Appointments Committee - Regular Meeting

Good morning. I'd like to call to order the July 24th, 2026 meeting of the Operational Strategy and Administrative Committee. Welcome, everyone. Why don't we call the roll here?

Here. Here.

All right. Thanks for joining us today. Our last meeting on the 10th was canceled. And on June 26th, we discussed one agenda item, which was the role of the deputy mayor and different opportunities there. Meeting minutes summarizing the conversation were included in their meeting packet. First things first, let's approve the minutes from the meeting of June 26th, 2026 for the OSAC meetings or motions. I get the second over there say I know it's approved. We have one item today, which is the role of the mayor. We have continuous improvement manager, Matt jams out here to facilitate our discussion and I understand we also have some staffers that could use.

Yes, it's true.

Do I need to share through Zoom only or I can't use the television screens?

Yeah, you can.

Okay. That explains it. You don't want to see pretenders. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay.

Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay, there we are. So Deputy Mayor role and responsibilities. Like the Mayor previously said, we're continuing this discussion from the last time we talked about this back in June. A recap, since it has been a little while, where we had left things off as far as just overall themes, I believe, in that discussion. kind of quickly summarized here for folks, but overall from the discussion, it just kind of feels like at the moment, the deputy mayor role feels a little bit under defined beyond just kind of filling in when the mayor is absent. There's some desire to balance the role of the deputy mayor as more of a senior partner to the mayor alongside just, again, their independence as an individual council member. There's also some discussion around term length, rotation frequency, and general agreement about the value of having an experienced council member in the role for the most effective participation and just continuity as well. Last, and perhaps this is where we'll spend most of the time here, is just uncertainty around the best approach for any potential changes, just figuring out where changes might be best made, whether that's code, the charter, rules, or if there's a better alignment, broader alignment with some initiatives already underway where they get to the capital staffing and process review. Thanks. Out of that ambiguity, out of that discussion there and the questions we had, there's some opportunity to be explored. And so that's what we'll be talking through today. But really just succinctly, where might the deputy mayor's role and expectations benefit from greater intentionality and consistency? So that's kind of the underlying drive behind what we'll be talking about today. in the coming slides but really just how do we fill in some of the blanks how do we address some of the ambiguity that was raised from last month's discussion on this topic to that end the research areas that we're proposing we take a look at are grouped broadly in these four buckets or these four research areas role and expectations of the deputy mayor I think this is an area where there's a lot of discussion about What exactly does that mean? I believe Council Member Scott had mentioned, you know, there's a lot of things that are, you know, maybe not as visible if you're not deputy mayor or if you're not mayor about the role, and that might impact, you know, the understanding from other council members about what it entails, would they be interested in trying to be a deputy mayor at some point later in their term, perhaps, something like that, as well as, you know, kind of balancing that with the functional relationship aspects between mayor and deputy mayor. also kind of express you know yeah what what challenges what problems are we trying to solve here specifically that would be best addressed through some type of changes to how we define how we set the role and expectations for deputy mayor but also what might benefit from consideration as part of some of the things that are already going on with staff and rule updates like like I mentioned here that last quadrant Finally, I think there was general consensus around, hey, the current term duration we have set, the one-year term, things like that, our eligibility criteria, how we select the deputy mayor, and what factors go into that. Those are all areas that I think there was some interest in exploring, but again, questions about, well, what exactly would change and how? And I think together, we're going to have a much more effective way of answering all of those questions, whereas individually, I think we're going to be left with a lot of what-ifs. So I think, Mayor, you said it best probably at the last meeting, there's a lot of unknown unknowns at the moment. And together, these four areas, I think, will really kind of fill the blanks on the map, so to speak, and allow us to proceed with a definitely more informed approach going forward. So the proposed approach from staff as far as how we might get some answers and get better insights into those areas, like I talked about, two prongs, so internal approach as well as external. We'll be gathering feedback from current former council members who've served as deputy mayor. I think that's an important part, especially to uncover some of the things that maybe aren't as visible to fellow council members who aren't in those roles, as well as community as well. Again, taking a look at that ongoing council staffing initiative, further opportunities for possible overlap, Council Member Walker at the last time, that some of the things we were talking about in that previous discussion may be better suited to achieve with staff, right? So really kind of getting a sense of does that make sense? Is that something that we want to identify with the deputy mayor or something that belongs elsewhere in the work we're already doing related to those initiatives? And then externally, there's peer jurisdictions with similar forms of government. What are they doing? How are they defining the role? How are they utilizing that being there? And again, doing some comparative analysis between the role, the expectations there, and those jurisdictions in our own, as well as around succession planning and related definitions. I did gloss over that a little bit in the previous areas. you know, disability, emergency absences, things like that. So really standard things that might fall really cleanly into just council rule updates and things like that. That might also be a place where an external jurisdiction would have some incidents and lessons for us to learn from. With that, that concludes the presentation part here. I'm curious what thoughts you might have, what feedback you have on the approach and we want to proceed. I will say just before we get into that, based off what we're anticipating, assuming this has buy-in and support to move forward, probably sometime in September that we'd want to be coming back to you with the findings from that report and probably eventually to the full council.

