Alders ​“Recommend” Management Team ​“Training”

Alders unanimously approved a recommendation that the city’s community management teams use parliamentary procedure when running their meetings and that they develop standardized training — without giving any specific guidance on what that training should consist of.

Local legislators took that vote Monday night during the latest regular bimonthly meeting of the full Board of Alders. The in-person meeting took place in the Aldermanic Chamber on the second floor of City Hall.

The alders voted unanimously in support of an amended order ​“concerning the structure, responsibilities, and bylaws of Community Management Teams in the City of New Haven.”

The amended version, introduced by Beaver Hills Alder and Public Safety Committee Vice Chair Brian Wingate, recommends that the management teams ​“form a citywide steering committee consisting of at least one member of each CMT to arrange for structured training in such subject matter as the steering committee deems appropriate, that the steering committee develop uniform bylaws for all CMTs that provide for the election of officers, the taking of minutes of meetings and that the meeting be conducted pursuant to Roberts Rules of Order.”

The final vote comes roughly two months after the Public Safety Committee hosted a packed virtual three-hour-long hearing on management teams’ roles and procedures. 

That hearing featured spirited debate about the operations of the city’s 12 community management teams — which started out as a 1990s-era community policing initiative and have morphed over the decades into neighborhood-based forums for residents to engage in conversations about all aspects of life in their part of the city.

Monday’s final aldermanic vote demonstrated that local legislators are not interested in taking too big of a step in telling how these separate, neighborhood-level experiments in democracy should function.

Downtown Alder Abby Roth stressed during Monday’s floor debate that the order approved by the alders is just a recommendation, not a requirement.

CMTs won’t necessarily have to use Robert’s Rules of Order, she said. Those parliamentary rules provide a detailed, formal structure for how an organized group hosts debates, hears and votes on motions, and determines who can speak up when.

“I think Robert’s Rules of Order will stifle the community building conversations that happen and potentially reduce attendance” at community management team meetings, Roth said.

Westville Alder Adam Marchand disagreed. ​“I believe that we should encourage our neighbors who run these CMTs to enact these recommendations, all of them,” he said. ​“I think they will improve the functioning of these bodies.”

Fair Haven Alder Jose Crespo sided with Marchand. ​“We have many, many CMTs,” Crespo said. ​“This will allow for an opportunity for all CMTs to come together” and hash out a standardized way for these disparate groups to operate.