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HomeMy WebLinkAbout02-09-26 Public Comment - H. Stanley - FW_Bend City Manager DebriefFrom:Becky Franks To:Mike Maas Subject:FW: [EXTERNAL]Bend City Manager Debrief Date:Thursday, March 5, 2026 4:14:00 PM Please submit as public record Becky Franks, MA Bozeman Study Commissioner Becky Franks | LinkedIn From: halstanley@me.com <halstanley@me.com> Sent: Friday, February 13, 2026 2:44 PM To: Becky Franks <bfranks@BOZEMAN.NET> Subject: Re: [EXTERNAL]Bend City Manager Debrief CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Hi Becky, I’m fine with you sharing the spreadsheet and info from my talk with Mr. King and Ms. Schneider. I don’t need recognition, but don’t mind my name attached. I would highly recommend someone talking with Melissa Hodnett to get thoughts since she seems to be a smart young woman that would have good ideas and perspectives to share. There may be a little politics of going directly below Mr. Winn, but maybe you could do an informal coffee with her or ask Chuck if it would be OK. The Bend Mayor, Melanie Kebler, never replied to my request, but if you think it worthwhile for me to talk with her, I can try calling and asking? Best wishes, Hal On Feb 12, 2026, at 5:23 PM, Becky Franks <bfranks@BOZEMAN.NET> wrote: Hal, This is SO helpful and thank you so much! I would like to take most of it and share itwith the Study Commissioners and therefore the public. Is that ok? If so, do you want your name attached or keep you anonymous? Becky Becky Franks, MA Bozeman Study Commissioner Becky Franks | LinkedIn -----Original Message----- From: halstanley@me.com <halstanley@me.com> Sent: Monday, February 9, 2026 3:23 PM To: Becky Franks <bfranks@BOZEMAN.NET> Subject: [EXTERNAL]Bend City Manager Debrief CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Hi Becky, We got an inch of badly needed snow here this morning, but not sure there’s more in the next few days. It’s melting as I write this! Had a very good video conference with Eric King, who has been Bend’s City Manager for 18 years, and Cate Schneider, who is their Executive Policy Officer and seems to be the expert on Structure and Codes. I will try to give you a debrief while it’s fresh in my mind. Forty minutes only allowed barely touching the surface, but Eric seemed to understand well how to help. It was super generous of them to spend the time with me! I shared the spreadsheet with them to get them up to speed with some of the comparisons with our Cities and Eric indicated that what I had for Bend was correct. Bozeman’s Finance Director, Melissa Hodnett, came from working for Eric in Bend 2016-2022, so she could be a good resource on how the Cities compare. As I mentioned to you myself, Eric was very vocal that our City Manager Salary is way too low to attract the best talent for our size and complexity. They had a major review of their structure and Charter in 2018 and seriously discussed Wards. Both the review committee and Council voted down going to Wards. It seems their biggest concern was parochial focus by Wards taking away from what is best for the City as a whole. They also took salary setting out of the Charter and made it part of Muni Policies, which Voters approved. It seems a major focus of how they run things with lots of citizen input is their Two Year Comprehensive Planning & Goal Setting Process which is set out as one of 3 City Codes (other 2 are Municipal Code and Development Code). He emphasized that these City Codes are where the specificity of running the City exists instead of putting stuff in the Charter which can only change with Voter Approval. They try to set specific metrics to measure accomplishment of Plan Goals - ex. Avg. Days to approve Building Permit, which they then track monthly - so it seems they are much more transparent on management of detailed goals which the public wants improved, than our City. City Advisory Committees are very involved in this biannual goal setting process. The City Manager is reviewed Biannually as part of this process and measured in accomplishment of the goals in the plan. Their City is divided into 13 Neighborhood Districts which are independent entities and not part of City Government. Development Code allows them to “notice” and comment on land use decisions. They have their own bylaws and methods of choosing representatives which are governed by State Law. They seem similar to our Homeowners Associations, but in our case only a small amount of the City is covered by HOAs. Eric and Cate said these have existed in Bend for 25 years, but struggle in their missions. They have less power and influence in city government than City governed Advisory Committees. Regarding “Strong vs Weak” Mayor and Commission/City Mgr. versus Commission- Executive, they felt the Comm/Mgr. that we both have is a better structure for our sizes. They emphasized that the Mayor position can be heavily changed to a stronger role using Codes and Ordinances which are easier to change than Charters. Giving Mayors more powers over agendas, appointments, Special Commission establishment to deal with specific issues, Commission makeup and functioning, etc. allows strengthening the Mayoral position. For example there is a required monthly meeting with a County Commissioner and the Mayor and City Manager to coordinate and manage relations. The Mayor meets with the City Manager weekly, but other Council members meet every other week in groups of 3 with the City Manager to prepare for Council Meetings and prepare to deal with issues that have come up. City/County have biannual joint meetings and occasionally set up joint Commissions to deal with common issues - example is a Homeless Committee composed of Mayors from 4 Cities and County Commissioner. It seems that City/County relations are pretty good as many things that are issues for us are covered by Oregon State Law and governance. For example, Oregon determines “Urban Growth Boundaries - UGBs” at the State level with the goal of requiring population growth in Cities rather than Urban areas. Also there are State Level Building Codes which may be much more extensive than what Montana has. Seems to me that only recently the Montana State Legislature has been getting involved in City planning issues and mostly not in very helpful ways. As Dan, the Consultant mentioned, it is better to have more things in Ordinances and Codes that are easy to change and update if the State makes new rules, rather than in the Charter. I didn’t get to your question of City Manager requirements for the job. I think they would have said it is part of the position description done by Human Resources as I could not find it anywhere else. I have included that as an attachment. Hope this helps, Hal City of Bozeman emails are subject to the Right to Know provisions of Montana’s Constitution (Art. II, Sect. 9) and may be considered a “public record” pursuant to Title 2, Chpt. 6, Montana Code Annotated. As such, this email, its sender and receiver, and the contents may be available for public disclosure and will be retained pursuant to the City’s record retention policies. Emails that contain confidential information such as information related to individual privacy may be protected from disclosure under law.