By Adam Pagnucco.
The new county council has announced its committee structure for the next four years. It was devised by Council President Evan Glass in consultation with the rest of the council.
Council committees matter because they are an important part of how the council conducts its business. Most items before the council, whether they are legislation, land use issues, budget issues or briefings originate in committees. Committee members, at least the attentive ones, tend to develop expertise in their committees’ portfolios.
Unlike in the General Assembly, council committee chairs cannot unilaterally kill bills but their scheduling power influences how long it takes to pass them – or perhaps not pass them. I still remember how long then-Public Safety Committee Chair Phil Andrews took to report out the Leggett administration’s curfew bill, which he opposed. His dragging out of that bill gave opponents time to organize and ultimately resulted in the full council tabling it, a rare fate for county legislation.
In summary, Gabe Albornoz retains the chair of Health and Human Services and Sidney Katz retains the chair of Public Safety. Will Jawando replaces Craig Rice as chair of Education and Culture. Evan Glass replaces Tom Hucker as chair of Transportation and Environment. Andrew Friedson replaces Hans Riemer as Chair of Planning, Housing and Parks, which has had Economic Development split into a separate committee headed by Natali Fani-González. Kate Stewart replaces Nancy Navarro as chair of Government Operations and Fiscal Policy.
Among the new members, Fani-González and Stewart have chairs while Marilyn Balcombe, Dawn Luedtke, Kristin Mink and Laurie-Anne Sayles do not. That will be a meaningful distinction in the new term. Also very meaningful is that Friedson now runs the council committee dealing with its all-important planning functions AND is council vice-president at the same time. ADVANTAGE: Friedson.
The full committee structure appears below.
Economic Development (ECON)
Chair Natali Fani-González
Councilmember Marilyn Balcombe
Council President Evan Glass
Councilmember Laurie-Anne Sayles
Education & Culture (EC)
Chair Will Jawando
Councilmember Gabe Albornoz
Councilmember Kristin Mink
Government Operations & Fiscal Policy (GO)
Chair Kate Stewart
Council Vice President Andrew Friedson
Councilmember Sidney Katz
Health & Human Services (HHS)
Chair Gabe Albornoz
Councilmember Dawn Luedtke
Councilmember Laurie-Anne Sayles
Planning, Housing & Parks (PH)
Chair Andrew Friedson
Councilmember Natali Fani-González
Councilmember Will Jawando
Public Safety (PS)
Chair Sidney Katz
Councilmember Dawn Luedtke
Councilmember Kristin Mink
Transportation & Environment (TE)
Chair Evan Glass
Councilmember Marilyn Balcombe
Councilmember Kate Stewart