Cities and towns routinely enter into contracts, agreements, memoranda of understanding, etc. Both local legislators and a town’s residents should have a clear, concise idea of these deals’ requirements.
The recent Whitewater Common Council meeting of 9.18.12 shows how many deals there are, and how hard it is to keep track. Considering a deal with our university over use of parking meters or parking permits, Council looked back to see the terms of the agreement: who could decide whether spaces had parking meters or required permits?
Under the agreement, the university had that power, and chose parking meters. They may be inconvenient, but it was within the university’s power to choose them. It’s understandably hard to keep track. There are many deals, and serving on a city council is not a fulltime job.
An easy way to spot and recall provisions like this is to offer a summary of each agreement, of a paragraph or two, that describes the deal’s terms simply: who does what for whom?
Even a complicated agreement should be reduced to a page, perhaps two. Simple agreements might require only a paragraph or so. The summary’s not law, but it is a useful reference before and after an agreement wins approval.
There’s another benefit to a summary-formula like this: it helps concentrate attention on the key parts of a deal. Deals that go bad don’t often go bad because they’re poorly drafted; they go bad because they’re ill-considered. It’s not for lack of draftsmanship, but instead from ill-considered terms, that uncertainty and disappointment often arises.
If one cannot describe a deal simply, then it’s a sign that key requirements (who has the power to make decisions, etc.) haven’t been well considered.
A simple summary helps focus one’s concentration in a world of many such deals, one after another.