Chip – I fully agree we need to put our “house in order”. I’m not suggesting Council meet just to meet, but I hold them accountable for adopting an actionable plan and one that clearly outlines the who, what, where, and when. Warren, Michael, or any other department head can bring plans forward at every meeting, but until Council accepts, or adopts the plan, policy or procedure, City employees have no written policy or procedures to point to. Should they “know” what to do – probably! Can they invoke power and act on their own – sure! But that is often a career ending decision, especially when things go wrong. Council owns the issue!
ChatComm is a goat rodeo, but Warren can’t fix it alone. The contract we have with ChatComm is one sided. It should have been reviewed by outside legal council. One that deals with intellectual property and could have advised Council on things such as owning the source code, payment milestones based on delivery of the software, test milestones, and reserving the final 20% to be paid 90 days after the “Acceptance” of the code. Is that Warren’s fault? Perhaps, but at the end of the day we have 7 elected officials whose job it is to vet out what Warren and his department heads bring to Council and to not make any decisions until they each are completely satisfied with the answers. So, if you want to point fingers on the ChatComm issue, in my opinion you have to go back to those on Council at that time.
ChatComm is a goat rodeo, but Warren can’t fix it alone. The contract we have with ChatComm is one sided. It should have been reviewed by outside legal council. One that deals with intellectual property and could have advised Council on things such as owning the source code, payment milestones based on delivery of the software, test milestones, and reserving the final 20% to be paid 90 days after the “Acceptance” of the code. Is that Warren’s fault? Perhaps, but at the end of the day we have 7 elected officials whose job it is to vet out what Warren and his department heads bring to Council and to not make any decisions until they each are completely satisfied with the answers. So, if you want to point fingers on the ChatComm issue, in my opinion you have to go back to those on Council at that time.