The first step in the process is to determine if the request is related to City Council goals. If the request is related to Council goals, it is assigned to City staff for further analysis and determination. Some requests do not have policy implications (i.e. the action will not have citywide ramifications) and are either individual requests (such as a letter of support) or are related to operations of the City. These requests may result in a Non Policy-Related Action.
Those requests that do have citywide ramifications make up the Policy Process. The first step is to determine if the policy is City or State/federal. If the policy is citywide, Staff completes a policy analysis and recommends a Policy-related Action. If the policy is State or federal and the City's position is aligned with that of the Colorado Municipal League (CML) or National League of Cities (NLC), Staff will recommend a Policy-Related Action. If the policy is not aligned with CML or NLC, Staff will complete an analysis before making a recommendation for a Policy-Related Action.
The Colorado Municipal League and National League of Cities each have their own processes for adopting policy positions. Staff from the City Manager's Office is appointed each year to the CML Policy Committee, which recommends policy positions to the Executive Board (Mayor Pro-tem Rinderle was elected President of the CML Executive Board at the annual CML conference last week). Staff from the City Manager's Office also serves on one of the NLC Policy Committees. Policy documents from both CML (www.cml.org) and NLC (www.nlc.org) are available on their respective websites. In addition, many of the City's Executive Team staff are members of professional associations that often have a legislative committee recommending policy positions. All of this information factors into the Staff Policy Analysis.
In addition to the above, there are additional components that factor into the Staff Policy Analysis. Depending on the issue, the following are also considerations that become part of the Analysis:
- Who is requesting the policy and why?
- Is it a partisan issue?
- What are the pros and cons of the policy?
- Who will benefit from the policy?
- Could the policy adoption have unintended consequences?
- Has there been a fiscal analysis completed?
- What is the history of the issue?
- What position have others adopted? (e.g. CML, NLC, SWCCOG, other governmental entities, recommendations from City boards & commissions, professional associations, etc.)
- What is the anticipated effect on City operations?
- Is this an unfunded mandate?
- Are we the best organization to take a position?
- Where is the proposed legislation in the process?
- Is City Action needed to Pass/Kill the legislation?
- When is the most effective time for Action?
- Is this a good use of political capital?
- What is the most effective way to achieve the desired outcome?
- Is this good policy for the city of Durango?