San Clemente Officials Make Peace : Government: Council members, staff meet in first-ever workshop. They vowed to set pettiness aside and work together.

A two-day workshop designed to change a history of divisiveness and infighting among council members and staffers has lowered tensions, officials said.

In the first-ever workshop combining the council and each department head, City Manager Michael W. Parness hired a consultant to interview participants regarding their likes and dislikes about city policy and their peers in City Hall.

The workshop was conducted at the Casa Romantica historic building in San Clemente, and cost the city “under $10,000,” Parness said. He said the money included lodging and meals for all who attended as well as about $1,500 per day for a consultant, who spent four days on the project.

The results of the consultant’s interviews, presented to the entire group, acted as a springboard for a “mission statement” defining consistent, long-range goals that will form a basis for council decisions and staff recommendations, Parness said.

In a statement, city officials vowed to dedicate themselves to maintaining a healthy environment for work and play, preserving the city’s village atmosphere by ensuring responsible growth and providing for long-term economic stability and diversity.

“There has been a lot of frustration on the council,” said Parness, who was hired a month ago to replace former city manager James Hendrickson. “They’ve lacked focus and direction on what the city is all about.”

To remedy that problem, Parness and the consultant suggested setting aside specific city issues, and instead focusing on personal relations.

“It made me realize that throwing issues at the system we have just won’t work,” said Councilman Thomas Lorch, who, in his three-year tenure on the council, has been the lone voice in numerous 4-1 votes and motions that failed to be seconded.

“It was time that we faced each other and understood that rather than a we-(versus)-they attitude, we could agree on how to meet the needs of the community,” Lorch said.

Councilman Scott Diehl, who has publicly opposed Lorch’s slow-growth views, agreed.

“We got out of a rut and stopped looking at the labels we all perceive ourselves by,” Diehl said. “And once we found there was common ground, it became easier to find out where we wanted to go.”

Some of the problems discussed included what Lorch termed “parking lot meetings,” where certain council members agreed before a meeting where they would stand on an issue.

There was also the problem of sensitivities among staff members, who had seen other staffers be publicly lambasted by the council for suggesting an innovative idea in a report. Staffers became fearful and avoided making suggestions, Parness said.

“Letting go of old feelings is not always easy,” said Mayor Candace Haggard, recalling the time Parks and Recreation Department manager Michael Sorg was criticized by then-mayor Brian J. Rice for putting a parks logo, rather than the city logo, on public park signs.

“The parks department had to go around and saw all the logos off the signs,” Haggard recalled. Rice ended up paying for the replacement signs--with a city logo--out of his own pocket.