Findings and Recommendations

EFFECTIVENESS

Development Services

Human and Cultural Services

Public Safety Services

City Hall Parking

EFFICIENCY

INFORMATION ACCESSIBILITY

City Documents

Electronic Media

Other Issues

COMMUNITY RESPONSIVENESS

City Council

Neighborhood Planning

Annexation

The Committee's most basic finding is that different services present different problems, and therefore a plan for decentralization must be multi-faceted.

In some cases, a citizen (or businessperson) must go to a city facility to obtain service. In these cases, decentralization is a matter of citizen convenience, and therefore an issue of effectiveness in service delivery.

In other cases, the location of a facility is a matter of indifference to the citizen, because such face-to-face contact is not involved. In these cases, decentralization is a solely matter of internal operating efficiency.

A third kind of need -- equally important with the first two -- exists in another dimension entirely. This involves needs for information, for ways to make a complex structure of city government understandable and workable to the citizens whose taxes support it.

Finally, there is a need dimension of citizen responsiveness. This involves our sense of community, and the efficacy of personal involvement in the our most local level of government.

These last two problems cannot be solved with bricks and mortar. Yet the Committee believes they may be the most important issues in the long run. They have certainly been the most challenging for the Committee to grapple with. We believe an intuitive perception of these problems is inherent in Council's reason for establishing the Committee in the first place.

For clarity, we have grouped our recommendations under these four headings. All of the Committee's recommendations are regrouped in a department-by-department listing at the end of this report.

It must be emphasized that the cost estimates in this report are preliminary, and frequently they represent only an order of magnitude estimate. The Committee has not had the time or the staff resources to develop a detailed "program" for each recommendation. We interpret the policy direction from the Council workshop session in February 1988 as requiring a general plan, with the understanding that specific details of implementation should be developed by the responsible boards, advisory committees, and staff departments involved in each function.

Effectiveness - Decentralization Involving Citizen Contact

Convenience to the citizen is not only a matter of locating facilities in outlying neighborhoods away from the City Hall complex. It also involves appropriate "co-location," that is, the location of related offices together. Co-location is indicated whenever a citizen must deal with multiple agencies to accomplish a single task.

As the city government has grown and shuffled offices around its facilities, it has failed to develop a logical pattern in the location of these offices. It has particularly failed to develop a policy on the location and functions of satellite offices providing direct services to the public.

Development Services

• The City should proceed with plans to develop a "One-Stop" business and permit center in the City Hall area as soon as funds can be allocated. This is a high priority of the Council's Small Business Committee, and it is this Committee's highest priority recommendation under this heading.

Estimated Costs - Annual: $250,000 (personnel and leased space).

• As experience is gained in managing the downtown "One-Stop" center, the City should consider developing a network of 3-5 satellite centers at multi-service facilities in outlying quadrants. These may be more limited in scope than the downtown center, and they might offer certain services on a rotating schedule basis. They should emphasize the information dissemination functions described below.

Estimated Costs - Not available; depends on program to be developed.

• As an initial step in developing these satellite centers, the Building Inspections Department should issue the kinds of simple permits which are now available at the North Loop Service Center at the existing Multi-Service Centers in the Southern Sector.

Estimated Costs - Annual: $38,000 (personnel and telecommunications).

Human and Cultural Services

• The City should develop Northside and Southside Multi-Service Centers comparable to the existing Eastside and West End Centers. These must be carefully located to maximize accessibility to their present and future targeted service populations. They should be designed to house the information functions described below, as well as social service agencies.

Estimated Costs - Capital: $2.4 million+/- each, depending on site cost and specific services programmed at each location. Annual: Not estimated.

• The City should develop a northside Public Health Branch and four additional Public Health Clinics, as projected by the Health Department. These facilities should be co-located with the Multi-Service Centers (as has been done at the Eastside Center), to facilitate coordination of client intake.

Estimated Costs - Capital: $3.5 million. Annual: $1.2 million.

• The Health Department should develop an on-line computer retrieval system to make copies of birth and death records available at its facilities outside the downtown office.

