- I will call the meeting to order. This is interview committee a for Bloomington Transit for it is August
- 19 307 p.m. I am Kate Rosenbarger City Council district to help each else for district three Jennifer
- cross Lee clerk's office Okay, so
- Is it okay to call you Perry? It's totally okay to call me Kate. Thank you for coming today. Well, thank
- you for having me because I was flying back home on Thursdays. It's always a lot to wrinkle with interviews.
- So we pretty much have a set of questions that we ask all the candidates to try to keep everything the
- same, but we veer a little bit, of course, just as like you say something that we might have a follow
- up question about.
- We will just kind of head that direction. Our first question is about minority groups that we have just
- asked everybody. So I will pick us off. Have you ever been part of a commission council or board that
- focused on the betterment and wellness of a specific community, particularly a minority group? If so,
- what was your role and what impact did it have? So on a commission or board? Well, I was the chair of
- the Commission on Transportation Disadvantage for the state of Florida.
- I was appointed by Governor Martinez. I served as chair two terms. And our focus was on disabled, lower
- income people. And it was quite the experience. I just thoroughly enjoyed doing that. And I got that
- role because in Brevard,
- Florida they have each county has a transportation disadvantaged coordinator that coordinates all the
- various social service transportation and public transportation. So each county has that and so it was
- quite the working with all of the various groups really neat.
- Well, good. So, yes, sorry. Yeah. Long answer. And you said it wasn't a long answer. No, it was not.
- If you said each county then had a coordinator for social services, transportation, and public. Yeah.
- Typically, it was one and the same. Yeah. If you were transfer director for the county, you were also
- the CTC for the county. There were some instances where the public transit agency wasn't interested
- in it. That wasn't the case in most counties. Got it. So interesting.
- What do you want me to do? Want me to continue? No, I'm good. You're good. I got it all. I listened
- at the same time as I did some copying and pasting. So the next question is what inspired you to apply
- for this position on the Public Transportation Board of Directors? What draws you to the work and the
- mission of the board? Well, I know a background in that besides that, I guess, like you're here, you're you're
- I'm assuming retired. So like, why do you want to? I retired back in 2018 at IU and I was the director
- of campus muster house. So I spent 12 years in the same building, uh, with Wilmington transit and their
- staff and board members. So, um, I would go to board meetings and, uh, so my understanding was there
- was going to be an old thing. And so I said, okay, I can do this. Uh, and I've been in this, I,
- actually worked for Bloomington Transit while I was in school back in 1973 when it was still a city
- department before it became its own public transportation corporation. So I think about it, if I stayed,
- I would have been like number one on the seniority list. Everything is done by seniority with the union
- contract. So, you know, with my background in public transportation,
- and I continued to stay up with it. I teach a class over at O'Neill just in the fall semester because
- I tell people if I did it both semesters, it'd be a job. That's true. I finally got them down from the
- height of 47 students down to 30, and I have a nine-person waiting list. Popular. Yeah. What is the
- class? Public transportation management. It's just called public transportation management.
- Great. You mentioned that so when you used to share the building with them, you would interact with
- board members. I would go to board meetings. You would go to board meetings. How have you interacted
- with the board since then? Are you up to speed on what's been going on? How much do you track? No, I
- would not say I'm completely up to speed. I read the v-squared articles when they come out and I haven't
- been to a board meeting since I
- retired. Great. I have a question. How do you understand this board to operate? In a way, it's just
- a question of what do you think their role is in terms of Bloomington Transit?
- And I think I would just add on to that as another question that's, do you think anything is missing
- representation wise from the current board? And if so, what do you bring skills and to like an experience
- to fill those gaps? Well, I have a lot of experience in public transportation and I, you know, I was
- on a board.
- statewide board, but I also worked with boards and elected officials because in, you know,
- over the years, you know, you could have your own board like this. I had one in Brevard County and then
- we were taken over by the county and I became the first county transit director and it was the city
- of the Brevard Transportation Authority, which actually was the city of Melbourne. So you have to work
- with your board members, right, and
- as a staff person, but then as a board person, you have to work with the rest of the board, right? And
- it's very important that you have good relations with everybody when you're on the board. And my whole
- theory on this, having worked for boards and city and county commissions, you're there to make things happen.
