- All right, I will call this meeting to order as it is 4 o'clock and we have all of our members here.
- I guess we'll do attendance first. I am Council Member Sydney Zulek, District 6, and I am here. Hope
- East Osborne, District 3. And you're here? No, I'm not here. I'm like a disembodied presence or something.
- Thank you for spending your cerebral self with us. It's like a clone of the action. Thank you for not
- being here.
- Courtney Daily District 5. And I'm mostly here. Great. I'm Jennifer Crossley, Quirk's office. Isabelle
- Piefont-Smith, City Council District 1. Here!
- Okay. And then we have agenda review and approval. So on number two on the agenda after agenda review
- is updates from the office of the city clerk. Number three is council member sponsorships of all items
- of legislation. Number four, allowing non-city residents to serve on boards and commissions.
- Number five, consent agenda, and then all other business. Does anyone have anything that they would
- like to add to this?
- And then, I guess, do we need to vote on the agenda approval? Can we just? No. Okay. In that case, agenda
- approved. Let's go to number two, updates from the office of the city clerk. Take it away. Thank you.
- So I will give that the code of conduct and training for board and commission. Basically, we have it
- ready to go for a code of conduct once you all
- kind of gave it an overview as the full council and gave that overview. And so right now, the only thing
- that we are needing to do is to simply implement it. And so in order for us to implement that, that's
- going to be a part of the training for commissioners. And so I am very much pleased to report for training.
- We want to do staff liaison training first.
- And so staff liaison training for boards and commissions will happen sometime in May. So we're trying
- to finalize that and get that together. And then that's going to be a requirement. We'll have a few
- different dates for everybody to attend. And then the presentations, of course, will be accessible for
- everybody. Of course, following accessible guidelines would be available for everybody as well. And
- then once that training is done, then we'll move on to
- commission training, and then that is when the board of commission training will go. And so to give
- an overview of what training would look like, basically that would entail, like, what's your role as
- a liaison? What's the mission of, like, knowing the mission of each board or commission, and how to,
- you know, go about doing that, and to be able to bridge the gap. Of course, some guidelines as well,
- but then in terms of what
- board members and commissioners would go through is basically, you know, again, with the implementation
- of the code of conduct, basically expressing, you know, here's what you can and cannot do in terms of,
- you know, speaking without getting approval or speaking, you know, in terms of, you know, Jennifer and
- I'm speaking on behalf of the commission of McCloskey room when nobody
- authorized me to do that. And so it's just making sure that people know and understand and also the
- basic fundamentals of Robert's Rules of Order and what to do in terms of like attendance policies and
- guidelines and so forth. So that again will be afterwards. We don't really necessarily have a date for
- that, but that's probably going to be the next phase, which is in June. And so that'll come. But that
- is what we are doing right now.
- Would it be helpful for counselors to attend about training, or would it be mostly redundant for us?
- I think you're welcome to, of course. Yeah. So I think that would be completely fine to attend. We want
- to notice that if they might attend, just to make sure that we're not bouncing up against any ODL issues.
- But other than that, that's it. Thank you. That's fabulous. Questions?
- It's been a long time coming. And so I know that was something that I've been working on for quite a
- while. And accessibility just kind of slowed things down a little bit. But for the most part, it's coming
- soon. And I cannot wait to have that checked off my list. Yay. Well, thank you very much for doing all
- that. You're welcome. I know that was a lot of work and a lot of people that you had to work with. Yes.
- Fun times. Yes. Well, thank you. You're welcome.
- And then is there an update on electronic sign up? Yes, although I'm not sure that it's really much
- more of an update than where we were before, which was we were prepared to move forward and then had
- a pause in terms of timing and staffing because there was a certain point where we stopped.
- My personal preference would be to continue to put it on hold until we are actually settled in terms
- of getting all our accessibility updates in place. Um, and additionally have worked out staff loads
- for council staff and clerk staff, because right now things are definitely in flux and I don't want
- to move forward with the new process until we know who's doing what when. So I know that's not a great
- update, but it is perhaps the most honest and fair update, which is,
- And I'm the biggest fan of the idea of having electronic sign in for meetings and everything else. But
- I also do not want to start a process and have it just flail for you all and not work. So if you all
- are comfortable waiting until this fall or maybe something we implement at the turn of the new year,
- I would be, I'm OK with that if you guys are OK with that. If not, we can push forward. But I want to
- tell you that I think it's probably not the best move to move forward right now anymore.
