- Thank you all for making the time to be here for us to discuss the job descriptions. Hopefully, we will
- have enough time to go through both the, well, we'll have to talk a little bit about what we're proposing,
- I guess, first to make sure we're all on the same page of that, and then we can go through
- the job descriptions. But present at the meeting, hello.
- Council Member Rollo, it's okay. You really don't need to clean it. We will be totally fine. We'll clean
- it afterwards. Leave it and I'll clean it. Council Member Dave Rollo is here. Council Member Sidney
- Zulek is here. And we'll be participating online with Council Member Piedmont Smith. And we are joined
- by Clerk McDowell. And I'm here, my one would suppose.
- Okay, so I was hoping just in terms of agenda for us first to hello. No, this is that well yeah you
- guys need to set up with where we have the room to win. So six they started six. So you need to get
- it. Yeah. Yeah, come on, come on.
- Okay, so I was hoping we could just maybe quickly come to some agreement. It doesn't have to be as quick,
- but we have some agreements about what we think the best structure to aim for is here. One of our tasks
- is to present the whole council, ideally tomorrow, but if we're not ready to do that, we can push it
- off. But to present the whole council with some possibilities, I think we had the
- the exec session where we talked about some of the, we didn't make any decisions, obviously, and we
- did not deliberate on any of this, but we did get a briefing on what the different ways that we could
- organize if we're seeking to, for example, split the administrator role. So hoping we could talk about
- that. And then once we agree on what direction we think we're going, and we can talk about the specifics
- of the job description. So does that seem fine? Yeah, I mean, please go for it.
- since we don't have much time. I think it's a terrible idea to split positions. I think that we've had
- an effective administrator slash attorney in the past in Dan Sherman, Steve Lucas, I think Nash served
- that role. I think really the only outlier was Lisa. And what I see, I mean, I'm just concerned about
- guarding the council's autonomy.
- its ability to, I mean, you know, what I see is obviously packet preparation, scheduling, somebody who
- understands what we need, who can advocate for us. Somebody who can ask questions that we would ask.
- That's what Dan would do. He would sort of pair, and he wrote good summaries. I'd like to see us return
- to good summaries again, because we're all working part-time. And so having a dense packet with like,
- you know, very little in terms of narrative. Yep. You know, that's suboptimal. And we need somebody
- who can direct somebody to do research when it's needed as well, which was, you know, Dan and Stephen
- did that with other assistant, assistant insuring or other, you know, staff, speed up, so forth. Somebody
- who's clicking their feet that can,
- back up for preliminary procedure. I guess that's more of an attorney role. Somebody's quick in the
- game. In other words, if the parliamentarian is struggling, we go to the attorney council attorney.
- Anyway, so those are some of my thoughts on it. I think it would be a total mistake to go to surrender.
- Isabel? Go ahead, Isabel. Sorry.
- Can you hear me? Yes. Okay, greetings from outside of Wheeling, West Virginia. I respectfully disagree
- with my colleague, Council Member Rallo. I think that it would be best to separate the two positions.
- I think that it really is, there are different strengths and different
- skills needed for an administrator versus for an attorney. And I think we got lucky a few times in the
- past with Dan Sherman, Steven Lucas, but I think starting with Ash and into the present. That has been
- part of the struggle is that some of our incumbents have really enjoyed the legal part and have
- with that at the forefront while neglecting the administration part and not putting that equally on
- an important level with the attorney part of the job. And I think that what we've really been lacking
- is a strong administrator. And I think that's partially because we're hiring an attorney. And most people
- who are trained as an attorney don't want to do the nitty gritty of administrating, which is
- just as important, I think, for this job. So what I proposed in the job descriptions, and I didn't have
- a lot tonight, but was having one council attorney, one council administrator, and then to have a deputy
- administrator. Oh, a deputy administrator, yeah. OK, interesting. Now, how we do this as far as are
- we allowed to hire somebody who is not a legal professional for state code? I think Margie said we probably are not.
- So I think it would be something we'd have to work out with the administration or with the clerk's office.
