What Are the Two Most Important Duties of a City Councilmember?
1) Good communication with the constituents: It’s easy to get busy and start to think that everyone agrees with you. Having open and rigorous communication with a large voter base is essential to continuing understanding of what the voters want. On the other hand, City problems are often more complex than citizens sometimes understand. It’s a good idea to communicate as much as you can to your voters so that they understand how difficult decisions are made. I always want to be approachable.
2) Being willing (and excited!) to learn as much as I can about challenges facing the City and all the options open to us for good solutions: This includes finding experts who can help, listening to constituents who may know more than I do, and working with other City Councilmembers to find solutions that (most) everyone can be comfortable with.