- Thank you. Thoughts? I don't see any reason to rush. We want to get it right. Okay. Councilmember
- Piedmont-Smith, is that okay with you two? Yeah, that's fine. Okay. And you were nodding? Yeah. So I
- figured that was... Sure. Okay. Thank you for making that case. You know, I pushed for it, but I also...
- I want to do it right as opposed to just doing it. I think a lot of circumstances have changed since
- that happened. Yeah, just saying the least. We were this close to actually doing it, and then I think
- that meeting, I think I wasn't there. I think that's why we put it up, but we had the testing, but then
- the first meeting that we were going to do it at, and I was like, I'm not going to be here because
- Is that what it was? I think so. Like there was absence somewhere. Yeah. And, and, oh, I know I wasn't
- going to be there. And I think that Isabelle was sponsoring some other piece of legislation. So then
- you would have had to have the gavel as parliamentarian. And then for the public comment part, like
- you were also managing
- Right. Some piece of that. A new piece of tech. Right. So you would have been then doing two things
- that you don't usually do at the same time. Yeah. Plus a bit of a window second time. And so then I
- think that we both pwned it for another meeting and I don't know why. I don't know what happened after
- that. I think then we had a few, I think there was always somebody who was key who was not able to be
- there. Yeah. And I think it was just a momentum. The nature of a, not the right time to start something.
- The nature of the beast. Yeah. Okay. So to speak. Thank you very much.
- also member sponsorships. Isabel, do you, who is on that? Well, I wrote this legislation. I think it's
- pretty simple. When we brought this idea to the full council, I think it was an 8-1 vote for us to pursue
- this idea of having
- uh, a sponsor for all legislation. Um, so I don't know if we want to share a screen or what, um, but
- you can see in the packet that, uh, there's first, there's, um, actually, I don't know what order it's
- in the packet, but there's an actual ordinance, 2026-XX to amount title two, et cetera. And then the
- other document was just
- Thank you. Does anyone have any questions or comments on this?
- Should it be co-sponsored? Like, should we co-sponsor it with the department who's bringing it as opposed
- to just being sponsored by a council member? Yeah, I remember you suggesting that at the council meeting
- and just looking at, you know,
- four or five other Indiana Class II cities. They don't talk about co-sponsorship. And also, since we
- never had, like, it was never part of our conversation that this legislation is sponsored by David Hittle
- in planning and transportation, or this legislation is sponsored by Adam Wason, the director of public
- work. That's never been our terminology for legislation, so I don't,
- see why we would use the term co-sponsor instead of sponsor. It's a new thing. It's understood that
- most of this is coming from the administration. But the sponsorship is from among the members of the
- body that are considering this legislation. That's how I think of a sponsor. And then the other thing was,
- Congressman Burrell is the one who voted against this. Did anybody talk to him about why? I haven't
- had a chance. No. OK, I guess I'm kind of curious as to his thoughts on that. There's been a lot going
- on. I haven't talked to him about this thing. Yeah, I'd be happy to reach out to him and try to understand
- his hesitation
- I guess I'd love to get some feedback also on the whereas clauses. I think I kind of captured the reasoning
- for why we're doing this, but I welcome your thoughts. And also the effective date of July 1st, I figured
- that would be, that would put us after our council recess.
- meeting before recess? June 10th. Okay. We do have quite a lot of legislation to get through over the
- next two meetings, but we should be able to get that on the agenda before then. I like the part about
- communication in the whereas clauses to answer your question.
- part about the sufficient context and explanation. I think it might be worth adding a whereas clause
- on, you know, saving time and city resources to not be scrambling to answer certain questions in the
- middle of a meeting in a more professional way. But that's that's my only feedback. But it looks great.
- Other than that, thanks for doing that work.
- Comments? I think that I would just say I'm sorry. No, go ahead. I'm just going to say if we can't fit
- this in as an item of legislation before our recess, obviously we could postpone the implementation
- date, right? I think we should be able to. Well. I think we should be able to.
- Do we want to now move on to the? Oh, I'm so sorry. Courtney, please go ahead. That's fine. It was not
- important. I was just going to say that I agree. I like the whereas section. I think it gives good context.