- right for that they're the elected officials or the appointed officials or even in the case of working
- with the union they're elected president of that union i'm not elected as the manager of the transit
- system so you've got to be able to work together with everybody in all kinds of different and i'll give
- you an example so in florida each
- five years, they're required to have a transit development plan. It's like a strategic plan, it's state
- law. And so you have to take it to the county commission. And so when I took mine and we made
- our presentation, well, the consultant made the presentation, I was there. And I had two people with
- me, the chair of our citizens advisory board, which was appointed by there were seven county commissioners
- and each commissioner appointed one member. And then on the other side was the president of the union.
- And they both,
- said the exact same thing supporting what we wanted to do. Oh, and by the way, the chair of the Citizens
- Advisory Board was also the chair of the Republican Party in Palm Beach County. And the county commission
- chair came up to me after the meeting and was blown away that both the union president and the chair
- of the Citizens Advisory Board and chair of the Republican Party could both support what we were trying to do.
- So I think that's what I always try to keep in mind is you may be disagreeing with somebody today, but
- you need them to vote with you tomorrow when you're on a board. And that's how we ran the Commission
- on Transportation Disadvantaged had like 15 members. It was from all over the state. So you had people
- from Miami and Pensacola, and you were trying to get things done.
- And you have to get things done with just about everybody when it comes to doing things in the public.
- Because if somebody goes off, there can be issues, right? So that's my sort of personal philosophy on
- how you work in the public sector. You've got to have support. And you've got to be able to work with
- everybody. And they need to know you will work with them.
- Kind of on that theme, limiting transit serves people with very different transportation needs. And
- how should the board think about serving all of those things? I just found out I had a, I took the bus
- here from the route from Kroger over and you know, the students are back. The last time I was on, there
- weren't that many students, but we've also got a lot of issues. You know, there were people with
- and all health issues, and the driver had to say to the fellow, you've got to put a shirt on before
- you come on the bus. So, you know, we have, I think back to Lincoln in the 70s, when I first got here
- as a freshman in 1970, how it's changed. But, you know, I've lived in big states. I lived in Miami,
- I lived in West Palm Beach. You know, you have issues, and you've got to work with them.
- and the people and the issues you can't just walk away from. So since you just said that you took the
- bus here, do you ride bus frequently? I wouldn't say since I have been retired, but I do take it into
- campus, you know, because especially next Monday, you know, you don't want your car at a parking lot,
- right? Because people are still thinking they can park anywhere, right?
- When I lived downtown and worked at the garage on Grimes, I would take the bus from the old where the
- buses met there at Washington and 4th Street on the corner. That was the old transfer center before
- the new one was built. When I would take the bus into campus, because the 7 would go right by on Walnut and
- I could take it in instead of driving. And so that's what you do now, like when you teach your class
- in the fall? I won't say every day, right? But that's like, it's not infrequent. No, yeah. It's like
- one of your kind of normal options. Well, because I'm asking the students to, one of their projects
- will be, give me a write-up on your experience commuting into campus, whether it's bicycling, a park
- and ride to the stadium, or taking a
- BT bus, so. OK. So then you also consider your commutes onto campus. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Thank you. I want
- to follow up on the different needs question. Do you think Bloomington Transit is currently meeting
- the needs of its riders? It seems so. I mean, I think the routes, there's been restructuring over the
- last few years.
- Like the seven is no longer is the one, right? You know, so I mean, I haven't really studied it in depth,
- but it seems to me that, you know, the feedback I get from the students and over the years, I've had
- hundreds of them and they've all done this project since 2018. So it's good, you know, but you have
- to understand that many people come here and this is the first time they've ever used public transit
- if they're from Indiana.
- Even Indianapolis, you know, people in Carmel and Fishers, they've never been on public transit. So
- it's neat to have out of state or out of the country students because they are users of public transit.
- And given me a lot of insights, like how the best way to get to the freest way to get to New York City,
- take the Staten Island ferry, because it's free and it runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
- So, um, so I, you know, I can't really, you know, Say, I know everything about what's going on. That
- would be perfect. Great. Same for me to say that. So, right. Go back to because I skipped. I know we're
- kind of jumping around. Yeah. Um, here's, here's a question.
