CC 02-06-2021 (Special)
APPROVED MINUTES
CUPERTINO CITY COUNCIL
Saturday, February 6, 2021
SPECIAL MEETING
At 10:00 a.m. Mayor Darcy Paul called the Special City Council meeting to order. This was a
teleconference meeting with no physical location.
ROLL CALL
Present: Mayor Darcy Paul, Vice Mayor Liang Chao, and Councilmembers Kitty Moore, Hung
Wei, and Jon Robert Willey. Absent: None. All Councilmembers teleconferenced for the meeting.
ORAL COMMUNICATIONS ‐ None
CITY COUNCIL TRAINING WORKSHOP
City Manager Deborah Feng introduced the session.
Consultants Senior Partner Rod Gould and Senior Manager Christine Butterfield with
Management Partners facilitated the workshop.
The Council discussed best practices of governance and clarifying roles.
The consultants created a workshop report containing a summary of the discussions which is
available in Exhibit A (attached).
ADJOURNMENT
At 1:52 p.m., Mayor Paul adjourned the meeting.
_____________________________
Kirsten Squarcia, City Clerk
Exhibit A
February 2021
Authors:
Rod Gould, Senior Partner
Christine Butterfield, Senior Manager
Management Partners
City of Cupertino
City Council Workshop
Held February 6, 2021
City Council Workshop
Table of Contents Management Partners
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Table of Contents
Workshop Report ...................................................................................................................................... 1
Workshop Overview ........................................................................................................................ 1
Welcome and Opening Comments ................................................................................................ 3
Ice Breaker Exercise.......................................................................................................................... 3
Governance Roles and Responsibilities ........................................................................................ 5
High Performance Governance and Council Norms .................................................................. 7
Council Norms ............................................................................................................................ 8
Wrap Up and Next Steps................................................................................................................. 9
City Council Workshop
Workshop Report Management Partners
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Workshop Report
The City of Cupertino held a City Council workshop on Saturday,
February 6, 2021 from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. via Zoom. The workshop
provided an opportunity for Council members and the City Manager to
review governance structures and roles, discuss high performance
governance and Council norms, and strengthen Council-staff teamwork.
This report contains a summary of the results of the retreat.
Rod Gould, Senior Partner, and Christine Butterfield, Senior Manager
with Management Partners facilitated the workshop.
Workshop Overview
Objectives
• Strengthen trust and effectiveness of the City Council.
• Develop a Council agreement on norms for working together,
with staff and the community.
• Clarify roles of the City of Cupertino governance structure.
• Update and agree upon the phasing of the City’s work program
due to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis.
Agenda
• Welcome and call to order by the Mayor.
• Public comments
• Comments from the City Manager
• Agenda review
• Ice breaker exercise
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• Discuss Cupertino governance structure and roles
• Discuss high performance governance and Council norms
• Review hanging issues and commitments
• Wrap up and next steps
Participants
City Council
Mayor
Darcy Paul
Vice Mayor
Liang Chao
Councilmember
Kitty Moore
Councilmember
Hung Wei
Councilmember
Jon Willey
Executive Management Staff
• City Manager Deb Feng
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Workshop Preparation
In preparation for the workshop, the facilitators met with the Assistant
City Manager and City Manager to discuss the workshop objectives,
facilitator’s agenda and PowerPoint presentation.
Welcome and Opening Comments
Mayor Paul called the meeting to order at 10:00 a.m. and welcomed
Councilmembers, the City Manager, and the public to the meeting. The
Mayor invited public comments before opening the workshop. City
Manager Deb Feng then offered some opening comments about the
importance of the day’s discussions.
Following the City Manager’s comments, Rod Gould provided an
overview of the day to help develop a shared understanding of the
purpose and objectives of the workshop. He reviewed the ground rules,
agenda, and the method used to record items raised during the workshop
that would be addressed at another time.
Rod suggested several ground rules to help the group have a successful
workshop.
• Keep video on
• Mute yourself when you are not speaking
• Assume good intent
• Be curious
• Seek consensus
• Stay focused (set aside electronic devices)
Ice Breaker Exercise
The facilitators led an ice breaker exercise to provide an opportunity for
the Councilmembers and City Manager to learn more about each other.
Each participant shared the following two things about themselves; a
summary of what was shared is provided in Table 1 below.
1. Communication style
2. Decision making process
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Table 1. Communication and Decision-Making Styles
Councilmember Summary
Mayor Paul • Listens to understand
• Clarifies rationale and priorities
• Open to all parties’ interests
Vice Mayor • Direct communicator and likes to delve into details
• Analyzes information
• Focus on what is best for residents
Councilmember Willey • Listens more
• Careful to send the right message
• Not quick to jump into the dialogue
• Represents the views of the community balance
Councilmember Wei • Favorite way to communicate is face to face
• Applies the law, a rational approach and compassion
• Stand by Council decisions (not just personal positions)
Councilmember Moore • Straight forward
• Defensible arguments
• She will bring up raise tough issues – “the elephant in the room”
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Governance Roles and Responsibilities
To better understand the roles of the key players in local government, the
group spent some time reviewing the roles and responsibilities of the
Council, Mayor, city manager, commissions/committees, city attorney,
and staff. The facilitators noted the importance of respecting others’ roles,
in order to be the most effective and productive City Council possible.
