Last week I visited the Rules and Open Government Committee which sets the agenda for upcoming Council meetings. The Rules Committee includes Mayor Reed, three councilmembers, the City Attorney, City Manager and the Redevelopment Agency (RDA). The purpose of my visit was that two memos that I wrote were going to be heard.
The first memo was to request that the city update it’s travel policy by using technology. I asked that the “travel request” form include a question asking if the proposed trip could be done via a “web meeting.” And if not, why not?
Web meetings are used by organizations of all sizes, both public and private—it’s not a new concept. Web meetings will not replace all travel, but I suggest that they be considered as a viable alternative. Reducing travel will save money and help by lowering CO2 emissions. San Jose companies like Webex and Adobe offer this technology for as low as $39-$59 a month and it requires zero infrastructure investment as all you need is an internet connection and web browser.
The recent audit of the Retirement Board found waste and abuse on travel expenses. I am not sure why the audit didn’t include everyone, however, since we found problems with 14 travelers. Just imagine what we might have found if we actually did an audit for the other people that traveled last year for $1.3 million.
For example, a few months ago, a city department director shared with me that they were flying two employees to Minnesota to visit with a company regarding a software product. I suggested that perhaps they consider web conferencing. The director took my advice and instead did a two-hour web meeting which accomplished the same goals. So the city saved money on airfare, transportation, lodging and food. Wasn’t this better for the city employees who did not have to leave their family and go through the hassles of travel? Of course if the intention was to get a mini-vacation, then web meetings won’t help that.
At the Rules Committee, it was shared that my memo regarding web-conferencing was violating city policy. The City Charter section 411 states that the council is not to “interfere with administrative matters.” That makes sense, but I do not view a public memo—whether authored by me or any of my colleagues—as “interference,” but instead offering an idea that saves the city money and is good for the environment.
One reason a councilmember is elected is to bring ideas to the council for discussion and consideration. Consequently, I suggested web meetings at a study session on the Green Vision back on Feb. 1. However, no movement after seven months was yet another reason to write a memo and save the city money.
The other memo was asking that affordable housing be held accountable for paying park fees and/or dedicating land. I also asked that a temporary moratorium be placed on affordable housing until we change the policy. Currently, San Jose exempts affordable housing developments from paying park fees or donating land. However, market rate housing developments are required to pay park fees or donate land.
San Jose has a history of cramming too much housing together without enough open space. As a result, we have problematic neighborhoods that turn into SNI’s (Strong Neighborhood Initiatives). SNI’s are where we spend your RDA tax dollars ($60 Million) to fix problems, like providing parks in park-deficient areas. The 19 SNI’s come up with their wish lists, and in almost every SNI they want parks. In fact only two of the 19 asked for more affordable housing. So why keep making the sames mistakes over and over again?
Prior to writing my memo I met with the housing, parks, and planning departments and the RDA where I asked a question to housing. Would you choose 4,000 units of affordable housing without parks OR 3,500 units of affordable housing with parks? The housing director chose all housing and no parks. I expected that answer, as housing does not want to talk themselves out of a job. However, I don’t believe that San Jose residents would choose that answer.
The audience at the Rules Committee was filled with affordable housing advocates (from as far away as Santa Cruz), home developers, real estate brokers, business interests and one resident. That resident spoke about her experience living in a District 3 neighborhood with affordable housing developments surrounding her existing neighborhood without any open space for the new residents.
I believe we can do both affordable housing and parks. I support affordable housing communities—not housing at any cost. Again it is important that councilmembers bring policy ideas to the public so they can be discussed at public meetings.
I was pleased that the Rules Committee asked staff to do a workload assessment to better gauge the importance of the affordable housing/parks question. Since land use is a core service of city government, I am not sure what other items would have more importance than finding productive ways to provide parks for affordable housing in our city. After all, if we stick to the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) numbers, San Jose is supposed to create over 20,000 affordable housing units. Although ABAG has no legal authority over San Jose’s housing development, these are the numbers that San Jose chooses to use instead of creating it’s own policy of what is good for San Jose.
In the meantime, bake some muffins to welcome your new neighbors. There is more affordable housing coming your way with no open space. So get ready to share your existing park with more and more residents.
Pierluigi,
Its only been seven months. San Jose residents have been waiting over one year for the city’s IT department to fix the access problems with the customer servicee department on this city’s web site (port 8443 instead of 443, a five minute fix).
Is this a sign our city manager is not doing her job well? Why is the city not responding quickly to residents and councilmembers? Are you even allowed to ask?
There is a lack of institutional memory when it comes to affordable housing policy. The initial fees were set higher to offset the parks. The developers would pay higher fees on market rate development to pay for parks and not have to pay the fees for affordable housing and now you want to stop affordable housing unless they pay for parks. That would be detrimental to the development of affordable housing but why would you care, you represent Willow Glen. You should do a cost analysis of the current fees that market rate developers pay and the cost of developing a park.
