Expectations & Roles of Liaisons 01-2016CITY OF
SHOREWOOD
5755 Country Club Road • Shorewood, Minnesota 55331 • 952- 960 -7900
Fax: 952- 474 -0128 • www.ci.shorewood.mmus • cityhall @ci.shorewood.nmus
EXPECTATIONS AND ROLES
OF
CITY COUNCIL LIAISONS TO ADVISORY COMMISSIONS
AND
COMMISSION LIAISONS TO CITY COUNCIL
The Shorewood City Council wants to foster good and thorough two -way communication
with its advisory commissions and committees. For many years this communication has
been performed through the role of liaisons.
What is a liaison? One dictionary defines it as follows:
Liaison -(1) Communication between different offices or units of an organization. (2) A
channel or means of communication: He served as the President's liaison with Congress.
The following points are intended to be a guide— expectations of etiquette, if you will
that will foster productive and respectful liaison relationships.
City Council Liaisons to Commissions and Committees
The City Council has created advisory commissions and committees in order to study and
make recommendations about a course of action that the City Council should take or pursue.
Persons on the commission or committee should be providing informed recommendations to
the Council, and free from bias or influence from the Council.
Accordingly, the Council liaison should:
• Respect the prerogatives of the commission/committee, and appreciate the separation of
roles between the commission/committee and the Council.
• Refrain from active or direct participation in the deliberations of the
commission /committee.
• Be willing to provide a perspective of the Council (and not of oneself) on a particular
matter under consideration.
• Ask the commission/committee to address issues or points of particular interest to the
Council (and again, not of oneself).
• Inform the commission/committee of recent City Council actions or business, as may be
relevant or of interest.
• Be able to ask technical questions about the subject/material that would otherwise have to be
asked during a council meeting.
EXPECTATIONS AND ROLES OF
CITY COUNCIL LIAISONS TO ADVISORY COMMISSIONS
AND COMMISSION LIAISONS TO CITY COUNCIL
November 2003; reviewed Jan. 2016
Page 2
Commission /Committee Liaisons to City Council
Persons serving as liaisons at City Council meetings have an opportunity to inform the Council and the public
of the activities of their commission or committee. It is expected that the liaison will be a participant during
the Council meeting, and accordingly the liaison will have "a place at the table ".
In order to be an effective contributor to the Council business, liaisons should:
• Provide a brief overview of the commission/committee activities following their own
meeting(s) from "the table ", rather than from the podium.
• Not review the minutes of their last meeting(s), but rather highlight matters other than
those that may be on the Council's agenda that evening.
• Speak to individual agenda items during the Council meeting that have been reviewed by
the commission/committee. Appear at any Council meeting when such items are
scheduled on the agenda.
• Provide the Council with a summary of the action by the commission/committee, and relate
the minority position(s) stated during its discussion of the matter.
Those seated around the Council and staff tables are expected to be attentive and respectfully
listening while liaisons are giving reports of their commission/committee activities.