- But I think that's possible. Sydney? Well, I think both Dave and Isabelle brought up, excuse me, is
- everyone okay if we use first names? I don't want to insult anybody. Okay, thank you. I think there
- were both points made on either side. To Dave's point though,
- With Dan and Stephen, they both had kind of long run ways to get used to it. And like, Dan had a longer
- tenure and Stephen got to come up through the council office. So I don't know if right now we have anyone
- who's ready. Well, I mean, obviously we haven't even put out the application, but I wonder the extent
- to someone being able to come in fresh, like with no experience with council at all, even just city
- of Bloomington. I'm a little bit worried
- that that would be a very steep learning curve. But that's not to say that splitting the positions wouldn't
- provide the same thing. I just wonder if multiple positions might clarify some of the priorities. So
- I have a couple of thoughts on all of that. I take Dave's concern, and I think that that's the big sticking
- point for me.
- I think I agree almost point for point with Isabel. I'll add a couple of extra points though, a couple
- of extra considerations. The first one is that last time when we posted this job, we didn't actually
- get all that many applicants. Because of the fact that we added administrative role as well, the salary
- was depressed. And so we basically were looking for a person who
- I said we couldn't get a warrior job somewhere else, which is kind of like we so we ended up you know
- kind of eliminating some.
- candidates from the field in the first place, just because we've lowered what that position is. So I
- do think that there's a gain point here in separating the administration role from a legal role.
- In that, it means that you can pay a lawyer more and possibly attract somebody. I also think that there's
- a benefit in that we could probably build an administrative role very quickly. So I think that those
- are two things.
- That does not mean that our lawyer would not do certain administrative tasks. I mean, I think when you
- just look at the, I had it pulled up here, when you look at the legislative process, there are certain
- elements of administration that are built in there, right? I'm not suggesting that what we do is essentially create
- you know, this person who all they do is come in and pontificate about the law and then they leave,
- right? I mean, but then all the things I think that you brought up, Dave, when I think about the whole
- process of passing legislation, that to me includes quite a bit of administration, you know? But I think
- that the type of administration that Isabel and I are both pointing out are the types of things like,
- booking meeting rooms, manning, you know, caps meetings, you know, preparing packets, like
- doing accessibility, you know, getting PDFs ready. Like the type of things that for a skilled administrator
- wouldn't be hard. Hard is not the right way of saying it. Wouldn't be as hard as our administrators
- have viewed it in the past, perhaps. So. And doing the budget as well. I just want to add. That's right.
- I think it sets us up for conflict. I think having
- that administrator and attorney, if they're going to let us, I'd rather have what you were describing,
- I would rather see an administrator attorney, and then they can delegate out administrative tasks to
- another higher attorney, other members in the office. They would be able to delegate things like reserve
- rooms or whatever is necessary. But if you're going to have an administrator and an attorney separate,
- and they could have conflict, I think it's a mistake.
- go there. One last thing, why not, why not just, we had it, we've worked in the past. We had Steven,
- we had Dan. We could try and have for a couple of weeks and see what comes, but it doesn't work out.
- No one bites, then we can refer to separate job titles. We didn't have, we had the natural experiment
- of doing this last time, right? So, and I don't know if there's gonna be- Yeah, but that's what we need,
- if we can work this, I mean,
- You know, it's just, that could be a one-off, it can work. I think we should think about what would
- make the job, just any job in council more appealing. Cause I remember last time we really did not have
- a lot of applicants. So what could we do that would be like incentivizing to get people, whether it's
- lawyers or, I liked Isabel's idea of, oh, I see that Isabel has her hand up. I liked Isabel's idea of
- a deputy administrator, maybe like something a little bit
- higher level than what Colleen did, but maybe someone who could work under the attorney. Well, that's
- what I'm suggesting. OK. So a chief administrator attorney delegates out roles of administration. We
- need one person in the office, you know, the built-in person that's going to head the office, not competing
- people. Yeah. OK. Isabel? You can stand if you want to. It's hard to toggle with the
- So I understand the concern that Dave brought up about having two equal higher level employees. And
- certainly that would be something we would have to overcome. But I think pointing to Dan Sherman and
- then Stephen Lucas' tenures in the attorney administrator role,
- I don't think either of them had a good life work balance. I think that they lived this job, and I don't
- think that's healthy for anybody. I don't know how they did it, especially Steven, having a small child.
- But I just don't think it's too much. It's too much for one person, is what I honestly think. Now,
- if we had, well, I'm getting to that. So I had an informal,
- this exchange with ESOC last week about possibly having one council member designated as the staff's
- liaison who could meet maybe weekly with staff and have that person be paid. Because it is difficult,
- especially if we say, okay, these are two equal bodies, they have equal positions and they have to work
- together. But I don't know.