- Here's an interesting one to hear from you about. What ideas do you have to create impactful private
- and or public partnerships, initiatives that can address challenges to Bloomington Transit? And of course,
- since you were with IU for a number of years. Well, you know, I think that partnership has been great.
- I always reckoned it as having a roommate. You can share all your expenses. Right? You know, the power bill,
- you know, the cleaning, whatever it is. And I think that relationship is the most important. And having
- worked at Gainesville, Florida, where it was the city operation and there was no campus service owned
- or operated by the university. But when I first got there, my first, second day of the job meeting with
- people at UF, they basically said, if you guys
- don't clean up public transit from the city of Gainesville, we're going to start our own service. And
- I asked them to give me a year, and they did. And to this day, and that was 1996, so it's still operated
- by the city of Gainesville by a person that I hired, who's been there all those years since. But so that city
- town, gown, city, university relations. That's the first one. I've also done a lot in private sector
- contracting. That was a big, we'll go back to the first Bush administration. That's how far back and
- really even into the end of the Reagan administration where there were a lot of initiatives by USDOT
- and the Florida Federal Transit Administration to have private public partnerships.
- So we, one of the things we did in Brevard County, we contracted out the maintenance of all the buses.
- And to this day, it's still going on. The contract has been renewed and put out for bid. So I have gone
- through those kinds of things. In Palm Beach County, we had a huge, huge contract for paratransit services.
- Because in Florida, it's a big deal to have door-to-door services. It's a huge market because
- with older population. Florida is now is what the rest of the country will be like in 30 or 40 years,
- as far as the number of disabled people and senior citizens. So it was a huge contract. And so we had
- to do that in the private sector. So I'm familiar with that kind of stuff. So, okay. We'll go back to
- the IU and the Lincoln Transit relationship again, because I know one of the things that we've talked about
- generally over the years is those two systems merging and they're just being one transit system and
- what's your perspective on that? I think there are a lot of pluses for it. Federal funding, there is
- funding on the table that we're not getting for intensive use systems aimed mostly at university communities.
- There's state funding that's on the table. And if you think about, I'm dated on the, because ridership
- has gone down since COVID all across public transit. And unlike airlines, it hasn't come back yet. Certain
- metropolitan areas are getting close. LA, for instance, is almost to where it was. It just, it's been
- a long haul to get people, most of it, a lot of it is just people not going back to work.
- in a big city, right? In Denver, it's been oral to get ridership back. And they're, you know, much lower.
- But anyhow, off on a tangent there, but there's the ridership at BTE or at Campus Bus is about three
- million a year. And I think Wilmington Transit's four or five million a year, something like that.
- Well, if that's my last information. We're down above 2 million. And we're at 3.5. OK, that was, yeah.
- Campus bus is at 3 million a year. Well, it was. I'm sure it's down from what it was, but my information
- is dated. But nationwide, ridership is down. But there's still ridership there, and it's not being counted
- in any state or federal formula. And those are important.
- I understand. Are you, have you with that? Yes. Yes. Line of questioning. Okay. I, because that's something
- you said too, I wanted to jump to paratransit and AT access like we have here. And I guess, you know,
- kind of to the best of your ability, how you see balancing paratransit with fixed route buses and maybe
- Yeah, where do you see that going in the future here? Well, I'm a big advocate for, because based on
- my experience, for people with disabilities having access to door-to-door services. You know, I saw
- the industry over the years fight that. I mean, I was at conferences where people in wheelchairs were
- chaining themselves to the front bumpers of a bus in protest that there weren't
- wheelchair lifts. And then we got the ADA. We're really happy to get the ADA because in Brevard County,
- we did not, I got there in 83, we did not have lifts on any of our buses. And I said to the board, okay,
- we need to retrofit and we need to buy all of our new buses with lifts. And we did that before 1991.