- I think it gives a nice background and explanation of why we're here. So I don't see any problem with
- it. Great. Since you asked for feedback. Yeah, thank you very much. Well, and I'm wondering whether the
- Whereas Claus about the sometimes not including sufficient context or explanation and the one that went
- after that about clarifying language and context, I'm kind of wondering if those could almost be like
- combined because I feel like they're kind of saying the same thing. But I don't know. I don't know how
- much wordsmithing we want to try to do. So I think it's OK.
- Do we want to move on to implementation logistics? Sure. Great. So we talked a little bit about this
- at our last meeting. We want to make sure that the administration doesn't just always go to the same
- same council member for each time, and that there's some logic between council members' other roles
- and what they might, what departments they work with, and their other roles, and which legislation they
- might bring forward. So I kind of started up doing a list of, you know, given the duties that are assigned to
- council members this year, which departments, if they might bring legislation forward, what's the legislation
- from? But it gets kind of hazy. I mean, there are some that are more obvious, like our planning commission
- representative could bring things from mega transportation. Our utility service board member could bring
- something from CBU. But not everybody has an assignment like that, and there are some departments
- I think it might be worth it to send it out to all of council and say like are there three or four or
- however many like subsections that you might be interested in sponsoring legislation for what do you
- see as the
- the primary sectors of the work that you do on council? Is there any work that you'd like to spend more
- time on? I think those kinds of things. For example, I'm not technically on any boards or commissions
- that works directly with economic and sustainable development, but I do a lot of work with the small
- businesses in my district and so I just naturally do a lot of work with
- that department. And so I'm sure that we all have certain things like that that might fit a little bit
- better. It just also occurred to me. Do you think it would be? Go ahead as well. I'm just going to say,
- do you think it should be for a term of office?
- Well, I think it doesn't necessarily have to be just one council member. I think it can be a more fluid
- list of like
- Hey, these three council members indicated that they were interested in working with the planning and
- transportation department, planning and transportation department. These are your first three calls.
- If you're looking for a sponsor, I don't, I don't necessarily know if it has to be like as rigid as
- planning and transportation. You reach out to council members Stasberg because she's on the planning
- commission. It's planning and transportation.
- Council member Stossberg has a lot of expertise because she's on the Planning Commission, she might
- want to be your first call. If she's not willing or doesn't support this initiative, here are the other
- people that you could call and potentially get something on the docket that way. If you're on item four,
- did you do public comment on item three? Yes, we will do public comment. We're still on three? We're
- still on three. Good to talk. Thank you. Yeah, that makes sense.
- And I think that makes sense to help keep it flowing with getting a variety of council members in the
- mix. And I think it doesn't even have to be necessarily a one, two, three. It can just be a here, here
- is the group. Pick your favorite. That's right.
- If you pick the one that emails you back first, because here's, I mean, they can email like, like all
- the people and just be like, Hey, I have this thing that I need sponsorship. Will one of you do it?
- Which one of you wants to do it? Um, and yeah, so that it's whoever emails first, whoever responds.
- Um, but the thing, the other thing that I wanted to ask that I was thinking about suddenly when Isabel
- was talking about making the list,
- was the budget legislation. Do we want to exempt the budget legislation from this? Because I think it's
- a little weird to have a council member or do we want to exempt? And that would involve changing the
- ordinance. But I mean, I think that we should think about that.
- anything that comes out of the controller's office? Yeah. You mean like appropriations? Yeah. I think
- that might make sense actually. I'm not opposed to that. Okay. I think that that would maybe be something
- to talk with. I don't know. I feel like that that should be something to talk about with more experienced
- legislators or the controller himself or I don't know if it makes sense to exempt all of the controller stuff.
- or just all appropriation ordinances, or I don't know. Isabel, you're kind of frozen and we can't quite
- get what you're saying. Oh dear, now you're gone. That's a tragedy.
- Not even being facetious really is distracting. She was kind of deadly. She was the head of this one.
- I know, right? Well, we need to take a recess. There she is! Yay! Eventually. There'll be video with
- the... There she is! Yay! Welcome back! What were you saying about the controller's office?
- She might be frozen again. At least we can see her. It doesn't matter, she's giving us a long hard stare.
- All of a sudden I'm like, ooh, yeah. She's serious. It's very serious. Isabel, can you hear us?
- It would be. Well, I know that she, I mean clearly she's driving, so she's probably in. No man's land.
- Yeah, call it in a valley in a something. Yeah, can you can you all hear me now? Yes, you can hear me.
