{"id":95355,"date":"2019-03-01T18:20:15","date_gmt":"2019-03-02T01:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/governance-workshop-tackles-efficient-ethical-leadership\/"},"modified":"2019-03-01T18:20:15","modified_gmt":"2019-03-02T01:20:15","slug":"governance-workshop-tackles-efficient-ethical-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/governance-workshop-tackles-efficient-ethical-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"Governance workshop tackles efficient, ethical leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Sam
Sam Mamet, executive director of the Colorado Municipal League, led a joint governance workshop with the Dolores and Mancos town boards on Feb. 27.<\/span>Erika Alvero\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Mancos and Dolores town boards teamed up Wednesday night to talk effective and ethical governance.<\/p>\n

The governance workshop was led by Sam Mamet, executive director of the Colorado Municipal League.<\/p>\n

Mamet covered issues including policy-setting, ethics, efficiency, and transparency in local government. Threaded throughout the presentation, he highlighted the importance of maintaining clearly defined roles and responsibilities in meetings and in town operations.<\/p>\n

Policy-setting, Mamet said, is at the heart of being on a governing board. Policies are the ends, he said, while the means need to be determined, often by staff. However, these means are not always so easily determined.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s the best interest of the public?\u201d he said. \u201cWe should never, ever, ever take for granted our good citizens in our community. We should strive for transparency.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time, he added, they are not a \u201cRoman Senate\u201d putting their votes up for community consensus \u2013 they are tasked with making decisions, which involves ruffling feathers at times.<\/p>\n

But it is important for a board to prove its capacity for efficient decision-making, he said. And a crucial manner of proving this is for a board to stick to its agenda, Mamet said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEfficiency means if we say we\u2019re going to look at these issues this Tuesday night, that\u2019s what you work on,\u201d Mamet said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s what people expect. Rationale and analytical decision-making is always a template to follow. In other words, people want to know at the end of the day, \u2018How did you actually reach the conclusions you did on that particular decision?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Governing boards also need to present a unified front, he said, even in the face of internal disagreements.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t demonize, ever, ever, ever, that particular trustee or councilmember who\u2019s on the other side of the vote on that particular issue,\u201d Mamet told the workshop attendees. \u201cBecause the next vote that comes up, you\u2019re going to be working together. Nobody\u2019s an enemy here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Targeting his crowd, Mamet noted that small town governance is especially intertwined with the community..<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody, in a small town particularly, is connected in some way with everybody else,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s relationships in this community of Dolores and in Mancos. And utilize those, because people know each other, and they know things that are going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

During discussion, board members voiced concerns about balancing their roles as elected officials and community members.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m active in the community, and there are constraints once you become a trustee,\u201d said Mancos board member Betsy Harrison.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like walking on eggs,\u201d added fellow trustee Ed Hallam. \u201cYou got to know what to say.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few Dolores board members asked about the process of handling complaints within boards and town staff. Mancos Town Administrator Heather Alvarez emphasized the importance of rigidly following an established chain of command.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a very firm chain of command up and down,\u201d Alvarez said. \u201cAnd we absolutely enforce it. As the town manager, town administrator, I enforce it both ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

And professional decorum in all mediums is key, along with thick skin, attendees all agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cStay off Facebook,\u201d said Mancos Mayor Queenie Barz.<\/p>\n

And Mancos board member Cindy Simpson\u2019s parting advice: \u201cIf you don\u2019t want to see it as a headline, don\u2019t ever say it or write it.\u201d<\/p>\n

ealvero@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dolores boards join for special meeting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":95356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[13,83],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-95355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-mancos"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95355"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=95355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}