Strictly, a council is not in the business of counsel but of deliberation and decision making. Provo City’s Municipal Council advises the City’s administration and consents (or not) to the administration’s proposals through the legislative devices of resolution and ordinance.
The
line between advice and counsel (or advise and counsel) admittedly is
thin. The boundary may be limned by
reference to the policy governance of the Council. It is typical that the Mayor informs the Council
of potential proposals in order to receive advice from its members—advice
offered from the perspective of the Council’s policies. Revision and further review of a proposal may
follow in an iterative cycle.
Ultimately, a proposal is withdrawn, or it proceeds to a Council
vote.
The
public deliberations in which Council members learn about and weigh a proposal
are properly occasions for advice-giving—to the administration and to each
other—prior to the formal matter of moving to adopt or deny. Again, the advice that is offered in such
settings is couched in Council policy.
Should a Council member veer from the context of policy in her or his
advice-giving, it is a clear sign that she or he has slipped the bounds of
policy and is now out of her or his element—“down in the weeds” is a phrase
sometimes applied to this predicament.
Thus
Council members learn to resist the urge to opine to the administration and to
each other about details that do not reside in Council policy. To do otherwise is to disrespect the
administration’s sphere of operation and the deployment of its own creative
lights therein. The Council is not the
crucible of clever solutions to vexing problems except its own, and they
pointedly reside in its policy-making role.
Given
this view of the Municipal Council’s place in municipal government, the
desirable characteristics of a councilor include the following:
- She or he is a cultivated listener and resists volubility.
- She or he is wary of the ready opportunity to grandstand and shies from the temptation to politicize or propagandize.
- She or he is a student of policy analysis and seeks a deliberative position informed by data that are reliable, valid, and relevant to the issue at hand.
- She or he avoids flippancy, sanctimony, and ideology.
- She or he is available to constituents as requested and endeavors to provide access to relevant resources and appropriate, never-overweening advocacy.
- She or he is ever-respectful of the limited number of voters who made Council membership a reality and of the possibility that the number of voters who look past the Council’s foibles and value its nonpartisan identity will increase.
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