City Manager Brad Kilger and Assistant City Manager Anne Cardwell will present the City Council will a proposal today to develop a guide for Benicia’s boards and commissions.

“The City Council, staff and our B&C (board and commission) members would greatly benefit from having a document that clearly defines the role of the City Council’s advisory bodies, their structure, Council expectations, common requirements of members and procedures for the preparation and presentation of annual work plans, among other guidelines,” Kilger and Cardwell wrote.

“Such a document would also be a training manual with special appendices that contain training materials specific to a particular B&C.”

Cost to prepare the manual is expected to be $25,000 or below, they wrote, and an outside contractor, Management Partners, would be asked to do the work. The company was picked as “the most qualified firm to perform the service in view of the financial and time constraints and given the firm’s intimate knowledge of city operations,” Kilger and Cardwell wrote.

Management Partners already has two contracts with Benicia: the Sustainable Community Services Strategy project, and supplying the city with interim community development management services.

The Council has been examining advisory panel operations since 2012. At a meeting on June 26 of that year, the Council reviewed a preliminary work program for the panels’ review that included analysis of how much staff time is spent in support of advisory activities.

Appointees were surveyed and other data was collected so the Council could develop a set of core expectations from its panels.

That information was used by city employees who offered the Council alternatives about the boards, their structure and their duties.

At an Aug. 28, 2012 study session, Council members expressed interest in establishing processes for the panels’ work plans, annual reports and a consistent orientation packet.

Since then the Council eliminated dormant committees such as the Design Review Board, the Industrial Development Board and the Mobile Home Rent Review Commission. Benicia still has 14 advisory panels. Meanwhile, the city’s own organization was examined, including how to improve staff efficiency.

The comprehensive boards and commissions manual remains “a very high priority,” Kilger and Cardwell wrote, adding that city employees have been trying to draft such a manual, but other work keeps delaying the project.

They added that their preparatory work means the consultant would be focused mostly on the first preliminary draft or Council review.

Before the boards, commissions and committees see a draft of the manual, the Council will provide its own input. After those modifications are incorporated, the contractor would accept comments from panel members.

On today’s consent calendar, all of which may be decided without comment by single vote, the Council will consider a Benicia Fire Department request to buy a $32,941.47 cardiac monitor, using money from a grant; whether to join the Western Recycled Water Coalition to gain expertise and help in planning and funding future recycled water projects; whether to accept a November water report that indicates the community has cut its water use by 19.5 percent since January 2014, and 22 percent since March 2014; and whether to approve a license and environmental study agreement with Exelon Energy Company to determine whether city-owned land north of Lake Herman could be suitable for wind turbines.

The Council will meet at 6 p.m. Tuesday to consider legal matters. The regular meeting will start at 7 Tuesday night in the Council Chamber of City Hall, 250 East L St.

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