- Yes, OK, I'm going to leave my video. I'm going to leave my video off and hopefully that will help.
- Sorry about this problem. So.
- that it would still be appropriate to have sponsors for additional appropriations throughout the year.
- But I do agree that the budget legislation should be exempt or should have an assumption that it's sponsored
- by the council president or something like that. I think that's a really good point that we need to
- think about the budget legislation packet. OK.
- We go to public comment, and then we can talk about final steps. Sounds good. OK, great. Would anyone
- from the public like to speak on this? If you would, please come up. We have one hand raised on Zoom.
- We're going to go in person first.
- And if you would like to come up here so that you can get on the Zoom microphone. I think we have to.
- If you could please introduce yourself. You'll have three minutes. And I'm going to put the timer right
- here. Thank you, Terri Amsler. Very quickly, I think the proposed amendment to Title II is a good idea.
- I just want to go on record. I think it's a good idea, I think, and timely in different ways. I will
- say also that I think, and I'm not suggesting language changes, or I'm just commenting on language,
- all fine. But I'm saying one of the things that's talked about is one of the improvements would be around
- context, explanations, so on and so forth. I think it also may increase the effectiveness of legislation
- and the effectiveness of implementation by having this
- the council member involved directly as opposed to something directly from administration. So I think
- there's several good reasons. The other thing, and this is a bit more of a preachment, I suppose, than
- directly to the item exactly, but I think I fear, and I'll say in Bloomington even, the diminishment
- of the legislative function in governance. I worry about this a little bit even trying to find
- where the council is and signage and all. I mean, it's just, it's a vibe thing, I know, but it's a little
- strange. And so I think this is in the right direction a bit. While understanding it could be made ridiculous
- and done poorly. And I thought maybe whether a proposed ordinance should be considered and less sponsored
- by, I wondered if co-sponsored, although in some cases, but you know best about where and when and for
- what this is appropriate and I don't.
- But I just wondered about what flexibility you want to build in language there that may help you out.
- And that I don't really know what it would be. And that's it. Thank you. Thank you very much for your
- comments. And now to our Zoom commenter. You should be allowed to unmute. You will also have three minutes.
- And as soon as you are unmuted and ready to go, you may start. OK. Can you hear me? Yes, we can.
- All right, good afternoon, everyone. My name's Eric Os. And I do have a few questions. I think just
- to want to make a note, there's actually only two bodies. There's the legislative branch and the executive
- branch. So I think that's an important observation to make here. With that said,
- The proposal is for I think a partitioning of council members to be assigned or accept responsibility
- for interfacing to departments. And of course there's only the executive branch, but departments.
- Can any, so it's some questions which you may or may not be able to answer or want to answer at this
- time. Can any council member sponsor any legislation regardless of these assignments?
- does the sponsor, the sponsoring council member need to be present when the legislation is heard? How
- is sponsorship ancillary or an enhancement to the fact that procedurally legislation needs to be introduced?
- And is this actually going to solve the noted lack of context or explanatory information that's been
- appointed consternation so I mean I understand I think I understand the intent for this but I just really
- wonder how it's going to actually be helpful as opposed to perhaps just extra extra work but anyway
- I think those are all my comments thank you yes
- Thank you very much. I think the intended purpose of this legislation is to ensure that the legislation
- has some level of council support. It also looks like Isabel's hand is up, so I'm sure that she would
- like to respond as well. And as for council members being present, I anticipated yes. Council member
- sponsors should in fact have to be present, and that was why we wanted to make it flexible on who can sponsor.
- Anyone can sponsor anything. I just want to qualify. So if the council member who is appointed to be
- liaison, and I'm using that word loosely here, does not want to, but another council member feels strongly,
- or they've been lobbying to do this, can they do that? There was one opportunity for public comment.
- Well, you weren't answering my question. It was not well formed. But continue, please. OK. Thank you.
- Council member Smith, would you like? Council member Piedmont Smith, would you like to answer?
- Yes, thank you. I think there's a misunderstanding here, and it may be because I phrased things poorly
- at the outset of this topic, but this is not appointing liaisons to certain departments in the city.
- This is just helping the administration define sponsors by saying, well, these three council members
- have expressed interest,
- in items that are coming from planning and transportation. And these two sponsors, these two council
- members have shown an interest in items coming from the economic development department, for example.
