009-1996 DM DEPARTMENTAL MEMORANDUM
Departmental Memorandum Number: 9-1996
February 27, 1996
TO: Department Directors
Division Heads
Assistant City Managers
FROM: Jose Garcia-Pedrosa
SUBJECT: C er
I would appreciate your assistance in several ways regarding the memoranda that you send to me.
1. All memoranda are to be read carefully and initialled by the relevant Department Director
and Assistant City Manager. The review should be substantive (i.e., is the memo
responsive?; are we just playing bureaucratic ping-pong?; are the answers/suggestions
correct and valid?) as well as with respect to form (i.e., are there gross grammatical errors?;
is the work product neat and up to our standards of excellence?).
"' 2. The request needs to be reviewed to ensure that the routing of the reply conforms with the
request. For example, I often request that a reply be prepared for my signature and find that
a reply is sent directly to the complainant by the Department Director or Assistant Director.
Or I request a reply directly to the complaint, with copy to me and the Mayor or a
Commissioner, but the reply omits the Mayor or Commissioner.
3. Two or more memos should ~ be clipped or stapled together (as they often are, even when
they pertain to different subjects).
4. Good judgment should be exercised or the question of whether to send a copy of a
memorandum to me. This requires weighing two competing factors: the need (and my
desire) for me to keep abreast of the matter being discussed in the memo versus the
unnecessary addition to my already full plate of reading material (not to speak of the
additional cost of paper, staff time, copying, distribution, etc.) The tension between these
two sets of factors will only increase as we enhance our communications capabilities, making
it easier to send memos and copies of memos.
Thank you for your attention to these matters.
JGP:pp
.~-- c: Sergio Rodriguez, Deputy City Manager
f:deptmemo .96/memoranda.gid