La Puente and unofficial guidelines
Here’s some food for thought: La Puente wants to set guidelines for individual council members seeking information from city contractors.
But they don’t want those guidelines to be adopted as law.
Apparently, officials want council members to tell the city manager whenever they’ve requested information from a contractor. And they want that contractor to provide the requested information to the city manager, so that it can be disseminated to the rest of the council.
But Mayor Louie Lujan said he wants the guidelines to be “memorialized” or adopted in the City Council’s policy and procedures manual rather than approved through a resolution.
Council members are not mandated to follow the guidelines in that manual.
Why then — you might ask — would officials want to adopt a policy, but not adopt it as policy?
Here’s what Lujan had to say:
“(A resolution) is a lot harder to undue if a future council feels a policy is not working for them at that time.”
“I think this new council we have is mature enough and adult enough to simply act in that manner if it’s done at request of council. It falls in line with a belief I have about people. I really feel that people, when asked to behave in an adult matter, they will. Yes, I am putting trust in human nature.”