Institutional jealousy: a situation where one organization competes with another because of perceived threats to its status, authority, resources, or reputation.
In 2023, I wrote about "institutional jealousy" (or the lack of it) in Richardson when I wondered under what power the mayor assigned other members of the city council to committees, board liaisons, and regional boards. The best answer I heard was that "It's City of Richardson practice." I thought that was a weak answer. Tradition works. Until it doesn't. I've always thought it better to put traditions into writing *before* a crisis strikes. For whatever reason, in February, 2024, this council addressed the matter in its "Rules of Order and Procedure". I thought the council was wise to define something...although I was surpised at what. I wrote about it in "Council Recap: Rules of Procedure":
The newly codified rules explicitly grant the Mayor a power that has only been accepted practice in the past. The rules now state, "At the beginning of each two-year City Council term, after all Council members are elected and the Mayor Pro Tem is selected, the Mayor shall appoint Council members to the following Council Committees, advisory board and commission liaison assignments, and regional assignments." None of the Councilmembers objected to them having no power, individually nor collectively, in making these assignments.In a different discussion Councilmember Ken Hutchenrider spoke of, "All seven of us being equal on this body..." This power is being granted to the Mayor alone. Also, in a different discussion, Councilmember Jennifer Justice said, "And so I think we need to have minimal check and balance." This power they are granting the Mayor has none. Even if they are happy with the current assignments, some future mayor could use this newly granted power to reward friends and punish perceived enemies on Council. I would have suggested wording that at least reserves ultimate power to the whole Council: "The Mayor shall nominate, for the consideration and approval of the Council, the following assignments..."
Source: The Wheel.
On the one hand, I was pleased to see the council explicitly spell out the powers of the mayor with respect to the rest of the council, but on the other I was surprised at the lack of institutional jealousy on the council's part. The council just granted the mayor official powers that previously were wielded only by tradition.
But in another part of the Rules, the council did make this declaration of its own power over ad hoc committees. "1.4d: Ad hoc committees are formed on an as-needed basis with a clearly defined purpose and term and reporting requirements. Ad hoc committees are formed at the discretion of the City Council." It sounded innocuous and was, in any case, non-controversial then.
But that was last year. We now have a new mayor. In the October 20, 2025, biannual review of its Rules of Order and Procedure", Mayor Amir Omar wanted to understand what was and wasn't an "ad hoc committee." Mayor Omar said, "I would love, just from anyone's perspective, a tiny bit of history on what the thinking was with this particular item." He definitely had something in mind.
Council member Joe Corcoran replied, "My recollection is that this is sort of a way to address the good and the bad that came with Mayor [Paul] Voelker's Blue Ribbon Diversity Commission. The good thing is it's something that in some way, in principle, I think a lot of us agreed with. The bad part about it was that it was something that was done that used a city staff member's time and had official minutes that were kept and all this stuff. And the six of us on here weren't really consulted about it. So having just some clarity around, alright, if there's an ad hoc committee that's going to use a staff member's time, that's gonna require the keeping of minutes, we all seven or at least the majority of the seven of us need to be in agreement about that committee."
That "Mayor's Blue Ribbon Committee on Diversity and Inclusion" was announced on August 5, 2022, in Richardson Today. So it was kind of a big deal. And because the mayor didn't involve the council in the process, the council was kind of pissed (another word for institutional jealousy). It doesn't want to see that happen again. Hence that section 1.4d in the Rules of Order.
Mayor Omar feared Rule 1.4d unintentionally went too far. He asked a simple question: "If, I don't know, Council Member Dorian wanted to start doing a team meeting of a group of people, let's say leaders in Southeast Richardson, and wanted to just meet with them on a regular basis because that's the area that he lives in, from our perspective as a council, is that considered an ad hoc committee?"
Councilmember Jennifer Justice replied, "If councilman Dorian wants to hold a meeting of leaders from Southeast Richardson, fine. I don't think that's an ad hoc committee." No one argued that it was. Instead they worried that the devil is in the details. They were concerned about spending city resources (staff time and money) on that meeting. After a long discussion including consultations with City Manager Don Magner, they seem to have arrived at a consensus, that, just meeting in an available conference room at city hall during normal business hours, involving no staff, would not constitute spending city resources
Mayor Omar suggested an amendment to 1.4d. "I think some clarity would probably be helpful because there's been some confusion on this one. The clarity could come as simply as, any ad hoc committee that requires council, staff time or budget, requires the council to move forward with it."
Mayor Omar now explicitly revealed his own problem. "This particular 1.4d has been potentially utilized to stop the mayor from being able to have a meeting with business people here at City Hall, and I think that that puts us at a competitive disadvantage. So I'd love to just get clarity so that there no longer has to be a concern about doing something like that or get clarity that there should be concern and the mayor should do those meetings elsewhere."
By the way, Mayor Omar had done some research. "I've now spent time with about 15 mayors around the Metroplex. There's not a mayor that I've spoken to from a bigger city or smaller city than us that doesn't have the ability to have these kinds of meetings in a conference room in their own city hall. By the way, I'm suggesting the council members should have this ability as well, so I'm not necessarily saying this is a mayor's thing only, but it turns out that it's the mayor that's asking for it. ...
There was an hour of discussion without much progress towards finding language that all could agree with up front, Mayor Pro Tem Hutchenrider tried to find a way out of the impasse. He said, "I think we have to give each other grace. And only at the point that somebody says, Wow, I'm hearing that this is now taking city resources, that this is taking city staff, it's, beginning to eat up dollars, if you will, then we need to say, okay, time out."
I call this the "Trust, but verify" approach. Let the mayor (or any other council member) have meetings at city hall with business people or whoever he feels is necessary to execute the duties of his office. Don't require pre-approval from the whole council. Instead, require that all meetings on city property be reported so the rest of the council (and the public) can review what city conference rooms are being used for. If ever a majority of the council feels like the mayor (or whoever) is overstepping the bounds of fair use, they can then raise the issue at a council meeting.
Either Hutchenrider's approach won the day, or people were just nearing exhaustion, but City Manager Don Magner summed up the hour-long discussion by saying, "If it's agreeable, I'm happy to take this as homework, see if 1.4d needs to be tweaked or add a 1.4e and call it something, we can look at best practices for that, and then just state, if it's a committee and it doesn't require staff time or other resources, then it's permissible." Everyone seemed to be on board with plan on how to proceed.
I was pleased to see the city council defend their powers. I was disappointed to see them do that through use of a fairly blunt instrument, one that doesn't restrict fifteen other mayors in the area. I'm hoping that City Manager Don Magner can draft some language that addresses everybody's concerns.
"Ad hoc or ad not
depends whose hand calls the shot.
Lines blur in the sand."
—h/t ChatGPT
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