Estimated Costs - Capital: $ 64,800. Annual: $46,800 (communications).

• The Health Department should develop a satellite animal control facility, rather than continuing to expand the existing facility in Brackenridge Park. Ultimately the City should replace the existing facility, which does not belong in the park. The present facility represents a perverse form of co-location, that is, a location of incompatible services together.

Estimated Costs - Capital: $1 million. Annual: $1.3 million.

• The Library Board and City Council should include as an element in the Library's five-year master plan the development of a middle tier network of regional "super-branches" of around 20,000 square feet each. These should contain expanded reference sections, so that citizens in outlying neighborhoods would have an alternative to the downtown Main Library. Development of these facilities must not cause a reduction in services or hours at other branches or the Main Library.

Estimated Costs - Capital: $800,000 each (construction and initial book stock). Annual: $250,000 each.

• The Committee strongly endorses a proposal to expand existing branch libraries to include community meeting rooms and facilities to host literacy programs. Libraries are "user friendly," and they should become the center of community information programs.

Estimated Costs - Capital: $250,000 each.

• The Library should also continue to pursue opportunities to develop combined school/public libraries.

Estimated Costs - $0.

Public Safety Services

The police substations have been successful in meeting their original goal of increasing patrol efficiency. However their full potential as hubs for community outreach has not been achieved.

• The Police Department should develop a system to offer a broader array of community services through the substations. The department's plan to create "Police Service Agents" may be an effective step in this direction.

Estimated Costs - Annual: $612,000.

• The Police Department should develop a system to make available at the substations accident and incident reports, so that citizens who need them for insurance claims are not required to obtain them downtown.

Estimated Costs - Capital: $10,000.

City Hall Parking

• The City should establish a uniform policy of providing free validated parking for citizens doing business with City offices downtown. The perception that City Hall is "inaccessible" because of a difficulty in parking is a needless handicap to the City's efforts to be responsive. The existing practice, in which some departments provide validated parking in the Continental lot while others do not, is plainly irrational.

Estimated Costs - Not available; requires study of number of spaces needed.

Efficiency - Decentralization of Maintenance/Administration

In many services, it is the City which goes to the citizen rather the citizen going to a City facility. San Antonio has had a network of four Service Centers for vehicle maintenance and public works operations for a number of years.

In general this system has proven effective, but the geographic distribution of these facilities has not paralleled the development of the city. The North Loop Service Center in particular is overcrowded and overburdened, and it cannot remain indefinitely on airport property. Other facilities, such as the building maintenance facilities and the sign shop on land targeted for expansion of Stinson Airport, must also be relocated eventually. In addition, there is no obvious rationale why the Parks and Recreation Department does not use these same centers as a base for that department's maintenance operations.

The location of these industrial-type facilities is essentially independent of the location of citizen contact-oriented centers. Certain operations, however, such as field offices for building or code compliance inspectors, could be located equally well in either type of facility, depending on the availability of space.

• The existing North Loop Service Center should be replaced with two new centers in the Northeast and Northwest. The physical extent of the area to be served suggests that two centers which are located to serve growth areas would be more economical in the long run than one larger and more central facility. These facilities should have adequate sites to allow for expansion and for the relocation of other internal service functions which are now scattered in arbitrary locations.

Estimated Costs - Capital: $7 million. Annual: Savings not estimated.

• Park maintenance functions which are now centralized in Brackenridge Park should be relocated to the service centers. This will require expansion of the existing service centers (and consideration in planning of the northside facilities) to reflect the geographic pattern of parks maintenance needs.

Estimated Costs - Capital: $2.5 million per service center. Annual: Savings not estimated.

• Offices for building inspectors and code compliance inspectors should be located together in the service centers.

Estimated Costs - $0 net.

Information Accessibility

Building new decentralized facilities will not automatically create a sense of community, or an effective linkage between the individual citizen and the structure of city government. To do this, the City must develop a comprehensive and aggressive strategy of explaining itself and making information on City services easily available. This strategy should should take full advantage of emerging technologies to serve the citizens where they are and as they are. It is also essential that this strategy acknowledge the reality that San Antonio is a bilingual and bicultural city.

