The Nine Norms

In a dazzling display of creating teamwork guidelines, Sonoma's city council conjured up nine norms for working and playing nice together. This was presaged by the obligatory team-building workshop, where the five stalwarts encounter grouped each other. Must have been a million laughs. Inveterate council watchers well know the raucous and rambunctious reputation these party-animal civil servants so well deserve. They may be there to do the people's business, but the Council 5 know how to get it on - workshop-wise.

"I'd rather have spikes driven through my head," one councilmember was overheard to mumble, "than be confined in one space with these twits when it isn't mandatory...."

But cloister themselves from the detritus of city affairs they did, and like the ancient Hebrews, delivered the almost Ten Commandments of being good boys and girl.

High on the list of the Sacred Nine are no name calling, no putting down of city staff, no criticizing one another or staff for any boneheaded uttering or decision, no teasing or shoving on line, and only referring to the City Manager as "blessed leader City Manager." I made up that last one. The City Manager is a self-assuming man of modest pretensions, and not without good reason.

Norm number one reads: "Thou shall not criticize thy fellow councilmember no matter if he/she is a blithering know-nothing, and makes decisions based on coin tossing."

Numero two-o says: "At all times effusively praise the city staff because it is they who do the actual work, and without them to tell you what to think, you'll have to find out what to do, and think, and that can be very time consuming.

Numero three-o, arguably the most important norm and the foundation on which rests the other eight, declares that: "Only the mayor may decide where councilmembers will sit at the council dais, And where they will sit, or stand if the mayor so wishes, at the next team-building workshop."

The other norms are boring and inconsequential, having something to do with council agendas, and meetings, and all that political stuff.

I, for one, know that Sonomans will sleep better, feel safer, and rest more assured now that the council has brought forth The Nine Norms. Yes, it's not exactly the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, but it's good enough for our little town. God bless the City Council, and the City Manager, and all the city staff and their relatives and their pets, and so on.