When residents use Gilroy’s Web site to send a single e-mail to
all City Councilmen and the city administrator, they’re told that
their message will be forwarded to the seven-member body and the
administrator.
Gilroy – When residents use Gilroy’s Web site to send a single e-mail to all City Councilmen and the city administrator, they’re told that their message will be forwarded to the seven-member body and the administrator.
But the process was more complicated than that before a gaffe at last week’s city council meeting spurred change in the process.
Before recent alterations, a resident’s message first went to City Clerk Shawna Freels, who only sent it to all the councilmen and City Administrator Jay Baksa if it was an invitation, accolade or an opinion, according to city officials.
If the e-mail broached an issue, problem or specific request for service (such as pot hole repair), then Freels sent the “customer’s” message only to Baksa, who then “kicked it” to relevant city staff for resolution before notifying councilmen that staff was reviewing the matter, Baksa said.
“If the subject matter is something staff may be able to address with the council, I will send it to the City Administrator for his direction,” Freels said in an e-mail to Dispatch columnist Ben Anderson.
Once Baksa and any necessary staff addressed the issue, he would then forward the original message and its annotations to councilmen.
This used to be the process until last week when Mayor Al Pinheiro, Baksa and Freels met to remedy the tiered approach.
Now any resident’s e-mail – whether it’s an issue or an accolade – is forwarded to all councilmen at the same time Baksa forwards it to relevant staff for review. Baksa then forwards any staff follow-up to councilmen, as well, which used to be all they would receive.
The whole relay process was reformatted after an awkward city council meeting Sept. 17, at which Councilman Craig Gartman raised allegations about potentially misspent water funds to the surprise of his colleagues.
Gartman alone had received a physical letter from a nameless source, but resident Debbie Bradshaw had sent a similar allegation through the city’s Web site at 11:45 Monday morning, according to city officials.
Since it wasn’t an accolade, invitation or opinion – but a pointed allegation – Freels followed protocol and forwarded it to Baksa later that afternoon.
By the time he checked his e-mail later that day and saw Bradshaw’s message, Baksa said it was an hour or so before the council meeting, so he decided to forward it to staff for review since he didn’t have time to research and respond to Bradshaw’s allegations.
As a result, none of the seven councilmen received Bradshaw’s e-mail until Wednesday Sept. 19, two days after she sent it.
This time delay frustrated Pinheiro.
“If Bradshaw’s e-mail would’ve been sent off at 11:45 [to councilmen], then some of us would not have been caught off guard [Monday night],” Pinheiro said. “But we found the problem, and we corrected it. That’s it.”
What frustrated Pinheiro even more, though, was the fact that Gartman didn’t report his private letter to the council and instead waited until Monday night’s public meeting to spring it. Afterward, Gartman didn’t submit a copy to Freels until the end of the day Wednesday, according to city officials.
“Council norms are such that Gartman should’ve taken his info to Jay and me, and then we could’ve made copies for the council,” Pinheiro said. “That’s how all of us (councilmen) do business in Gilroy, but unfortunately it’s campaign time.”
Pinheiro added that he plans to bring the changed process up at Monday’s meeting because “that’s how we’re suppose to do business.”
But Gartman said the old forwarding system “is not the standard operating procedure in my book.”
“The change in process makes me feel very good,” he said. “I don’t believe our e-mails should be reviewed and classified as to which ones the council receives because when people hit that button [to send their messages], it says it’ll go to all councilmen, but apparently that’s not what was happening, or at least it wasn’t happening in a timely manner.”
As the Web site has been set up, there are two explanatory sentences above the message form. They read: “You may click on individual council member’s links above for individual contact information. [Or] you may use the form below to send a message to all City Council Members and the City Administrator at one time.”
After the message is sent, residents read this notice: “Thank you for your message to City Council. We will forward your message to each of the members of the City Council and to the City Administrator.”
This is all true now, of course, but the multi-step forwarding process before blurred the lines.
“Now councilmen will get the pure copy and any review,” Baksa clarified, adding that although the newer, streamlined approach is indeed a better idea, the transmission delay to councilmen before was usually only a matter of hours.
“This is just a tweaking of the system. It makes it better for council and doesn’t affect customer service,” Baksa said. “Could the council have gotten [Bradshaw’s e-mail] earlier? Sure, and that’s what we’re responding to and dealing with.”
