What good is City Staff???

Hello everyone,
An interesting question came up at our last Council Meeting.
Ms. Jan Shriner asked " How is Staff helping Marina?"
When trying to answer this question, one must ask, Who does the staff work for? And the answer to that question is in three parts. First of all, The city staff is hired by, and answers to the City Manager. The City Manager runs the City under the direction of the City Council. The City Council hires and directs the City Manager. The City Council is made up of citizens, elected by their peers. In local government the people run the City and can have a direct impact on how the City is ran.
The City Council appoints citizens to commissions and committees to assist the Council with the business of running the City.
"How is the Staff helping Marina"? In more ways than one could think of.
Here's a few I can think of right off the top of my head:
Day to day police and fire service which includes protecting citizens, responding to the needs of those in trouble, counseling, investigation, school training and guidance, rescue, traffic patrol, answering and responding to hundreds of calls each month.
Day to day service by our public works staff. Including road repairs, signaling, building repairs and maintenance, playground, sidewalks, asphalt, storm water, hay bails, special events, gardening and generally maintaining our City.
Recreation provides activities and programs for every age group in our City. Running the senior center, youth center, teen center and all special events.
Strateigic Ddevelopment Center staff provide a one stop shop for all major developments. Providing project manager direction, leadership and management. SDC also assists with some planning and budget and water related activities.
Our Community Development Department center provides citizens, contractors and businesses with plan check, guidance, inspections, and approval's. CDDC also has engineers, code compliance inspections and assists the planning commission and the public works commission, tree committee, design review board and airport committee with agendas, minutes, and supervision. Besides running the day to day operations of the public works department.
Our finance team takes care of permits, fees, payroll, accounts, reports to council, collections from the state, county and grants. Grant reports. Fund activity reports. And on and on.
City clerks office takes care of records for the city, county and state. Agendas and minutes for council. Voter and ballot information. And so much more.
Our City Manager and office staff take care of the day to day operations and run the entire city and directors of all other divisions. Meets with council and commission members. And continually handles the emergencies created by Council.
Our staffing level is at 70% and are carrying the work level of the unfilled positions. I am sure I missed quite a few items performed by our staff. Again I must remind everyone that our General Fund Budget of 15 million serves a City of 21 thousand compared to other Cities like Monterey which have a budget over 50 million and serving 25 thousand.
We are a small and young city but very efficient.
Now I bet most of you knew most of these things and could add greatly to the list. Please do, and e- mail me the additions.
But this also serves as a wake up call for City Council. We should not appoint new residents to the city commissions, such as Ms. Jan Shriner, until they have lived here longer, and gotten to know the City in which she now serves. As a City Commissioner, her comments at the City Council meetings are very damaging to our staff and citizens who may be watching those Council meetings.

Thank you all,

Dave McCall
Marina City Council
doctordave54@aol.com