Setting aside concerns from city staff, the Palo Alto City Council officially endorsed on Monday an effort to create a new Joint Powers Authority that would advocate on behalf of all Santa Clara County cities and towns.

The move is being driven by the Cities Association of Santa Clara County, an association that has been around since the 1990s and that is known for hosting workshops and briefings for mayors and council members and for issuing letters advocating for or against state legislation. The Cities Association is currently an unincorporated entity, a status that members say hinders its ability to obtain grants and protect member cities from lawsuits. The last point was underscored last year, when its former executive director Andrea Jordan sued Cities Association board members for harassment and each of the 15 municipalities ended up discussing the lawsuit in closed sessions.

The Cities Association hopes to officially make the transition by the end of the year and every city and town in the county is now considering whether to support the move. So far, things are looking up for supporters of the transition. Los Altos City Council member Neysa Fligor, who serves as vice president at Cities Association, said Monday that of the five cities that have discussed the transition so far, four had supported it, with Milpitas as the lone dissenter.

Palo Alto became on Oct. 23 the fifth to do so when it unanimously backed the move. The Mountain View City Council became the sixth on Oct. 24, when the council unanimously approved the JPA agreement after a brief discussion.

While the Mountain View council voted to endorse the approval with little debate, the conversation in Palo Alto proved much lengthier. Ultimately though, the result was the same as Palo Alto council members voted to support the establishment of the new Joint Powers Authority (JPA) despite various concerns from City Manager Ed Shikada and Mayor Lydia Kou, who represents Palo Alto on the Cities Association board.

Shikada suggested that some clauses of the Joint Powers Authority proposal are currently ambiguous, including provisions that pertain to the powers of the Cities Association's "executive committee." The proposed document, for instance, makes it unclear whether the full board or the executive committee would be directing the executive director, he noted.

Melissa McDonough, assistant to the city manager, also noted that the Cities Association has other alternatives for protecting members from liability. These include relying on consultants rather than hiring staff and improving fiscal oversight. She also pointed out the draft agreement sets a $10,000 price tag as the threshold for determining an effort that constitutes a "significant program" and that, as such, would require board approval.

"However, we all know that many things at first blush may appear insignificant or have no or low cost can actually end up to be quite a significant expense or endeavor," McDonough said.

Kou had broader concerns about the new organization. She pointed to recent state laws that have diminished local control over land use decisions and state mandates that require cities to meet housing targets.

"These mandates are mostly unfunded and require matching funds or are conditioned by local jurisdiction funding," Kou said. "Why are we continuing to allow another regional group to now continue to perhaps even take away more of our local governance?"

Though she agreed that the JPA might be a good way to go, she argued that the effort should include more levers and limitations so that cities can be reassured that the new organization does not wield excessive power.

Fligor acknowledged that the draft agreement to form the JPA may not be a "perfect document," but noted that it has undergone numerous iterations and reviews by city managers and city attorneys from all 15 jurisdictions. Based on all the input, the association believes the JPA is "ready to move forward," she said. While the Cities Association has been considering the move for years, Fligor suggested that the need for a JPA has only become more urgent.

"The JPA is a much better structure. It protects your city from liability. The unincorporated association that we've been does not provide that kind of protection," she said.

Palo Alto council members broadly agreed. Council member Pat Burt noted that staff concerns about oversight and committee roles can be resolved in the coming months, as the new organization adopts its bylaws. Requiring revisions to the JPA agreement at this time would trigger the need to recirculate the document to every city for fresh approvals, a situation Burt likened to the comedy classic "Groundhog Day," in which a man named Phil has to repeatedly relive the same day.

In addition to increased liability protection, Burt also argued that the Joint Powers Authority will improve the ability of cities to advocate on the regional, state and federal level. He noted that within the JPA, each of the cities in the county have an equal vote.

"That means that in our county we have this important organization that is not necessarily dominated by San Jose like the county Board of Supervisors is," Burt said. "So for the smaller cities in the county, that's an important value."

Council member Vicki Veenker enthusiastically backed the new effort and lauded the Cities Association for giving local officials from throughout the county the opportunity to get to know each other and to share common concerns and best practices.

"I feel strongly there is a good purpose for this association," Veenker said. "And also, I believe it's going to be there and I don't want Palo Alto to not be part of it. That just wouldn't make sense."

Mountain View council members had fewer concerns about the new agency, though council member Lisa Matichak urged the Cities Association to make it clear in its forthcoming bylaws how its process for advocating for legislation. She brought up a potential situation where the position of Mountain View on a particular bill differs from that of the association.

"I can imagine a scenario where based upon our own legislative platform we might support something that the majority of the Cities Association might oppose," Matichak said. "And the letter comes out and it kind of sounds like we opposed it when in fact we supported it."

Her council colleague Margaret Abe-Koga, who chairs the Cities Association board of directors, assured her that this issue will be considered when the bylaws are developed. She noted that the effort to develop the JPA began six years ago and suggested that the association's role has grown as the issues it considers have gotten more complicated.

"The Cities Association's role has grown in that legislators are coming to ask our Association how cities feel about certain pieces of legislation or issues," Abe-Koga said.