Staff capacity
When an ordinance is successfully passed by the City Council, it’s not put into effect by magic. The job of actually enacting the new law or program usually falls on City staff. Councilors in Medford are part-time elected officials, and a requisite number of votes doesn't impart me with expertise in city planning, fiscal policy, and law. The full-time city staff usually have extended education and professional experience in these areas, and many have been working in them throughout multiple terms of elected officials.
One part of the linkage fee updates we recently passed was a resolution that basically asked the Department of Planning, Development, and Sustainability (PDS) to spend the money — and staff time, which is more important — on an appropriate study that would enable the city to update these fees and thus generate a lot more revenue. Doing that is not under the purview of City Council, so we could only ask (politely). Many of the ordinances I'm working on at the moment involve staff time to implement, and a lot of my free time is spent calling them on the phone and meeting with them and generally bugging them to take steps to implement an ordinance I’m working on. Even though the Council formally asked for the linkage fee updates, staff don’t actually have to implement it, especially if they’re drowning in other responsibilities. This is why I talk about it with them very often, very nicely, and with emphasis that it will have substantial benefit in the long run.
Lately, the three main projects I’ve been working on behind the scenes are a transportation demand management ordinance, a vacancy tax, and updates to accessible dwelling units. My Christmas list for PDS is pretty long, and they’re overloaded with work as it is, so I’ve been speaking with other departments (who are also overloaded) to get a sense of their interest in pursuing a particular project.
If not, I like to get a sense of what they’d like to see from City Council, since staff often need things from Council and those things are often delayed or ignored. For instance, at the most recent City Council meeting, my colleague introduced a rental registry. This was part of Medford’s Climate Action and Adaptation Plan (page 101), and the Building Department had requested one a while back. And, once it gets out of committee, they’ll presumably want to work on something that they requested in the first place.
(Also, if City staff are reading this: nexus and transportation demand management studies are really great. All the cool cities are doing them.)