P.O. wrote”The City Charter section 411 states that the council is not to “interfere with administrative matters.”
It would seem to me that the council can set a travel policy banning travel if a meeting can be done over the Web.
#1
Steve0,
The web server is integrated with other applications. This change affects communication between several sub-components and is more complicated than its appearance. It requires careful attention to the technical details and then adequate testing before being put into production.
Staff is working on the planning and coordination that is required to ensure a smooth transition. While this project has taken longer than originally estimated, we want to make sure the transition occurs with the smallest possible interruption of service.
Keep on us.
How is “interference” defined in this sense? (“The City Charter section 411 states that the council is not to “interfere with administrative matters.”) Further, how can suggestions be labeled “interference” ??? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. COME ON PEOPLE—let’s put egos aside and start paying attention to cost savings opportunities.
What happened to “As a customer-focused, results-driven organization, the City of San José welcomes any suggestions you might have to help us serve you better” ??? Well, I’d like to be served better. I’d like the City to consider the customer (that’s me) footing these bills. I don’t want to pay for unnecessary travel expenses. I do want to pay for cost effective, technology oriented solutions to be used where they make the most sense. (And let’s have P.O. guide the where it makes the most sense part; he’s proven himself time and again already.)
And, for anyone who has yet to try web conferencing, it’s terrific. (Free trials are available!) I’ve faciliated both meetings and (short) training sessions using both WebEx and also Live Meeting (Microsoft). It’s amazing what can be accomplished. The efficiency frees up more time on one’s calendar and who wouldn’t like a little more time?
My .02.
Tina
Pierluigi,
Thanks for the update. Sounds like the IT department is still too afraid after one year to commit to any schedule for the fix.
Must be quite frustrating to watch as a city hall insider who has worked in the software industry. San Jose’s IT department would last about a week in your typical company here in Silicon Valley.
Your right on with web meetings and parks should be available in all neighborhoods.
Please do not create areas jammed with low income people and no parks. Inevitably these newcomers will overuse the existing parks like Bernal park and Backesto park.
There is only one problem with the Webex and NetMeeting business model: although both systems are ‘Easy enough for a City Councilman to Use’, nearly every professional in this city still believes that even breathing the same oxygen as a CPU circulator is ‘beneath them’.
Same problem in Government as in Corporate America. ‘I can’t set up a Webex Meeting—I’m a lawyermarketerexecutivetrainercouncilmanaccountantperson-too-important-to-click-a-mouse-button-five-times-and-follow-directions.’
I still can’t believe that Donald Ruhmsfeld—Secretary of Defense of the most high-tech military force in history—refused to use e-mail. How we tolerate people like this in our society confounds me. It’s one thing for my mother to not be good at computers, but my mom doesn’t control a $500 Billion defense budget.
Online meetings are great, as long as City Hall builds up an ample supply of GetOverYourself.
Pierluigi,
How much are the travel expenses incurred each year by city employees, and how much would this video conferencing save? I realize every dime counts but is this really worthy of your time considering all the huge problems facing the city and its residents? Our crime rate is going though the roof and our police department is working with 1994 staffing levels. How does videoconferencing fix that? It seems for every solution a computer is suppose to fix it creates another entire set of problems bigger than the original problem it was suppose to fix in the first place.
With all due respect to the spirit behind its inclusion in the City Charter, it seems fair to question the extent to which Section 411 has served the public interest.
First question: Where the hell was Section 411 when Mayor Gonzales was running roughshod over the top levels of the city administration?
Second question: How is it that a rule can prohibit a council member from making a money-saving suggestion to the city manager yet at the same time allow council members to intimidate and coerce department managers with notes, phone call, and emails (“councilgrams”) for the unmistakable purpose of seeing resources redirected, priorities changed, and political supporters pampered?
Third question: Am I wrong to suspect that Mr. Oliverio’s brusque introduction to section 411 had more to do with his relative lack of political leverage than it did with the City Manager’s commitment to a strict interpretation of the charter? This little episode reads like a case of those in power finding a way to silence, and hopefully discourage, the optimistic, pain-in-the-ass, politically-unencumbered newcomer.
I think the lesson is transparently clear: If you want to play with the big boys, Mr. Oliverio, you have to play by their rules—and their first rule is that they make the rules.
“…zero infrastructure investment as all you need is an internet connection and web browser”
Not necessarily true. Do you know what would happen if everyone at City Hall fired up a webex session at once? The network would probably come to a crashing halt. Ask your IT Dept.