- It's helping the administration find sponsors so that they could have some direction as to where to
- go rather than just contacting all nine of us.
- So it's not, the sponsor is not going to become some kind of liaison to that department. The sponsor
- is the, and there's not gonna be assignments. It's just, let's say CBU has a rate increase and they're
- saying, we're thinking now, who should, who can we approach to be the sponsor of this rate increase?
- Well, we've gotten this information from the council saying that
- Councilmember Flaherty and Councilmember Rallo are both interested in the activities of CBU, so let's
- go ask them if either of them could sponsor this. So I think that was kind of a misunderstanding on
- the part of the members of public who spoke. The other thing, oh my gosh, now I've forgotten the other
- part of his comments, but anyway.
- I just want to clarify that part of it. Great. Thank you. I'll actually address the how is it going
- to enhance. Maybe that's what Isabel had forgotten was how it was going to enhance the legislation and
- the introduction. Like, why does it matter? And I'm going to.
- remind us of the CBU legislation about the rate increases where we asked all of these questions that
- kind of made them go like, oh yeah, like we don't quite think about it like that because sometimes when
- you're so enmeshed in the topic, you don't think about it from the outside. And so forcing that sponsorship
- will, you know, they'll have that greater communication early on with a single council member.
- and that person hopefully will ask some of those questions so that then whoever is presenting the legislation
- can then present it from this viewpoint of here's some common questions that laypeople might have about
- this and why we're doing it and hopefully that will help reduce some uncertainty at the council level.
- That was my impression of
- when we talked about this originally, why we thought it would be helpful. I agree. Thank you. In terms
- of next steps, Isabel, do you need anything else from us? I know that you wanted to talk to Controller
- McKim. Other than that, is there anything else that we need to discuss as this body to continue this
- forward? Well, I would love to hear from
- I hope you already brought this up as to whether there should be sponsorship appropriation ordinances
- in general or only the ones that come out of the sequence of the annual budget, whether we should just
- make an exception for the annual budget legislation. If the other committee members could give some
- feedback on that, that would be helpful.
- I mean, my gut reaction is to say I don't think we should have sponsors for appropriations, bills. I
- think maybe we should have a carve out an exception for all controller issues coming forward.
- I think I agree. Can you help me better understand the reasoning behind that?
- of money is a little bit more complicated than policy choices. I don't necessarily know that council
- wants to, that any individual council member would want to put themselves in a position where they have
- to defend the administration's request to transfer money. I feel like there's a conflict of interest
- there that could just
- feel a little bit messy and awkward. So I just think it would give a better appearance, too, if there's
- not a council member sponsor for it. OK, because we're the fiduciary body, and we have to be a check
- and balance on the expenditure of taxpayer funds. Does that capture it? That's a good way to put it.
- Yeah, I think so. And that's where I like I kind of
- want to hear more from Controller McKim, maybe even past Controller. Look more carefully, I guess, at
- what legislation comes from the Controller's office. Last year, we had a lot of really dry account creation
- stuff coming from the Controller's office. They weren't appropriation ordinances, but it was bookkeeping
- stuff. And so it's like, do we really need a council member sponsor for that bookkeeping stuff?
- and I think I mean Cindy may have said it best when it was like it's not really policy stuff and so
- yeah so I guess I'm not quite fixed about how that carve out should look or what it should like how
- how specific it should be or whether it should exclude the department or exclude appropriation ordinances
- or like um but it it should
- exclude something and I don't feel experienced enough or like I've done enough immediate or recent research
- about all the different types of things that came out of the controller's office or could potentially
- come out of the controller's office, because that's the other piece too. It's like, would they ever
- sponsor anything that wasn't in that kind of category? I don't know.
- I think Controller McKim will be the most helpful in just offering what are all the options that they
- have in terms of what they can introduce. Yeah. Okay. All right, I understand it better now, so I can
- reach out to the Controller and also take a look at, you know, the past couple of years, what has been...
- Thank you. ...what legislation has come forward from the Controller's office. So I'll do that and I'll
- also talk to Councilmember Rallo
- But do you feel like we should bring this back to this committee or one side? I mean, because
- this legislation to require sponsorship is gonna be sponsored by me and not the committee. So I wonder,
- do you like your energy provisions or do you think it's okay if I just go ahead, one side, clarify those
- couple things? I think after
- you talk with Controller McKim, it might be helpful just to bring it up during committee report to the
- whole body, just to make sure that we're all on the same page on like, yes, we do want to do appropriations
- or no, we don't. I think that'll make it a smoother first and second reading if we get that answer out
- of the way prior to the legislation being, hitting the docket.