- And so, and the paratransit services, the door to door,
- You know, again, an example from Brevard County, we would do the Space Coast Symphony, always did a
- holiday at one of the mega churches, a free concert. And we ran all the buses on a Sunday from all the
- nursing homes. And we had county commissioners, there were five, not three like here, but coming to help
- and saying, wow, this is the best thing. And I think it really, I mean, having gotten the calls from
- people who had issues using paratransit and trying to help them get through it, it's really important
- that, you know, they don't have alternatives for the most part, right? And we're that alternative. And
- I think we got to keep that in mind first
- priority are for people who really have no alternatives. And, you know, we did a lot of stuff in Florida.
- For instance, one of the things we did was instead of having Medicaid pay for paratransit trips, because
- Medicaid is just a low income medical, right? It's not about being disabled now. Oh, people are disabled
- on Medicaid. But so by giving them a monthly bus pass, they were able to go anywhere.
- And it was transferable within the family. So instead of just going to a doctor's appointment once a
- month, they had access to countywide public transit. I think it's important to work within the system
- that's set up. But we have to have that as the highest priority. I really don't see anything else higher
- than that. What about the microtransit?
- So in the past couple of years, Bloomington Transit has really expanded their microtransit, not just
- the access, but microtransit for everybody. Well, I think that's a great new concept. And I think it's
- sort of new, so new at this point. It'd be hard to evaluate its effectiveness because it's only been
- a couple of years. So it's a tool in the toolbox.
- It's just like, you know, we now have bus trackers. I was standing there at the right time and going,
- oh, okay, I took it out and it was delayed a few minutes coming around from, well, I'm sure at the mall
- because it, you don't want to go to Target, right? So yeah, it was fine. So it was fine. But those are
- great. You know, it's great to have real time information instead of looking at a schedule that was
- put together months ago, right?
- didn't know there was a snowstorm going to be there that day, right? So I think technologically, we
- have done a lot in public transit over the last 50 years in changing things. And so I think microtransit
- is just one of those new tools that we now have that we couldn't have done 20 years ago. To change gears again.
- What is one thing that you can name that you might identify as the largest problem? What is transit
- and how would you work to change that as a board member? Well, if you go back historically, public transit
- and urban development, right? The biggest challenge we have in public transit is making sure that they're
- aligned together.
- And why does public transit work in a town like this? Well, think about the campus, right? It's walkable,
- parking is scarce, or it's over at the stadium. And you've got people choosing to use the service, even
- though they could, a lot of students can afford a car and they would like to park everywhere, you know,
- out of campus everywhere, right? And they do.
- Like at the Kelly Garage, that's the cash cow for parking operations hourly rates. But so it's, I think
- we've got to kind of go back to our roots of if we have a community that's walkable, that's pleasant
- to be in without a car, that you don't need a car. And I think that's where, if you look around the
- nation, you know,
- New York has bounced back, okay, from COVID. Denver, yeah, there's pockets, you know, Boulder is a beautiful,
- you know, college town, right? And you love going down Pearl Street Mall and, you know, downtown Denver,
- but it's spread out over, what, seven counties or something, the metro area, and it hasn't come back
- to the level of ridership it had before COVID. And a lot of it you've got to look at as,
- is it based on the development pattern of, they're spread out, way spread out, right? And so, you know,
- I think Bloomington has a lot going for it when it comes to having a walkable community that's, you
- don't have to, you know, you can do part once kind of thing and walk around, you know, or take the bus
- to campus and downtown. So,
- It wasn't a bad walk to walk over from the transfer station here. That's almost academic, isn't it?
- Getting ready for class. In the built environment, make sure there's room for buses. Yes, it has to
- be part of it, just as it was at the turn of the last century.
- They were building streetcar suburbs, Shaker Heights outside of Cleveland, Coral Gables outside of Miami.
- They were doing it the same. It wasn't just an add-on or an extra thought. It was part and parcel of
- what they were trying to do. And we got away from that. We just have gotten away from it. But in college
- towns, we really have
- a step up above just an ordinary town of 50 or 60,000 people would have. That's why we'd like living
- here, right? That's why I came back. I knew I didn't want to stay in Florida.
- It's good, huh? Too bad. I think this is the question we asked a couple that we could ask to Perry.
