Troy government review commission begins work

Troy’s Commission of Local Government Review board held their first official meeting at Troy City Hall on Jan. 23, two weeks after being sworn in. The commission consists of three members, Fran McCully, Tony Brown and presiding official Phillip Fisher, who are tasked with researching the structure and operation of Troy’s form of government and comparing it with optional forms to determine if changes should be proposed to voters.

Troy currently operates under a commission-executive form of government with a charter. There are 22 other municipalities in Montana that utilize the same model of government as Troy.

The commission spent a good amount of time on questions about budgetary concerns and questions to start the meeting. City Clerk Tracy Rebo said Mayor Darren Coldwell instructed to make available the full $10,000 the city has levied mills for to provide operational costs of the commission, up from the $7,000 budgeted by Rebo. It was decided the additional funds would be evenly distributed between the advertising and training portions of the commission’s budget.

Financial requests by the commission are to be proposed and granted by the city council before public money is spent. Rebo noted there can be exceptions. For example, when city councilor, and ex officio for the commission, Kimberly Rowse was informed of a charter review training in Bozeman on extremely short notice approval followed the expenditures from the trip.

There were only two people in attendance for the 2 p.m. Friday meeting, which the commission hopes will change in future meetings. “It’s going to be a challenge,” said McCully. “This isn’t unique to Troy, this is everywhere. Unless you have a major controversy going on, it’s difficult to get people to show up.”

One way they intend to increase community participation is by finding out what voters hoped to get out of the government review by way of a survey. “We have to find the issues of interest,” said Brown.

In the section of Montana Code Annotated dealing with government reviews it notes commissions can gain insight on critical issues within a community and stimulate voter interest by way of a well-designed survey. Commissions are also urged to seek professional assistance in the design, implementation and interpretation of survey findings to avoid any flaws in those areas.

Questions about the order and timing of mailing information and surveys were debated by the commissioners to decide what would yield the best results. With meetings planned to be held twice monthly it was determined surveys would be mailed in early April and the commission would hold a public meeting later in the months to discuss the results.  

The commission also plans on gaining insight on optional forms of government and how best to engage voters by visiting other municipalities and talking with government leaders in those communities about what has and has not worked for them. McCully noted some cities, such as Thompson Falls, have websites detailing their form of government and strategies they’ve employed.

It was conceded by the commission that putting up a website for the review was probably too expensive, but they did decide to start an email for people to send questions and ideas. Rebo created a Gmail account for the commission at govtreviewboard2015@gmail.com.

Fisher did a line-by-line reading of Troy’s charter form of government, which was implemented in 1987. Brown mentioned the council didn’t need to start picking apart the charter upon initial review, but there were some question about the wording of Section 3.04 part 12 that dealt with the mayor’s power to fire city employees commissioners thought could be clarified.

The next meeting for the government review board was scheduled for 2 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 13 at Troy City Hall.