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Minutes of the Regular Meeting of Council <br />Monday, May 16, 2011 <br />Page 7 <br />it, a lot of different committees, different commissions, handles many of the administrative <br />functions. <br />It really is a necessary marriage between the Mayor and the Council to coordinate policy. It's <br />great to talk about it. It's another thing to implement it. So kind of what sparked this as Diane <br />pointed out, it began looking at one particular committee, but we really went back and surveyed, <br />Diane did a very good job and Council looked at this memo which we can make available to <br />everyone else, but it essentially went back and looked at committees or commissions that are set <br />up through our Charter, others that were set up by Ordinance and then still others which over <br />time have been more informally comprised. What we saw in that was what I think going forward <br />will be a useful exercise. Every year Council President will review with Council the various <br />committee members and make selections. But there are also, and we have our organizational <br />meeting every year, a lot of boards and commissions populated by volunteers. That combination <br />of citizens who are neither elected nor really seek public office but want to volunteer their time, <br />all of this mix tends to require, I think a way for us to identify the policies that we want to <br />implement and over the years I have found it often very challenging from the administration <br />standpoint on how to initiate policy changes and there's often like flip sides of a coin, projects <br />and policy. <br />It's sometimes hard because Council's got to make a decision finally on how to spend the dollars <br />in choosing when and what projects should be voted upon, what's needed, what's seen as less <br />needy, but maybe something prudent to invest in. There's a whole spectrum of discussion. <br />This Committee, I think, probably recognizes, I think in the first time in the Village's history, <br />what we think will be a very good mechanism to help align Council's function, the Mayor's <br />administrative function, the Executive function, and more methodically go through and sort of <br />sort out projects from policy because we have a lot of issues in front of us. For example, what <br />goes on across the street with the old Village Hall and those facilities? What do we do with <br />other public facilities? We have had discussion about the library for example. We need to talk <br />about the future of dealing with our various businesses, all the way from Progressive down to <br />much smaller businesses. <br />So we think that this Committee will be a good way more directly to communicate and sort of <br />cultivate a working relationship between the Mayor and Council. I think that by recognizing that <br />this is going to be a standing committee of the Council we hope gives it legs and we think, <br />especially because as we went through it this afternoon, we had about 6 pages, a few dozen <br />different "projects" that range anywhere from relatively small and straightforward one- <br />dimensional to multi-dimensional matters that will touch upon a lot of policy consideration. So <br />hopefully Council recognizes. I think as Council President Buckholtz said, after going through <br />this process of discussion between us over the last several months I think he is forecasting <br />correctly what should be I think a very good dynamic between the Administration and Council. <br />So, I thank Diane and I thank Bill and stay tuned. <br />Council President Buckholtz stated, I have talked to several people on Council. I have not made <br />any appointments yet, although this is something I want to start soon. It's not something I am <br />talking about for next year. We need to start immediately. I wanted to ask the Law Director first