Sigh.
Sometimes political posturing just ends up getting everyone confused. Case in point: the Alameda Point Task Force made up of the chairs of various boards and commissions. I only bring this up because as part of Monday’s Planning Board meeting, city staff mentioned that they would need to go back to the City Council to clairfy what the roles and responsibilities of the Task Force was to be. Evidently there is some confusion as to who does what and how they do it. I’ll probably be using the word “confusion” and variations on it a lot because that is exactly what it is. If I were more cranky I might use one of my favorite Daily Show words to describe the ridiculousness: clusterf@%ck but I’ll probably just stick with the more benign “confusion.”
With Barbara Kerr also firmly reporting that the scope of the task force is basically to just parrot back to their respective commissions what was said at these task force meetings, one questions why there is even a need for this task force IF that was the only responsibility outlined by the city council.
So I went back to the City Council meeting video and rewatched the discussion on what the purpose of the Task Force was/is and here is what Councilmember Frank Matarrese said (59:50):
And just to be clear on the roles…and responsibilities is they represent the position of their board or commission…and that they provide feedback based on that board’s position and that they report back formally to their board and commissions. [emphasis added]
Now, it would appear that there is confusion about what the roles and responsibilities of this task force is even though it was spelled out quite plainly, it may still require some further fleshing out, which I thought staff did a good job with in this October 17 memo. But it appears that the confusion extends to item 2, bullets 2 and 3 which gives the task force members roles beyond just being tape recorder to then regurgitate back to their board or commission. Because of the confusion, this item will go back to the City Council even though the City Council had voted unanimously on the item.
And this doesn’t even cover the weirdness that was the quickie motion made by Councilmember Doug deHaan to limit the number of members from the Planning Board and Transportation Commission even though with the addition of the Housing Commission Chair and Climate Change Task Force it would have only brought the Task Force number to nine, which was generally agreed upon to be an entirely manageable number. Even before that Councilmember Marie Gilmore had just finished stating that she thought it would be a good idea for those two boards/commissions (Planning & Transportation) to have two representatives since the issues of land use and planning and transportation (traffic, etc…) would be the largest concerns moving forward with Alameda Point. That the rest of the City Council simply rolled over and didn’t discuss this matter further is a bit troubling. At Monday’s Planning Board they also felt as though it would be more beneficial to have two Planning Board members represented on the Task Force rather than just one.
It was clear to this City Council watcher that the proposition to limit the number of Tranportation Commissioners and Planning Board members came out of a concern for perceived biases on the part of select individuals on those bodies. In fact, Councilmember deHaan went as far as to suggest that it shouldn’t be the chair of the boards/commissions that sat on the task force out of a stated concern that they had too much on their plates already and had their own board/commission to run.
If the City Council is going to punt on this issue and simply make the purpose of the Task Force to simply “report back” then they are better off disbanding the Task Force altogether. It is not worth the time of volunteer board/commission members to do what a paid city staff person could also do. Now, if the Task Force’s role is to provide feedback based on the board’s position as stated by Frank Matarrese, then that would be a worthwhile task for the task force. So if it’s just simple confusion on what was voted on then look no further than a transcript of the video and what was distinctly clarified by Councilmember Matarrese even though his roles and responsibilities still have lots of room for further interpretation, but, it did not, as it has been claimed now, simply limit the Task Force members to be human tape recorders.