- Whether we do that at the 22nd meeting or the sixth, I'm agnostic, but I think that would be helpful
- as well. And I also, the controller's office would also bring forth bonds related legislation too, right?
- No, not necessarily. It depends on who's bonding. I mean, if it's for utilities, it would come through CBU.
- I'm also wondering I guess I'm wondering whether bond stuff would also be strange to have a council
- member sponsor yeah yeah perhaps anyway I I trust you to move forward with this
- I can also check with some of the other cities and see how they handle fiduciary or fiscal type ordinances.
- Thank you. And of course, we do have a fiscal committee now. I mean, it's temporary, technically,
- for ad hoc. But that might be able to play into it, too.
- Maybe not necessarily for the budget legislation, but for bonds, certainly. Yeah, absolutely. OK, so
- do we want, Isabel, is there any specific meeting you would like to introduce this at? I just want to
- make sure that we fully round out this conversation before we move on. No, I haven't thought about it.
- OK, no problem. Let us know when you are ready.
- It's not urgent, so. Great. Thank you. In that case, let's move on to number four, allowing non-city
- residents to serve on boards and commissions. A, does any committee member want to make a specific proposal?
- I have a specific proposal that I want to make. Great. So one of the committees that are the commissions
- that we talked about was Transportation Commission. And I've mentioned this to a couple of people, and I
- I think I meant to talk to Matt about it and forgot, but one of the things about that commission when
- we first created it was we wanted there to be an MCCSE person on there. And so within, I don't have
- it brought up right now because I wasn't totally prepared for this, but we kind of have it written in
- as a preference for one of our seats should, you know, preferential treatment be given to an MCCSE person and the
- that my understanding from the MCCSE angle was they wanted somebody from their Department of Transportation
- to be in that seat, but they were a county resident. And so they couldn't be in that seat. And that
- that was part of what started this particular conversation about Transportation Commission and county
- residents. And I would still say to not allow non-city residents to be on that board, but right now
- there are four
- appointed seats to council and to mayor and to take one of those seats and have it an MCCSE person and
- we'd have to talk to MCCSE and see if they're down for that but there because there are other seats
- that like for example somebody from the CCA needs to be on one of those seats somebody from BT you know
- some a plan commission appointed person and none of those like appointees are specific they specifically
- say that they need to be city residents
- So any of those appointees could already be county residents because they just have to be part of the
- specific group or appointed by that group is that responsibility. So my proposal would be to change
- that. So instead of having four city residents appointed, we have three city residents appointed and
- one person, I'm not quite sure how it would be phrased, but we'd have to,
- get the superintendent to agree, essentially talk to Dr. Winston and be like, essentially allowing her
- to identify somebody from her team, preferably in the transportation department that could serve. So
- that's like my idea. Yeah, I support that. That was part of our, I'm on the interview committee that
- covered transportation. Wonderful. And we, when we were interviewing,
- had to turn some people down for the MCCSE role. I remember specifically one person because they were
- county. And so when we were doing all the other interviews, we had nobody who was specifically associated
- with MCCSE. And so we got to the point where we were like, well, this person has kids in MCCSE, so they're
- a connection. That's the closest we can get. I mean, we liked them anyway. We didn't choose them. Right.
- It wasn't.
- Didn't sound as pitiful as that, but that was the closest we could get to a tie. Thank you. Isabel?
- Yeah, I like this idea as well to allow just the MCCFCC or the seat where we prefer an MCCFC staff member
- to be somebody who is outside city limits. I was a little confused by something else that Hopi said.
- where you said, apparently, the other commission members have to be city residents, but isn't there
- the overarching requirement of city residencies that would pertain to the Transportation Commission?
- And maybe Deputy Clerk Crossley knows. So I'm looking at it now. And the appointments say,
- The commission shall consist of the following nine members, none of whom may hold any employment, elected
- or appointed position within the city unless specified specifically permitted as outlined in this section.
- And then it goes on from the appointments from the CCA preferred for MCCSE.
