One result of this growth is that citizens find it increasingly difficult to obtain the services they need conveniently and easily. Another result is a built-in inefficiency in the delivery of some services, even when they do not involve direct citizen contact. These factors also produce an intangible cost: a feeling of psychological distance between the citizen and "City Hall" which impairs our sense of community, and thereby the healthy functioning of the city as a whole.
It does not have to be this way. The recent restructuring of the Police Department into five decentralized substations has proven the value of an alternative model. We take for granted neighborhood fire stations and libraries. Functions such as garbage collection and street maintenance have used decentralized facilities for years, without attracting public comment. Other cities have experimented with "little city halls" and other forms of decentralization.
Therefore in October of 1987 City Council created the Regionalization Committee. The Committee was charged to recommend a comprehensive plan for decentralization of city services, so that San Antonio can maintain efficient, effective, responsive and accessible local government throughout this sprawling metropolis.
The Committee consisted of eleven members, one appointed by each member of City Council. (The appointing ordinance is reproduced as Appendix A.) Staff support was provided by the Department of Budget and Research.
With this base of background information, the Committee held extensive discussions with the directors and top staffs of selected departments with existing experience in decentralized operations. At the conclusion of this process, in February 1988, the Committee reported on its progress and received further policy direction from Council.
The Committee then sought systematic input from the community. We developed a questionnaire on the use of decentralized facilities and perceived needs for further decentralization, and members administered it at meetings of various community organizations. (Appendix C.) We also held two formally structured discussion sessions with representatives of two groups with special insights and special needs: one group represented neighborhood organizations and the other was a carefully balanced panel representing a cross-section of San Antonio's military community. At the conclusion of this stage we returned to the city department heads with a survey of the possibilities for decentralizing their operations, the feasibility of alternatives, and the status of any existing staff plans. (Appendix D.)
In the final stage, the Committee developed a consensus by asking each member to list all of his/her thoughts on each city department, including emerging possible recommendations and specific issues for further staff research. In two meetings, we discussed each item advanced by each member, debated and refined them until a consensus was achieved. Throughout all of this process the Committee proceeded by consensus, but at this stage the few items on which complete consensus could not be reached were resolved by vote.
An initial draft of this report was then circulated to city department heads for their review and comment. Simultaneously the budget staff developed preliminary cost estimates for the Committee's tentative recommendations. In the Committee's final meeting, we considered both the staff comments and the cost estimates before we approved this final document.