Rod explained the partnership between Council and staff; policy versus
administrative domains; the role of commissions and committees, and the
relationships between all major players within City government. The
Councilmembers reviewed best practices for good and effective
governance, and discussed civility, tone, and examined the distinction
between policy versus administrative roles using the example for public
expenditures and government contracting.
Rod asked the City Manager what she needs from Council, in order to be
successful. Ms. Feng shared that in terms of communications, she needs
the following:
• To hear more about:
o Emerging issues, and
o Gather the questions and comments that Councilmembers
collect from the community.
• Since November 2019 when the last Council workshop was held,
the City Manager has observed improvements in the relationships
across the City’s governance roles.
• Changes triggered by the pandemic include:
o Decrease in interpersonal interfaces with the public and
Council,
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o Relationship building is more difficult, and
o Increased focus on operations by the Council, with too
much focus on administration which is the responsibility
of the City Manager.
Rod then asked Council about what their reactions to the City Manager’s
comments. Council offered the following feedback:
• Things are going well, and it is much better than under the
previous City Manager. More work is needed to ensure that staff
understands they are here to serve the residents and “we need to
be sure decisions are made in collaboration with residents.”
• Treat the City Manager as a mentor.
• Happy with Deb’s candor.
• Continue to develop trust between Council and staff and explore
how we build communication and bridge relations with staff.
• Would like to receive updates about what is not working well.
• Communicate more information to Council.
• Council communication must go through the City Manager and
interested in the view of Council from staff’s perspective.
• City Council/staff partnership missing.
• Deb inherited an organization characterized as a “train wreck.”
• Ramifications of lawsuit persist. Previous City Manager left the
state, two assistant city managers departed and planning, and
parks and recreation staff also left. Staff was abused by a project
manager and developer. There are still lingering trust issues.
• Deb is doing beautifully.
• Interested in heightening efficiency.
• It’s not about efficiency; it’s really about serving people well; it’s a
push-pull between those two principles.
• Interested in greater accountability.
• City staff need to understand basic legal regulations in the City.
• Ensure that when new codes are considered by Council that the
versions and changes are well documented through various
readings.
At the close of the conversation, Deb reminded the Council that staff has
developed a work plan dashboard to improve project status information.
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High Performance Governance and Council Norms
Rod led the group in developing a shared understanding of high-
performance governance and Council norms. The Council and City
Manager reviewed two articles from the Institute for Local Government
(ILG) and discussed examples of Council norms and another regarding
Council goal setting authored by Rod Gould.
Rod explained that how the Council works together as a body and plays a
critical role in the effectiveness of the City’s strategic direction, staff
performance and motivation, and regional influence. In addition, the
group reviewed the four essential elements for effective Councils, as
shown in Figure 1 below.
Figure 1. Elements of Effective Councils
After reviewing communication tips, ways to disagree with a colleague,
and how best to build professional relationships, Council reviewed the
self-assessment survey results. A summary of the survey is presented on
the slide below.
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Rod posed the following three questions to the group.
• What was surprising?
• What do we do well?
• What do we need to work on?
A summary of the discussion among Councilmembers is provided below.
Councilmembers offered that the Mayor runs a great meeting and that the
results of the assessment appear consistent with their experience so far. In
addition, the group discussed the idea of building flexibility into the
meeting agendas including conducting meetings in neighborhoods and
being thoughtful about the room layout when planning for meetings as
well as creating opportunities for the Council to reflect on their
performance following decisions.
Council Norms
Following the discussion about high-performance governance, the
facilitators reviewed examples of typical Council norms. The group
talked about which ones make sense for Cupertino, and how the norms
should be operationalized. Rod explained that the next steps for the
norms are to formally adopt them by resolution, then review and confirm
or modify the norms on a regular basis.
Some of the Councilmembers like the flexibility of not having formally
adopted norms and found the sample norms too restrictive. The Council
decided to table the discussion and decision about Council norms for
Cupertino for a future time.
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Wrap Up and Next Steps
After a brief stretch break, Ms. Feng began to discuss the City’s Work
Plan, but Councilmember Moore at that point raised concerns with
regard to considering the City Council’s Work Plan at a workshop where
the Work Plan had not been noticed as an item for discussion. At this
point in the meeting, no members of the public were present. The meeting
was not broadcast on the City website or City Channel. Mayor Paul
agreed with the concern regarding notice and asked that the City
Manager bring back the item at a duly noticed meeting.
The City Manager committed to updating and distributing the City work
program as well as follow up on the items identified by Council in the
workshop to be addressed at another meeting. The topics are listed
below.
The following items were added.
1. How and when is the right time for Council to dive into details of
a policy, issue, questions, and explore options? Consider holding
more study sessions and ensure that staff outlines the policy
development and decision-making process in more detail.
2. Discuss changing staff reports to include an array of options for
Council to consider as well as staff providing a specific
recommendation.
3. How do other cities conduct Council policy analysis/review?
4. Cupertino should “raise the bar” by involving the community
more in the review of policy issues.
To conclude the workshop, each Councilmember and the City Manager
offered a closing comment or key takeaway from the day’s discussions.
Rod indicated that Management Partners would prepare and submit this
report. A summary of the closing comments that were offered is below.
• Need for involving more volunteers and connecting them to
opportunities
• Council is aligned and so are staff
• Glad the prioritization process worked out
• Lots of listening
• Another half day workshop would be helpful