Thank you, Matt. Yeah, that sounds like a really thoughtful approach. I really like the idea of both the internal and the external soliciting feedback from other members of the council. Before we turn it over to colleagues for other questions or other staff input, I mean, really for me, the the biggest way to address the unknown unknowns is really just to start from an even more basic question, which is should the thing be more of an honorific or more of like a specialization? And what I mean by that is honorific would be just a title, a motion maker, or a ribbon gutter. Basically, the specialization would be more like being the chair of a policy committee or having an appointment to a really serious regional board like Sound Transit or South Sound 911 where it's not like okay, it's your turn to be the Sound Transit person, or okay, it's your turn to represent us with the AWC governance board or whatever. I mean, these are treated as fairly serious appointments that people tend to hold onto for multiple years because there's a notion that that person has a focused interest, a specialization, a certain knowledge base that makes them innately better at that role for the benefit to the city. And that's more what I'm interested in exploring might the deputy mayor be along those lines? And if so, what might that look like? So that's just me daylighting my inquiry. With that, what are folks' thoughts on what we've discussed so far on process, how Matt has described it? Would you like to start?

Dr. Just a question that came up. Normally, like if somebody asks it, like if a council member, like a youth council, we have to do like a process, you know, so like in the case that that's the mayor and there's not like a, you know, like say, you know, the mayor says, I'm going to resign today, I'm not giving any leeway to it or, you know, so like, is there a role for the, for the deputy mayor in that, like is the deputy mayor in that, like, then that interim as we're looking for, like doing the process of whatever it is to get Aaron, like, is there a specification around what the deputy mayor's role is for like extended, like, obviously if you're out of town, that's one thing, but like, yeah, we know. Yeah. So like, I guess if there's no like overlap, like this person is resigning, but we're like trying to the person looking that same time for the president, but there's going to be a period of time of what there's no, So your question is about, is it extended absence or incapacity? Yeah, does that, does the deputy mayor automatically stay? Like, are they the acting mayor until that role is filled? Or is there a different process to figure out? Or is it just that that seat is empty until? I don't know off the top of my head, but we can certainly look into that and get you an answer. I apologize for that. Oh, no, it's fine. I haven't thought about it before, but I realize that, you know, it is. could be a situation in some way.

Just what I can answer anecdotally is that at least in the few instances where I've been, not incapacitated, but like traveling internationally, for example, I was in China a few months ago, and Joe filled in for the specific things I had to do, not just chair meetings, but there are things as mayor I have to sign, I have to officiate Joe as the acting mayor during that time, for instance. So I would assume so, but Yeah, that's a staff answer.

Yeah, just kind of like, I guess in the instance where you're not aware of when you, like when you're in China, it's a specified length of time. So they're just like, all right, let's do your time. But yeah, I guess there's like, yeah, if you were to resign or something more serious happened and there is no designated time that you can Does that trigger a different process than like, well, this has been the active mayor, so we'll just do that until the employment comes through?

Yeah. Great question.

We can get an answer, Brian.

Yeah. I mean, the most recent of that would be when Brian Ebersole resigned and became President of Bates and Mike Crowley took over. And I don't know if he was the mayor at the time or if they voted amongst themselves that he would be the mayor. So that would be, if you're looking for a historical precedent or like for records, that would be where I would look for that one. No, I mean, I think this course of action the staff has suggested makes sense to me going forward. I think I wasn't here for the initial conversation around kind of the kind of purpose and goals of doing that. But for what you all put in there, I think it makes sense. I do think something one of the slides did talk about, and I had always, I had talked to Victoria Mayer-Woodards about the idea of the deputy mayor having kind of a project. So similar to kind of how the lieutenant governor of the state, you know, Denny Hackett has, he does international relations. He has a bucket of things that he does. And that, you know, we were rotating deputy mayor. Could the deputy mayor take on a role or a project that they would lead on something they're passionate about? So kind of aligning the fact that the role was rotating, but really kind of giving them the opportunity to kind of step forward and be up front on that. We never really worked on that part. That never really came to fruition, but that's always been something I have thought about is maybe to give that mayor kind of something to do while they're making up something specific or kind of letting them lead. for a period of time as a way to kind of gain some experience. I just think the question I come back to is, you know, we are all independently elected. So, you know, how do we create a role that kind of reflects of that. If we put a rotation, if we go to a permanent, you know, like this person will be in that role for a while, then my question would be around, like be more about kind of how do other cities do that? Look at that. I would imagine that would be something the council would elect. Most places where you have elections of roles that are more permanent, it's the council that picks the person. So they just have to look, I would love to know what other people are doing in terms of what it's like.