- the chat about so the the BT board is five members and it could be seven and so I think with your history
- with campus bus in BT. What do you think that do you think five serves ET well? Or do you think seven
- with? I mean, it does give you a chance to add on other people.
- You know, I don't think 547 is a saver kind of number, but certainly seven isn't so huge that it would
- be out of control. You know, Denver just, they reformed their elected board. They had a 15 member board
- for the RTD and the legislature just changed that to everybody appointed by the governor. Sounds kind
- of familiar, but. So they went away from the electing,
- board members from 15 districts that they had from the beginning since like 1969. So, you know, that's
- I think really the purview of the City Council to make that decision as to size the board, whether it's
- five or seven or nine. I've worked with big boards.
- I think for me that is not a the most question. Yeah, I think that I'm good too. Is there anything else
- that you want us to know or anything that you just want to add to or things that you wanted to make
- sure to say? Well, one thing I would is that if I were appointed, I would try to work with everyone.
- And I know that that's very important, getting things moving to keep things moving. You know, you cannot,
- you know, sort of, you know,
- Like I said earlier, you may disagree, but you can't be disagreeable and disagreeing. And you've got
- to know that later on, you may need their support. You want their vote on something else. So my mind
- is you've got to be able to work with everybody. Now, that's not going to be easy. But I think that's
- got to be what you have to keep in mind.
- on something like this because, you know, you're appointed by city council or the mayor. You're going
- to have that relationship, right? But you're going to have your own judgment because that was what the
- appointment was all about, right? You were appointed because the appointing body felt like you could
- do the job. So that's always been how I felt about working with boards or being on a board.
- Great. I think I even managed to keep my notes in order. I don't have an order. The only thing that
- I was going to say from the clerk's office perspective is that
- Council committee will deliberate, and then once they figure out who they recommend, that's a good word.
- They have to do that in a public meeting. They'll have to do that at a regular session in city council
- meeting. Of course, right now they're in budget cycle. Whatever the decision is to be made, they'll
- hear from me either way. I just want to let you know that as well. Thank you.
- Yeah, and our next regular session meeting is until September. So that's the earliest. Yeah. And make
- that recommendation. Well, thank you. Great. Thank you. Yes. Yeah. Great. Thank you for coming. Yeah.
- Thank you. You are welcome. And you can catch the rest of us on Zoom or in person. Okay. Great.
- Thank you. Thanks, Jim. I just realized that I do not have my notes totally in order. So I think our
- orders were to talk about our candidates and
- recommend someone that would then be discussed at City Council. I'm okay with that. I do wish ESAF was
- here, but it's okay. I think we had a good discussion last time too. I think this is a pretty important
- board and council members might have questions and we can just talk more about the process here and
- the candidates, I think, a little bit.
- in our next regular session where we recommend someone. We're just kind of messing something up. As
- long as I fix it right after we get out of this. One of our considerations last week ended on what happened
- at the BTD last night. It was just delayed.
- Yes. So they did not vote on anything. And their next meeting is until September 15th. Great. So I think
- with that, I know, I think too we could use, I mean,
- that into consideration either way. I think we could say we could wait until after that meeting. We
- could also recommend someone without considering that meeting. It's not that we need to. Yeah, I think
- that at this point I'm not sure that I want to push it off. I'm just always, it's all in my hair. Your
- hair looks beautiful. It's just like an animal.
- Luffy is having problems today, but whatever. Um, so I'm, I'm okay getting into it, but I think I'm
- kind of all in the same space as our last meeting. Uh, when he sock was here too, I think, and I mean,
- I have thought about this more, you know, the first thing is I think these four candidates are excellent.
- I think it's rare that we have.
- So many good candidates for one board position. Really interesting. And they all bring. Some overlapping
- skills and experiences and some that are different. Last meeting. I would say I leaned toward mixing
- things up a little bit on the board because.
- I get the impression that things are not working well, not working super well right now. And so I, I,
- I would say I favor like the kind of a fresh perspective and like data driven decision making that Zach
- brings with an added bonus of a transit rider.