- But if it doesn't have it outlined in here, your code actually states that the overall mean is that
- if it's not outlined specifically in a particular board of commission code, then that means that the
- default is the person has to be a city resident. I think before this might have been mentioned before,
- one way to kind of maybe get around this, and pulling up the code here,
- There's something that says, like, residential requirement, all appointments to city boards, commissions,
- and councils can be made from residents of the city except those positions that are direct to otherwise
- or state law. If a city employee is appointed by virtue to a city board, commission, or council by virtue
- of employment position, that the residency requirement may be waived. So one thing that you could possibly
- do if you are wanting to still have somebody from MCCSE
- by virtue of them working in MCCSC is to maybe have that particular disclaimer in where that allows
- that person, because yes, you are correct. We had actually a couple of people that applied from MCCSC,
- and we had to tell them that they didn't qualify because they were a county resident, but they were
- hoping to do that because by virtue of them being employed by MCCSC. Great. Thank you.
- Isabel, does that clear up any question that you had? Yeah, so they're covered by the kind of default
- section in DMC that says you have to be a city resident. Correct. Yeah, well, and I mean, I was just
- basing it on the Transportation Commission, like what we passed in code saying one member
- Appointed by the mayor shall be a member from the CCA or a designated representative one member appointed
- by Public Transportation Corporation Board of Directors shall be a member or a designated representative
- so like It's like there's or the designated representative, but it doesn't say on any of those they
- need to be city residents But when we get down to the council appointments and them and the
- mayor appointments it's
- Two members shall be appointed by the council and shall be residents living within the city limits.
- And the other ones aren't necessarily. Well, isn't this in the section of code where we added all the
- qualifications for all commissions? Yeah. So is what you read above that for all of them? Yeah. I didn't
- see that one. Code is dense.
- Oh, it is dance. Must be a man. Okay. What? Do we? So do you want me, so I, I mean, I feel like it's
- a little bit weird to have it in there, like, as the MCCSE superintendent can select somebody for that. I mean,
- but I would be happy to reach out to her and just be like we're trying to figure out a way to get great
- you know somebody from your transportation staff on because I mean it's it's one of those things for
- me it's like yeah I do want to prioritize city residents but
- I also want to prioritize people that are going to care a whole lot about safety of our transportation
- systems. And if anybody's going to care about safety of transportation systems, it's somebody in MCCSE's
- transportation department in charge of transporting 12,000 students every day to our schools, most of
- which are within city limits. So I can reach out to her and ask her what her thoughts are on that. But
- what are, because the other, I mean,
- a member appointed by public transportation commission, a member appointed by plan commission, appointed
- by public works, appointed by the mayor. I mean, I suppose we could put it like, so one member appointed
- by the mayor shall be a member from the council for community accessibility. Um, and they will submit
- a list of at least three names to the mayor for consideration. So we want to do it kind of like that,
- like mirror that language and then
- The other thing is if we're taking one of the four, so of those four, three are appointed by council
- and one is appointed by the mayor. And so I would then, would it be better if we mirror that language
- to say that that person's gonna be appointed by council?
- or appointed by the mayor. And of course, the mayor would have to agree to give up her other appointment,
- or council would have to agree to give up one of our three appointments. So I'm happy to reach out to
- whoever about that. But the other option is restructured similar to the Historic Preservation Commission
- appointments, where it's a mayoral appointment subject to council approval. I know that's more complicated.
- I'm not suggesting that's what we do. I just wanted to put it on the table. I don't want to do that.
- OK? I just wanted to put it on the table as something we could do. Yes, you're right. OK. It is something
- we could do. Yes. Yes. If you're on that committee, would you guys, as the committee, want to be able
- to have that appointment? I don't mind it.
- I mean I'm speaking for myself not on behalf of the committee or council, but I don't mind it coming
- out of one of the council seats because it was meant to be originally. So I think I like that language
- of you know we can have to mirror that language. Okay to basically receive the recommendations from
- the superintendent and then not put any language in around
- residency related to those three people, because then Clark Crosley will default to being okay for them
- to not be, because by merit of employment, then they qualify, and then y'all can interview the three.
- What we deemed we're interested in, the normal process, just these were in a different bucket, so to speak.
- so that the mayor's appointment can be left alone. Isabel? Yeah, I think we would have to specify that
- a person to fill that MCP, SEC is allowed to be a resident of the county outside of city limits. I think
- we do need to specify that.
- I think what Deputy Clerk Crossley had cited a few minutes ago was pertaining to city employees. Correct.