Implementation of the recommendations under this heading must involve two departments which ordinarily have no direct citizen contact: the Information Resources Department, which is responsible for city computer systems, and the Purchasing Department, which provides telecommunication services. Implementation must also involve a revitalization of the Public Information Office, and a renewed commitment to its neglected functions. Appropriate staff must be assigned in each of these departments and in the City Manager's office to coordinate implementation of these recommendations.

The provisions of the city's cable TV franchise agreement are a major asset for developing this strategy which the city has not fully exploited. Under the franchise ordinance, every municipal building, school and college has the right to a service connection -- including "upstream" or return transmission capability -- at no charge to the City or institution. Thus the cable could be used to link all City facilities in an information network, reducing telecommunications costs and dramatically expanding information accessibility.

• The branch libraries should assume a role as city government information centers, delivering the specific services described below. Branch expansions to accommodate community meeting facilities should be designed to implement this function at the same time.

Estimated Costs - Annual: $85,000 ($5,000 per site for communications).

• The Multi-Service Centers should perform the same function. A trained staff and extended hours in an accessible, user-friendly setting are both essential to performance.

Estimated Costs - Annual: $20,000 ($5,000 per site for communications).

City Documents

• All city government publications of general public interest (e.g., codes, directories, etc.) should be available for study and copying at these locations.

Estimated Costs - Capital: $42,000 ($2,000 per site for equipment).

• All publications of a general public information character should be produced in bilingual versions. This particularly includes departmental service information brochures (discussed below), a general service information directory, and the agendas of Council and city commissions. The Public Information Office should provide technical assistance to other departments in translation services.

Estimated Costs - Annual: $47,000 (personnel and printing).

• Each department which interacts with the public should develop a bilingual series of information brochures, systematically describing its services and the conditions of service availability. These brochures should emphasize completeness and accuracy over fancy design. They should be kept constantly updated through desktop publishing technology, and they should be distributed free through the city information centers.

Estimated Costs - Included in other items.

• The Public Information Office should develop guidelines to ensure uniformity in the content and format of these information brochures. It should also provide technical assistance to other departments in publishing them.

Estimated Costs - $0.

• The Public Information Office should compile and publish a bilingual general service information directory including building addresses, hours of operation, telephone numbers and descriptions of key services. This information should also be available on-line through the city information centers.

Estimated Costs - Included in other items.

• The City should revitalize its moribund program to maintain a documents depository system in cooperation with university libraries. The public library "super-branches" should also include all significant City publications in their reference collections. The City Clerk should participate in this system for sale publications and documents of City Council, and the Public Information Office may need to assist the Library in managing the collection and distribution of documents produced by other City agencies.

Estimated Costs - Not available; depends on administrative system developed.

• The City should evaluate the need for desktop publishing capability throughout the structure of city government. The Public Information Office should provide this service for departments which cannot justify acquiring their own software and equipment.

Estimated Costs - Capital: $14,000 per site. Number of sites requires study.

• Bid requests and specifications, requests for proposals, City job vacancy announcements and job application forms should all be available through the information centers.

Estimated Costs - Included in other items.

Electronic Media

• As a high priority item, funds should be allocated to the City Clerk's office to complete the process of computerizing the development of city ordinances and resolutions. New ordinances and resolutions, along with the minutes of Council meetings (which have been computerized since 1979), should be available on-line at the city information centers.

Estimated Costs - Capital: $70,000. Annual: Savings not estimated.

• The complete agendas of City Council and all city boards and commissions should be available on-line and in bilingual form through the city information centers.

Estimated Costs - Included in other items.

• The City's cable TV access channel should broadcast the complete agendas of City Council and all city boards and commissions. This requires upgrading of the Public Information Office's character generating equipment.

Estimated Costs - Capital: $10,000.

