MISSOULA — Missoula City Council elections are right around the corner.
MTN News is taking an in-depth look at the role of the City Council in governing Missoula.
City Council President Gwen Jones says that the body operates off of the Missoula City Charter, a document that outlines all the responsibilities of the Missoula City Council.
“Our City Charter outlines who does what, what the different obligations are and there’s a section about city council on here. And basically, number one, we set policy. We also regulate ourselves in that we set our own rules, we elect our own leadership," Jones explained. "Also, in the charter, the mayor has to propose a budget every year, and then we can amend that budget and then we need to pass the budget. So those are really our big, stated responsibilities,” Jones said
When it comes to their work on the City Council, a large part of it is setting policy, according to Jones, that’s only part of the job.
“Yes, we set policy, but I will be honest, Missoula has a lot of policy. We’ve had very proactive City Councils the last 10, 15 years at a minimum, and we’ve got a lot of great policy in place," Jones told MTN News. "I think setting the policy is about ten percent of the job, implementing the policy is a lot of work then and the city administration is tasked with implementing policy, but council is intertwined in that, in that we need to fund things to implement policy. We sit on working groups and different groups to provide input as policies are implemented,” Jones said.
When it comes to new employees for the City of Missoula, it comes down to a budget decision, which finds its way to the City Council.
“And if something is in the budget to hire a new full-time employee, a TFE that has to be funded to implement something that’s ultimately a budget decision that comes to Council. So, the implementation, I mean we have wonderful climate policies, it’s easy to say hard to do so we spend a lot of time implementing and that is a big component," Jones explained.
"I would also say that we are a big connector through the community, a lot of people know our faces they know our names, they feel comfortable emailing us as a constituent saying “Gwen I have an issue with this or I don’t understand why you do that” we are a conduit for communication,” Jones continued.
Jones says that when she receives an email from a constituent, she will send them in the right direction to get residents of Missoula connected to the right people or departments to help them get their questions answered. But there are also some limitations.
“We are a chartered city which means we have local control over everything except what the legislature says we cannot have control over. So, we are subject to that — and there’s a whole list. I think there’s 20 to 25 areas that we cannot control, that we cannot legislate. And some of those have been created by Missoula over the years.
When it comes to the governance of Missoula, the City is limited to rules and regulations put forth, but the Montana Legislature limits the City’s power over certain things. Jones said that there are state laws that determine what the City Council can do and what they can’t do.
“For example, years ago, there was an initiative in Missoula to be able to inspect apartments to make sure they were safe because we had a lot of student rentals that were sub-par and the very next session after the council passed that — and this was years ago, the legislature took that power away from us. We also have a vaping ordinance to try and limit flavored vaping because so many youth were doing that — and again the was eliminated by the legislature. Plastic bag bans, we can’t do that because the legislature says we can’t, So, there’s a whole a lot of areas. I think the big ones frankly are taxes. We are subject to all the rules that the legislature sets up via taxes. So there's some big areas like that. We can’t change minimum wage for example again a legislative prerogative." - Missoula City Council President Gwen Jones
Jones says that they work with the local Missoula state legislatures to get more control back to the cities or get legislation passed at the city level that would help with the City of Missoula.
“It's an uphill battle because we are Missoula within the state of Montana, where we're on a different page philosophically, I would say, than much of the rest of Montana. So yes, we absolutely do a lot of that. And you might hear the phrase local control. That's a big issue these days. Frankly, all the cities across are focusing on that because we know our people, we know what our people want, we would like to be able to implement. We'd love to be able to do more climate work here in Missoula, but yeah, we have to have the authority to do it."
In order to get a resolution or ordinance, there is a process that the Missoula City Council must follow.
"So, I brought several initiatives over the years. And I think to have a successful referral — that's what a counselor has to do — you have to write a referral. That's the first step. But long before that first step, the idea really should be vetted and a ton of research [has[ gone into it and a lot of meetings with stakeholders across Missoula who it would impact negatively or positively,” Jones explained.
If you bring a proposal to the City Council, Jones says that the research can be the key to being successful.
“I think really the more homework you do on those proposals, the better chance of it being successful. I think for the most part, the great majority of our council, there's a big values overlap with our mayors that we've had and with any future mayor that we elect. I think we're mostly on the same page. So having good working relationships with the administration so that the resources of staff can go towards crafting a really good proposal — that's how you get a solid product to then bring to council, which goes to committee. Which then a bunch more questions are asked, and maybe you go back and work on it for a while and maybe make changes before you ultimately bring it to the full council to hopefully get a successful vote on it." - Missoula City Council President Gwen Jones.
When it comes to communication, being able to help their constituents is a large part of their work.
“I think the communications piece is actually pretty big and people are constantly emailing us with questions or I need the city to do this. Sometimes we can help with something, sometimes we can't. But having done this for quite a few years now, I think it is super important for counselors to communicate the facts correctly — or if you don't know the facts to say that," Jones said. "And then if you have an opinion on them, so be it.
"But it goes to trust in government these days and being able to honestly say...to be honest and truthful with constituents and giving them the facts on a situation, whether they like it or not, that's a really solid starting place. [It's] important for the constituents, important for government. I think counselors have a big responsibility to do that”, Jones concluded.
If you would like to get a copy of the City Charter, you can pick a hard copy up at the Office of Neighbors in City Hall.