- If it's part of their city employment and that's why they're serving. Gotcha. Okay. This is not by virtue
- of their city employment. It's MCCSE employment. Right. So I think we would have to put that in there.
- Okay. And we have to then also put in that they would qualify by virtue of their MCCSE employment.
- So I'm kind of mirroring the language from the CCA appointment and mirroring the language from, can
- you send me that code reference just so that then I can? Okay, great, thank you. And so I will reach
- out to Dr. Winston and yeah, once I get, once she's good with that plan,
- Then I'll try to reach out to other council members to or depending on the timeline of that that can
- maybe be part of the same Committee report that Mentioned about the controllers. Yeah, definitely. Thank
- you Okay Let's go to public comment. Is there anybody? Looks like there's nobody in the room. So would
- anyone on zoom like to speak? Please raise your hand if so
- Going once. Oh, look, we have a person. You'll be asked to unmute, and then you'll have three minutes.
- Please go ahead when you're ready. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name's Eric Post, and I think this
- is an interesting conversation. I'm wondering if there are any opportunities to interface with
- the commissions that exist in the county
- that are similarly focused, like the Transportation Commission planning, et cetera. I think that might
- become increasingly important as we move forward, given fiscal constraints. The other thing I just want
- to note is I thought I remembered and I looked up and confirmed is that the appointments to the Historic
- Preservation Commission are
- designated by the mayor and then approved by the council because that's specified in Indiana code. So
- there's a constraint upstream in regards to that particular process. But otherwise, thank you for all
- your work. Great. Thank you very much. Would anyone like to respond to anything that was said during
- public comment?
- In that case, next steps. Are there any other specific proposals related to this? No. Okay.
- So next steps, I'll reach out to Dr. Winston. If she's interested in that, then I'll proceed with writing
- something up for a report. Great. Thank you very much. Consent agendas, need for a review by legal counsel.
- I dropped my pen. Does anyone have an update on that? Or was that our legal counsel? Was that the update?
- Okay, well... That is the update. Our update is that we don't have... Fantastic. Okay. Great. I just
- put it on the agenda just so that we wouldn't lose track of it. Great. Thank you very much. Now that
- we have at least a temporary attorney, I can hopefully get an hour of his time or something.
- Great, thank you so much. Okay, that concludes section five. Is there any other business that committee
- members would like to raise? Speaking of our temporary attorney, are we as council members going to
- get any kind of notification or when are we going to get notification about procedure related to that?
- I will get back with you about that. Clerk Bolden, please.
- Just a quick update, because we've been working pretty closely with leadership. Mr. Allen started officially
- yesterday for you all. He still needs to get his city email set up. And he just got his key. And so
- we went through and actually asked for them to set up his email with ITS and did all the onboarding
- things that need to be done for new staff members this morning. He has a key to the council office now.
- and access to the computers. And his plan is that as soon as he gets access to the emails that he needs,
- he will be reaching out to council members and letting you know kind of when he'll be in the office,
- when you can contact him, and what his basic kind of plan for work will be. The framework of his? Exactly.
- Exactly. And that was really where I was right before I came in here. Great. Awesome. Thank you so much.
- Yeah. Any other business?
- In that case, we are adjourned. Thank you so much. It was. Please go ahead. I can't do it. I can.
- Go ahead. I'm sorry. I just, I did want to ask you all to think of what other items we might put on
- the agenda going forward since we've been checking things off and getting things done. So if you have
- other things maybe that were left over from last year or
- that we kind of would pick it in previously. Please just let me know and we can put those on the agenda.
- Excellent. Great. Thank you. And now. Wait, I have something. Go ahead. Weren't there supposed to be
- other Title II revisions? Isn't there some like grand big Title II revision thing going? Where did that
- end with? Because I know that Lisa was working on that. And is that? It's on.
- the schedule, but we've been pushing it back just because we've had so much urgent legislation. Yeah.
- So it's actually written somewhere already? Well, it's no. Christine Chang was working on that when
- she left. And so once we get some staff or other hired, potentially hers, then we can pick that up again.
- I was going to also try to just access her files and see where she is with it. But yeah, that was a
- big project, and I would estimate we were maybe a third of the way done with it. So it was just on hold
- because of staffing. Okay. Great. Thank you. In that case, we are adjourned. Still before five? Nope,
- we're adjourned.