- I'm thinking really hard right now. For those of you who can't be out in the world, I'm thinking really
- hard right now. I guess I'm conflicted, you can say, between the experience and what you just said,
- Zach, in terms of the data-driven stuff. I really think that
- I may be strongly convinced that we need to expand this board to seven. We, of course, can't do that
- until the CCP meeting because I think that both of those voices will be good on it. Harry is very interesting
- because he has a lot of experience, but it's most recently from the IU perspective, which is really
- different, I think, and is
- is also kind of interesting. And I can't, and one of the things about this board per state code is there
- has to be a split, a political split. So we can't have anybody of just one party or another and that
- they have to have to be split. And so I think one of the things that I wrote in my notes last time was,
- well, we should look into that with our candidates to see if
- like what political parties they do identify with and in terms of expanding that to seven, that might
- be problematic to try to keep the balance per state code that's required. But I would be very interested
- in that because I do feel like, I mean, I feel like all four of them could make
- slightly different but very valuable contributions. One thing that we said about Hank last time was
- like, well, maybe he should be attending these anyway sometimes as part of his role in the city. That
- could be a way to get his perspective and voice in that space a little bit more and some of the data
- that he brings to that. But even with the other three, I guess I'm
- most tied, I think, between Zach and Kent in terms of Kent and Perry having similar experience, but
- Kent's is more BT versus Perry's is more IU focused at this point. Yeah, I think the same and I think too,
- I do think policy-wise and priorities-wise for Bloomington Transit, I do like where Zach and Kent and
- Hank land on increasing frequency and convenience and predictability that was
- lessening resources, decreasing resources, you know, we have to kind of decide sometimes and what that
- looks like for micro transit versus fixed routes. I tend to agree, I guess, with that approach. All
- three of them were pretty negative about micro transit and Perry was more neutral about it. Or, I mean,
- they were saying we need it
- we do it and we can continue to look at how to innovate that or you know reach more people but that
- our bus system needs more frequency. They all said that overall to get people riding and choosing it
- and I really liked that. I find it interesting that Perry brought up that that idea of the university
- may be concerned that
- that the city transit system wouldn't support their students enough because that was something that
- I don't remember which applicants said that because he thought, you know, about that. Like,
- what do you think? I use resistance to that was I think it was Ken. I think it was to that. And he was
- like, well, make sure that we serve their student. I want to give up the role of order. No, I think
- that was the control was somebody else. I think Kent was
- One of them, and I think it was Ken, was they want to make sure that their students are served very
- well and that there would be fear that their students wouldn't be as prioritized if it was all under
- BT. It's interesting because Perry has that experience from being the municipal transit person, ensuring
- that the university and the town did
- like their students did end up being served by the system. So I find that really interesting because
- that's another theme that comes through here. But this is such a hard choice right now. I think there
- are two, yes, two hard choices, who and then when. And I think I was just looking at something about
- paratransit that scaling up paratransit does not see the same ROI as scaling up fixed routes and the
- microtransit fills in those gaps. And I like that.
- So right, I think it is because we're in the 90 days of our time to a point or a point. I'm I'm struggling
- on the timeline, so I just I want to think about it for a second. What do you mean? We want to not make
- a decision today.
- I'm on board with not making a decision today. It does look like the 90 days for Ken can go through
- October. I think that's better. Open door law rules, we can talk one-on-one to fellow council members.
- I'm happy to talk at a regular session about it even before we all meet again because this feels like
- a pretty important decision and all we're doing is recommending
- So it can change on council day, who we vote for. It's probably less dramatic if it doesn't. If we have
- colleagues that are. That's okay. I don't think there is a harm in waiting. Especially since we can't
- make a decision until September. Our next council meeting isn't until September.
- I find it unfortunate that they postponed that piece of action yesterday because that could potentially
- make our decision a little bit easier depending on what they do there in terms of our applicants and
- their continued interest and service. I also am interested to hear thinking of the seven versus five.
- That is something that I was going to bring up at the CCP meeting and that is not until the end of this month.
- I think it's the 31st. That's just what the next meeting is. I want to at least know from my three colleagues
- there what their thoughts on that are, but that could also be something that gets prefaced that we also
- speak with our colleagues about, and especially with the stuff going on in BT right now. This might
- And I mean, clearly it's engaging more people because we actually have members of the public. And an
- entertainment interview in three years. Yes. And so I think it's really important to do as much due
- diligence as we can for this. And yes, I was going to say it doesn't look like they necessarily like
- delayed it. I think state law was like because it has with a contract.