Yeah, those are great points, and I remember that conversation as well previously, John, about kind of a project-based look at that, and the lieutenant governor is a good example of that. I think striking the balance between, on the one hand, being an independently elected colleague and, you know, if this is something that's more project-focused and specialized, staff did it really well with presentation. I think the words used were senior partner, because if we were to go more in that direction, that's how I envision it might look, is is there is an understanding between the mayor and whoever the deputy mayor is that this is a mutually held, really important, big thing for things, plural. And these are things that we can jointly work on with the added resources, the added Elon of that office, and kind of doing the two persons in one thing, like the bottom mayor and deputy mayor to team up not be overextended, but having that focus on that one issue or those other issues. That might also account for if it's a multi-year thing, like, hey, I'd like to repeatedly nominate this person for this thing every year, just like we do every year with boards, committees, and commission assignments. Like, hey, this person has been serving on Sound Transit these past few years. I'd like to nominate them again the following year because they're the Sound Transit person and they're great. They have the job, right? So, you know, maybe... that might be a solution or a thing to examine in that direction. I would also say that as we look at pure cities, that even if, because I think I would suspect that a lot of this is unprecedented, like a lot of manager systems just don't do something like this. Partly because our system in Tacoma isn't really a pure city manager, we're kind of a hybrid system. So I would certainly be interested in the pure cities as we look at this. I would also encourage us to look at, if not strong mayor systems, like even other jurisdictions, other more exotic types, just to see what's what and what elements we can learn from in other places. Just because someone may or may not be doing this, that doesn't mean that we can't learn and modify.

Steve Vancouver has a similar model to us with the council manager system where the mayor is separately elected, and then I do think they elect their the council pro tem body does. So that might be just one for us to look at for research purposes to see how Vancouver operates there than other states like us.

Yeah. And I know Spokane, they have an independent elected council president as well. So I mean, that could be another thing too. I mean, that might be another larger conversation for the council to have is charter modifications. And maybe that might be something to look at as Do we want to have something that's independently elected as like a check and balance, for example, to have more of a council focus? Options are good.

Yeah, I think that would be my main thing is just kind of understanding like what else is going to happen, like how other folks have put it together and what version of that we can, that we see would benefit like specifically the department. Yeah, it doesn't need to be like a one size, like this place did it this way. So let's just do that this way. But yeah, we can just gather information about like what types of things, what it looks like from other, like in other jurisdictions and figure out like what might fit here and be nice to have that broader context.

Very good. Other ideas or questions from staff?

I think we're good at the moment. Appreciate the feedback and some of the suggestions on jurisdictions to look into and possible modifications to some of the scope of the work that we're proposing. But overall, it's pretty clear. Fantastic. I get the sense that the committee here is in general supportive of having this work take place. Yeah. Yeah. Appreciate the research. Thank you. All right.

Anything else on this topic? All right. We'll do some more. Wonderful. With that, I think that's our item there. We're going to move out to public comment.

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Okay, very good. So we'll close public comment. We'll move on to anything good in the order from committee members or any requested study items? I have a few things to daylight, which might be the basis of study items. So Amy actually mentioned road for recovery, so maybe just an informational update on how that's going. what steps we can expect as part of the budget process, and just maybe a procedural update on how budget outreach, budget development is going to look, just so we can be a little bit more informed about that. Related to that, this is more just me daylighting, but this might be a good place for an initial committee study, is I myself and the city manager, we are facilitating small focus groups with different staff for different departments. So we're talking with small focus groups comprised of frontline mid-level management and senior management from as many of the different departments we can over the next couple of months to just very open-ended listen and learn, you know, what's working, what's not working, general ideas with regard to the budget. Not just the immediate budget, but also road to recovery, like what are some longer-term plans that we can achieve? and uh based on those findings i think this would be a great place for discussing that just to do like that and maybe bring anything we learned to the rest of the council and one other thing that's also budget related is i know the city manager is interested in having some discussions about department level performance standards in service to the the work plan this is me dating myself i know that two seat managers ago i think we tried to do that and this could be A better way of polishing what was previously attempted. So I defer to Keon about the best way to roll it out, whether it's this committee or just, you know, if he just wants to talk about it at a study session. Bypass, that's fine too. But these are definitely things that are in our wheelhouse, certainly of interest. Any other topics folks would like to study down the road, just put in the pipeline? Okay. And open invitation, we don't have to wait for committee meetings. If there's something that you think we'd benefit from studying, just call or text, email me, or just pull me aside and yell at me after a council meeting or something. We can go ahead and do that. So with that, we have no more other items of interest. So I'll now entertain a motion to adjourn.

All right.

I'll second. If you'll second, all those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say no. We are adjourned.