• Live coverage of City Council meetings on CATV-5 should also include the "B" sessions, where emerging issues are debated. This is within the cable franchisee's existing obligations under the franchise ordinance.

Estimated Costs - $0.

• The City should consider broadcasting on CATV-5 the meetings of the Planning and Zoning Commissions, and major public hearings by City Council.

Estimated Costs - Annual: $28,000.

• The Public Information Office's character generating equipment should be supplemented by the capability to broadcast graphic images, such as maps of the brush collection zones.

Estimated Costs - Capital: $10,000.

• The City should use the cable TV access channel to publicize the availability of validated parking at City Hall area offices.

Estimated Costs - $0.

• The Cable TV Advisory Committee should develop a plan to use desktop video and presentation technology as part of the City's public information strategy. The Public Information Office should provide support for other departments in using this technology.

Estimated Costs - Requires further study.

• The Cable Committee should develop a plan to use the Institutional "B trunk" for a government information network. This could provide a form of "electronic co-location" of all City facilities, and stimulate the development of a useful regional data bank.

Estimated Costs - Requires further study.

Other Issues

• The City should thoroughly revise the listings of City phone numbers in the directory blue pages, to make it easy for citizens to identify the offices they need to call. After- hours numbers, emergency numbers, TTY numbers, headings for bilingual assistance, and offices which deal frequently with an unsophisticated public should be systematically listed in bold print. Entries using plain language should supplement the listings which track the City's administrative structure (e.g., "Dog pound" as well as "Metropolitan Health District - Environmental Health Services - Animal Control Facility.")

Estimated Costs - $0.

• The City should also establish an effective bilingual telephone inquiry system, paralleling the information available through the information centers and cable TV channel.

Estimated Costs - Not available.

Community Responsiveness

City Council

San Antonio has long since ceased to be governable -- or to be governed in fact -- by a part-time ceremonial Council essentially without staff support. The citizens demand certain services from their elected Council representatives, including both constituent case work and face-to-face access to their Councilmember at a convenient time and place.

Council has been forced to respond to this need through ad hoc devices such as the diversion of district capital improvement discretionary funds to the rental of district offices, and through near-constant efforts to raise private contributions and retain volunteer staffs. This dependence on contributions, and the ability of some Councilmembers to raise more from their supporters than others, is unhealthy for our governmental system.

• The City should provide an appropriately furnished office, including secretarial space and conference room, for each Councilmember within the district he/she represents. This should be in an existing City facility if suitable space is available. Otherwise it should be leased in an appropriately accessible commercial location.

Estimated Costs - Capital: $3,000 each (equipment). Annual: $8,000 each (leased space).

• The City should also provide each Councilmember with a full-time administrative assistant. This person should be thoroughly familiar with the organization and functioning of the city government, results-oriented, and able to follow-up in providing effective staff support.

Estimated Costs - Annual: $50,000 each (personnel and operations).

Neighborhood Planning

The City does not have an effective small area planning program, or an effective mechanism to involve citizens and neighborhood organizations in the solution of their own problems. The existing Neighborhood Planning Process is cumbersome and inadequate to achieve these goals. A committee of the Planning Commission is therefore currently studying the Neighborhood Planning Process, with the intention of proposing specific revisions to the existing ordinance.

• The City should revise the Neighborhood Planning Process to provide more opportunity for smaller neighborhoods to participate by reducing the plan requirements or by accepting annual goals statements, and more effective implementation through rezoning and capital improvements programming.

Estimated Costs - Annual: $38,200 (1 additional planner).

• The Planning Commission should also develop a flexible, short range sector planning process. This should be designed to mobilize residents in areas larger than an individual neighborhood to set annual "action plan" agendas.

Estimated Costs - Included in previous item.

Annexation

The continuing growth of the city through annexation of developed suburban areas is a matter of settled policy. The management of the annexation process, however, continually challenges the City to provide services in the annexed areas without diluting services in older neighborhoods or distorting City manpower and budget allocations. The Committee therefore encourages Council to continue to perfect the process of planning service extensions before annexations become effective.