Preserving institutional memory

People come and people go, but the memory of their actions remain. We call this form of memory “history” and in the case of institutions like government, that history is recorded.

Among the methods used by government are minutes of meetings. Meeting minutes record what was said and what decisions were made so that those in the future may understand the whys and wherefores of how public policies, laws and regulations came to be. This written, and now often digital record, is used by historians of course, but are also useful to those in charge of making new policy, laws and regulations.

Despite the availability of such records to government, they are only so good as the effort to review them, and too often they are forgotten or ignored. Worse, the effort to create official minutes which contain detailed information of what is said is disappearing. Implementing a policy adopted nearly 20 years ago at the dawn of the digital age, the Sonoma City Manager recently informed all city commissions that minutes of their meetings would now be in the form of “action” minutes, recording only the outcome of discussions, not the discussions themselves. The reason given for this, predictably, is the time and expense of providing detailed minutes. Meetings are recorded, but transcripts are not provided by the city.

Efficiency is the guiding principle of private business, but is misplaced as the guiding principle of government. This is not to say that government should be wasteful, but our particular form of government has but one overriding purpose, which is to serve the public good. Government is not about profit and loss, but about balancing private and public good. In doing so, efficiency plays, and should play, only a small role.

The loss of comprehensive minutes contributes to the larger loss of institutional memory. Institutional memory is not simply about its value to posterity; institutional memory in government contributes to making good decisions. Revising Sonoma’s tobacco regulation ordinance, for example, was recently on the City Council agenda. Considerable time was put into the agenda item preparation by city staff, and the council was ready for a full discussion of what would surely have been a contentious issue. Yet, before the discussion even began, it was over. The City Attorney revealed that the present ordinance was the result of a 1992 ballot measure, and that only a public vote at the ballot could revise it. The matter was tabled, but if Sonoma’s institutional memory were intact, it would never have been on the agenda as it was.

With reference to the ballot measure regulating tobacco and how this current misstep happened, the City Attorney reportedly replied that “no one on city staff was here at the time.” While this may be true, it provides small comfort. Yet again, the type of detailed research by staff or council members which should accompany policy discussions was not done. As was seen in the recent overturning of the Williams-Sonoma application for special events, significant information readily available and pertinent to the matter was not obtained and valuable time and money was wasted. This is one way in which efficiency is important in government, the efficiency of careful and detailed research.

When records are not available, research is impossible and efficiency lost. Records make reliance on human memory less vulnerable, and the better the record, the better the research that can be done. Twenty-first century technology is readily available and digital records are inexpensive. We’ve already gone on record as saying the City of Sonoma needs to digitalize its records and data so it can be easily searched, and we so advocate again.

Beyond the value of good records to good government, another lesson here is that – for better or worse – ‘legislating by ballot measure’ inhibits future Councils in responding quickly to accommodate changing developments and sentiments. Ballot measures placed on the ballot by the City of Sonoma should be rare and for foundational issues of taxes, revenues, and infrastructure with long-term implications for the City’s quality of life. In light of Monday’s snafu, Council may want to revisit its recent decision to put a leaf blower ban on the ballot. If it passes, it won’t be easy to change.

And as to minutes, we urge the city to revise its out-of-date “action minutes only” policy and collect and preserve comprehensive meeting minutes, not just action minutes. History will thank us, and so too, it seems, will our City Attorney.