Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Governance Communication topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Consultant Robert Hanna urges clearer council–manager roles and communication protocols at Odessa retreat
Summary
At the March 21, 2026 Odessa retreat, consultant Robert Hanna led an orientation on council–manager government, urging councilors to set strategic priorities while directing operational matters to the city manager and to avoid councilwide deliberation via email or texts; the group agreed to clarify notification protocols for emergencies.
Robert Hanna, a retired city manager and current president of strategic services for ZACTAX, spent a significant portion of the March 21 retreat explaining the council–manager form of government and advising Odessa’s council on clearer roles and communication practices.
"You don't have any individual authority," Hanna told the council. "When you come together as that governing body, you have all of the governing authority." He said the council's role is to set policy and hold the manager accountable, while day-to-day administration should be handled by the city manager and staff.
Hanna walked the council through practical governance steps: how items get on the agenda (the charter allows two council members to place items on the agenda), the need for clear council direction, and the importance of aligning board appointments and council priorities. He described the city charter as "your constitution" and noted it was adopted in 1945 and amended over time.
A recurring theme was safe communication practices. Hanna warned that council members exchanging emails or texts about city business can create a chain of deliberation that may run afoul of state open-meeting laws. He recommended that council-wide operational messages be routed through the city manager or staff, and that council members use staff to collect and respond to constituent information rather than directly replying to one another on an operational matter.
Councilors debated how much operational detail they wanted to see from staff and discussed exceptions for times when officer safety or emergency response made immediate notification necessary. Hanna proposed a simple rule of thumb: if the information does not put officer safety at risk and is timely, the city manager should disseminate it to the whole council; if safety is at issue, chiefs and managers will decide how to notify councilors.
Hanna closed by introducing a facilitated prioritization exercise: councilors would write strategic topics on sticky notes, which staff will later refine into fundable initiatives. The retreat produced procedural clarifications and a set of governance practices staff will implement; no ordinance or charter change was proposed during the session.
