How to Solve the City Council Vs. The mayor Dilemma

Seattle’s Mayor Office and Seattle City Council have a long tradition of being at odds. As a member of the Seattle community, I have witnessed blaming, power struggles, manipulating and straight out lawlessness. There are many reasons for this - from history to structure and beyond, but changing a culture within an organization, such as the city government, is hard, especially head on changes. What we can do is refocus on what all civil servants have in common: serving the public to their satisfaction. My idea is to change the conversation from why we can’t get along - or trying to get along - to how well we are doing our job. I would do this by instituting single three-point satisfaction surveys that any and every member of the public could complete with every single interaction they had with any civil servant - from a meeting with the mayor to paying your B&O taxes, permitting, and even the police. ​