Editorial: Poway needs somewhere to ‘learn the ropes’

The selection Tuesday night of Barry Leonard as the person who will complete Steve Vaus’s City Council term represents the successful completion of an orderly and impressive process.

Leonard, a retired technology executive and member of the city’s Budget Review Committee, was one of the 20 people who applied for the seat, vacated when Vaus was elected mayor in November. Because of his working knowledge of the budget process and familiarity with key municipal department heads, Leonard was in the best position to hit the ground running. That’s important, especially since the council is facing several big issues over the next several months, including the launching of the Poway Road Corridor Study.

Small business owner Karen Dunn, long active in community organizations and the chamber of commerce, was the other finalist for the appointment and acquitted herself very well during two rounds of council questioning.

The selection process showed that Poway has no shortage of people who are interested in leadership positions. The problem for them is that there are not many opportunities to “learn the ropes” or to be in situations where their governmental leadership skills can be honed.

In many cities, the planning commission sometimes serves as a springboard to a City Council seat, but Poway has never had a commission. A limited number of seats are available from time to time on the Budget Review Committee and the Parks and Recreation Committee. (Applications are currently available online, with a Feb. 6 deadline.) However, the list ends there. Moving from the Poway Unified School District board to the council, or vise versa, has never been a successful option either.

For several years there was the Poway Community Leadership Institute, initiated in 2006 by the chamber of commerce, school district and city and later taken over by the Poway Rotary Club. At first, volunteer participants met regularly over several months to learn about local and regional issues and to do community service. By 2011, the program’s last year, the PCLI had been reduced to two half-day workshops.

Poway needs something like the PCLI, whether that program is revived or some other option becomes available. Every community should have the means to provide a supply of well-informed individuals ready to step up to leadership positions.