Bozeman commission, city staff hold recorded retreat to clarify roles, improve collaboration

Bozeman City commissioners and senior staff met in a recorded retreat to talk about how they work together, emphasizing that the meeting was for relationship-building and not for making formal decisions. City Manager Chuck said the gathering’s purpose was to “get out from behind the dais, get out from behind the podium, sit around the table, and talk and get to know each other and get to talk about how we work together in this city to serve this community.”

The retreat centered on the division of labor set out in the city charter and reiterated in a 2019 document the group identified as Resolution 5,124. Chuck and others described the commission as the policy-making body and the city manager and staff as responsible for carrying out policy. “The commission gives the direction, and the city manager and the staff carry it out,” Chuck said during remarks that explained the charter’s intent and two exceptions where the commission can act directly — formal investigations and inquiries.

Why it matters: The retreat comes amid prolonged growth and programmatic challenges the city has faced in recent years. Officials said clearer, consistent communication between elected leaders and department directors should speed problem-solving for residents and reduce the “power differential” that can arise when elected officials speak directly with line staff.

Most important points

- Charter and precedent: Speakers reviewed the charter’s structure — the commission sets policy; the city manager directs administration — and noted the 2019 Resolution 5,124 on roles and norms that followed leadership turnover.

- Communication norms: City leaders said commissioners should usually raise requests to the city manager or the relevant director rather than dealing directly with lower-level staff. At the same time, the city manager and directors signaled they want more direct, cross‑team conversations where appropriate so the commission can draw on staff expertise.

- Public transparency and trust: The meeting was recorded for posting on the city website and organizers framed the session as open, not secret. Several commissioners and directors flagged public perception and asked for clearer, more accessible ways to show how citizen input shapes policy and decisions.

- Follow-up and next steps: Attendees agreed to repeat this format in the future and to pursue additional public-facing conversations that explain the city’s planning assumptions and decision timeline.

Discussion vs. decisions

This session produced discussion and direction but no formal action. Organizers repeatedly stated the meeting was not a decision-making forum. City leaders asked directors to keep developing ways to document and show where public input changed staff recommendations and to schedule further retreats and public forums that explain the city’s planning and regulatory timelines.

Quotes

- “The commission is the policy body. And the city manager is the, kind of the chief executive officer,” Chuck said, describing how the charter apportions responsibility.

- “It is very easy to say to, to think about this as everything has to go through the city manager. And there's a risk when you say, let's build relationships between directors and commissions,” Chuck added, describing the balance the city is trying to strike between chain-of-command and access to expertise.

Ending

Commissioners and directors said they plan to continue regular, less-formal dialogues and to create clearer public-facing explanations of how policy, plans and regulations connect. No votes or ordinance proposals were made or adopted at the retreat.