Affordable Housing and Parks/Open Space/Recreation should be considered as complimenting each other- why should the community need to choose between one or the other? Pierluigi you have courage bringing forward a discussion for the community, park users, affordable housing advocates and city staff can work together to come up with a solution. We hear “think outside the box” “Be creative”- Well that’s exactly what needs to be done. My first question, How are other cities handling this issue?
I like your attitude to save money and not to have travelers take mini-vacations on
the San Jose budget.
You are correct. Good idea about the travel policy. But it really has got to
start from each individual to Honestly ask themselves: Can I accomplish this
task a in a more efficient way (Time savings, Stress savings, Family-relationship
Savings, and even $$$ savings). Web meeting might be one vehicle.
However, really, if someone wants to take a mini-vacation on the tax-payers dime
they more than likely will get away with it. (It’s that 60% feeling to get the business accomplished with the 40% feeling of having a nice dinner and cocktail in a nice different city environment, Go ahead, book my flight) … Come to think of it,… Of the 14 travelers and other “$1.3 million spent” travelers WHO is going to “police” the answers to the “No, Why not” responses ?
I must admit, I do like the way you are thinking ! Keep up the good work.
#10
Hi Steve,
In my one example above in my blog we saved the cost of two out of state airline tickets, two hotel rooms, transportation and meals. My guess is we saved $2000 by doing a web meeting
If you look at a higher level over the last 7 years we spent $7 million on travel. If we did 10-15% of these meetings by a web meeting instead then over the same time period we could have saved $700,000 to $1,050,000.
That amount of money is much more then staffing a branch library year round or would help in hiring 911 dispatchers for public safety.
#12
Hey East Side Dre,
The city IT network is already surviving YouTube and other high bandwidth sites. I don’t believe web meetings would make the network crash especially since it is a Software as a Service model and there will be no bugs, patches or upgrades for IT Dept to fix.
First, as a general idea, web meetings are great. So are conference calls, which have been around a lot longer. However, it seems counterproductive to go from “lets encourage using these technologies to save money, when practical” to “let’s always use these things which will require more bandwidth, training, conference rooms, etc.”
How much would it cost to set up all of san jose’s meetings to meet this standard?
Why not punish the department heads who are wasting travel money instead of creating another bureaucratic rule?
Oh, please do not discourage low income housing development. We may need much more of it real soon now.
#10: Perhaps with some of the cost savings realized by utilizing efficient and up-to-date communication methods, we’d have more resources for top priorities such as dealing with the gang issue(s). (BTW, when doing a cost/benefit analysis, let’s not forget to factor in the “soft costs” associated with travel: like exhausted employees who may not be as productive as a result, the potential for increased illness from the lovely plane-air, and travel time when an employee may not be working. It all adds up.)
#12: The chances of that scenario happening are slim to none. But even so, if they were to consider implementing web conferencing, I’d imagine the City’s IT dept. would want to test capacity scenarios.
Tina
How much more compassion can your portfolio handle?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLUbb2DUYGk
Just call it “subsidized housing” or “housing projects”. It’s a more accurate term.
I admit that both terms have negative connotations. Those negative connotations came from negative realities in past subsidized housing projects.
Changing the word isn’t going to fix the problems. Give it 30 years, and the word “affordable” is going to have the same connotations as “Section 8” or “Projects”.
gnome de lawn #17,
Did you know that ‘meau de lean’ is French for ‘cut the grass’?
But seriously. Pierluigi please, please DO discourage affordable housing. As a blue collar, middle class taxpayer, I find the upkeep of ‘affordable housing’ residents to be UNaffordable.
The Feds have proven that getting mixed up in trying to force people into housing that they truly can’t afford is a dicey proposition. The same principles hold true on the local level. By propping up ‘affordable housing’ you are putting hard-working taxpayers money at risk. Or. You are simply giving it away.
If we’ve learned anything from the last week or 2 of current events we now know that when you hear the phrase ‘affordable housing”, your next very next thought should be “social justice spawned financial debacle”.
Pierluigi,
Has the city ever paid you to travel to another city? Do you have any upcoming trips planned to other cities where your salary or travel expenses were paid for by residents of San Jose? If so, were these trips that could have been done via “teleconferencing”? There is another website that is making that claim. Just wanted to get the truth. Thanks
#23
Steve,
Actually I am traveling currently on my first trip to Chicago organized by the Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce, with about 90 people from San Jose including Mayor Reed ,Councilmembers; Pyle,Nguyen,Constant, Chief of Police,City Manager, private sector reps from HP, Cisco, Applied Materials, Apple, Adobe etc…
I will let everyone know next week if I could have accomplished the same goals via a web meeting.
#1
Steve0,
I wanted to let you know that staff made the adjustments necessary to have the production Billing System use port 443 instead of 8443. The work was done this last weekend.