after 11 p.m. because we didn’t have the information these committees provide,” Lovett said.
In the only action taken, the council appointed Kenniston to serve as the third finance committee member until the term ends on Dec. 31.
A proposal by Koloski to add two members of the public to the finance committee will be considered at the next council meeting.
Stone said that he wants to pursue changes that would prevent a councilor from serving on both the finance and policy Committees simultaneously, and possibly for the mayor to serve as a committee chair.
However, he indicated these being part of a broader discussion for structuring the two committees.
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