- Um, it looks like they have to introduce it. It was like a first read-in yesterday would have technically
- been the first reading. Okay. And so the next meeting, which is in September, is their second, where
- they would be able to vote. I don't think anybody. Yeah. No, like, I mean, even if they had to lay that
- right. Right. Sometimes big decisions need to get right. Right. Yeah. I think too, I just like the context
- of all this is unique right now in this time, this timeline. And I think.
- I do lean mixing things up and I just liked a lot of like what Zach said about the role of the board
- to like push priorities like in a very professional way and I really like that. I think too having a
- current board member and I totally understand all this serving a very long time which is super awesome
- and also kind of being done if a
- happens a certain way. We have that. I think I I think that is OK and I think. I think it is just like
- right serving for so long and feeling like maybe you know you'd be like hey, I just feel over it in
- some way where again that just kind of. I don't think that's the wrong feeling, but it does also kind
- of make me lean.
- new blood in there too. Yeah. And I think maybe that's another one of my things though, because with
- only five members, it's like, whenever, like a single new person, I'm not sure how long any of the rest
- of them have been serving. But depending on that, it could also be like, wow, but like, we've suddenly
- lost institutional memory because, you know, I mean, yeah, so
- with only five members, it definitely feels like that's a little bit easier to do just in any group,
- anywhere. And that also makes this decision a little bit harder too. Once again, goes back to the, I
- think that Seben might be better for- It's a tiny board, really. Yeah. Her BT. Well, and especially
- for how important it is. Right. And how much they are responsible for. I know. Like, that's- Right. Yeah.
- Okay, so today we'll say no action and we'll schedule another meeting. And I assume everyone watching
- now is excited about that. And I think we just need to get with Esau then to figure out when he might
- be able to zoom in or be here in person, especially if we wait until after the meeting.
- I guess we need to decide right now if we want to wait until after the BT meeting. Okay. We don't have
- to engage with public, but I did just see public comment that folks were like, well, let's wait. Yeah,
- I think in some ways waiting would be good and other ways. The other thing I was just looking through
- and thinking about any other business that we might have as a board as we do, I think have that vacancy on
- Yes, our committee. Sorry. There's no current applications for that. Maybe because I know that he's
- not just traveling right now, so maybe we can give scheduling another meeting like a week or something.
- You thought it's supposed to be back next week, correct? I'm not. I'm pretty sure because he said he
- was not going to be there for this week's budget hearings. There was an implication that he would be
- here for next week's budget hearings. I believe that he will be
- back next week and we can cross our fingers that maybe by then there'll be some applicants for commission
- status of black males and so then we can have those to consider. Hey, out there if anybody is interested
- in serving on the mission of status of black males, there's a vacancy there, please apply. Yeah. I think
- we're no action and then we're pushing a decision on when to have a next meeting until at least next week.
- And then, okay, yeah. Okay, because then we can look at our availability via email and schedule something.
- Right. And then we can also know if we have any applicants for sessions as blackmailers. There was the
- press release that just went out, I want to say last week. So hopefully we can get some
- type of traction also have been in communication with since students are coming back. There's an emoji
- day that's happening. Oh yeah. And so I think I might go just to see if we can generate some interest
- with students with boards and commissions because when I've gone last year to talk to various groups,
- we have had some students that have applied that have actually been appointed.
- to a couple of the board's animations. So that might be something that we could get to. Great. And then
- I just want to highlight this comment that was just made. A potential new person is unlikely to change
- the vote, but waiting is not bad either. I don't have a strong opinion on that. It's all. It's all realistic. Okay.
- That's our plan. Anything else? I think the other thing is I can do maybe like a poll and figure out
- when everybody is back and then we can get everything scheduled so you can deliberate again. Thank you.
- Yeah, of course. Thank you to the members of the public who have come to engage and interview committee
- meetings. So excited. Thanks everybody. See you tonight.
- You have to.