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City manager raises concerns about high volume of staff emails, council members say CAR system and one-on-ones still essential
Summary
City manager Tansy told council members the city is sending a very high volume of material and suggested reviewing how information is packaged. Council members said action-request (CAR) tracking and one-on-one conversations remain their primary ways to receive constituent and operational updates.
During the retreat, City Manager Tansy told council members she has observed a large, decentralized flow of information from staff to council and asked whether the current mix of email, weekly city notes and formal action requests (the CAR system) is serving the council well.
"I would say comparatively from my experience, you're gonna have very high volume of communication from city staff," Tansy said, adding that some messages arrive without a single, coordinated point of view. She encouraged the council and staff to review how information is routed and whether every weekly report or email is a productive use of council time.
Council members described a mix of practices they rely on. Several said the CAR system (the council’s customer/constituent action request tracking) is valuable because it creates a central record and ensures follow-up on neighborhood-level concerns such as trash, signage and small maintenance requests. One council member said they prefer direct one-on-one contact for complex, time-sensitive matters; several others said they use a mix of the CAR system, weekly city notes and scheduled phone calls with senior staff.
Council members and staff flagged areas for improvement: better escalation for major public-safety incidents so council members hear about significant events before social media and a review of the CAR software to improve usability and reporting. Several council members asked that quarterly reports and other recurring materials be consolidated when possible into a smaller set of high-level “north‑star” indicators so elected officials can more quickly see what needs council attention.
Facilitators and the city manager said staff would review the flow of information and consider changes to onboarding for incoming council members ahead of next year’s election, including condensed training on roles, expectations and Robert’s Rules of Order. No formal action or new policy was adopted during the session.