- I mean, we could put one in charge of the other. I just, I don't know which it would be and it would
- be kind of awkward. The administrator, in my view, it should be the administrator because part
- of administrating is supervising people. But yeah, I mean, we can talk about how that might work or
- not work. I mean, isn't the president the one who's delegated by the council to me with the... Yeah,
- I have a thought on your question. So one way that you could, that we could do this
- is that, and again, Clerk McDowell, I love your thoughts here. I'll make one general statement and then
- this. We moved to a council administrator, you all asked that question at the last meeting in 1988,
- right? Since then, there's also been some of the tasks that we're talking about are in code, things
- that are things that
- in many ways belong to the clerk's office. Is that a fair way of saying it? We have, in 40 years, taken
- a lot of those things on as counsel, like packet preparation, like preparation of actual legislation
- that's supposed to be prepared by the clerk's office. And then as a consequence, the clerk's office
- has evolved to do other things, boards and commissions, and a lot of other things that weren't originally
- conceived. So I think that we need to be aware of that.
- I think that there's a way where you could do it, where you say, we hire an administrator who called
- this person, you know, grand pooba of administration and clerk's office with like deputy clerk for council
- affairs or something like that. And that that person within the job description, that that person takes
- tasks from the council administrator. You could do that. Now there's-
- We're creating new roles here. The title doesn't matter right now at the moment, but for the sake of
- having a reference, call it Deputy Clerk for Counsel Affairs. Deputy Clerk for Counsel Affairs. Which
- is what we've been calling our administrator. You could then say that that person can be tasked within
- their job description that they receive
- that they work with and receive instruction from council attorney and council legal, or whatever, the
- council legal office, around legislative process, preparing of meetings, et cetera. So we could create
- a structure like that that would exist within the clerk's office of that person that working around
- the other people who support all of these processes. So who is the Grand Coupon? What's their name?
- The grand poobah would be this person is definitely clerk for the council affairs. Deputy clerk. Yes.
- So you have a deputy clerk for council affairs and then you have a, and then you have a chief chief.
- Well, that sounds like we're replicating. Well, so the way that I think the perspective that the clerk's
- office, what we see is there needs to be a project manager for council things. So the clerk doesn't
- draft legislation. It's more, um,
- It would be the gathering of the packet. Whoever would be in that hole will get the final version accessible,
- gone through legal, gone through the appropriate department and whatnot, and then compiles that all
- into one packet. It could be under the clerk or it could be under council. With summaries of what's
- in each- That would be- That would come from our lawyer. I mean, that's legal work. Yes. Let's say planning,
- for example.
- Uh, Jackie or someone will create the staff memo and then if needed, there could be a council attorney
- memo as well, or it could be combined. I've seen both, but really the, the thing that is the point there
- started to jump in because I think this is critical to Dave's today's and I totally agree with you this
- point, Dave. Um, and I think Isabelle and I are both saying the same thing. Part of the reason why we
- haven't received things like
- memos from our attorneys is because they're, again, this was particularly in this last iteration, but-
- I think she was underwater. Yes, exactly. She couldn't do it. But the point is that what we really want
- is them to spend all of their time doing legal stuff for us. And some of this falls under, broadly,
- what I might still think is administration, but it's legal administration. It's
- Get drafting and it's it's drafting memos. It's putting together opinions. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.
- And still draft helping us draft legislation. That's what happened under Dan. And that's what delegated
- to the people in the office. They hired to do that kind of administrative work. So,
- But getting back to the deputy clerk for council affairs is the attorney I interrupted Sophia though.
- So, sorry. Okay. So I do see the importance of having a difference between like an office manager or
- a project manager or something. Someone who is getting all of the pieces together may not be a content
- expert, but can get everything in a format. That is really what we need, especially given the accessibility
- stuff that's going on. It's.
- It's kind of intense right now. It'll be fine. I think it's a good opportunity. But the other part would
- be exactly kind of what we were just saying is there needs to be a dedicated person whose only responsibility
- is the legal components. Does this go against home rule or is it legal within the state of Indiana and
- so forth, those sorts of things. But I don't think personally, I think that council meets its own legal
- Representation I don't think it should be. That it should be one that it should council should have
- their own representation not not not within. The project manager part is where I see it fail time and
- time again, because I worked with Dan and I did work with Stephen and I saw the amount of.
- I mean, we're talking 60 plus hours on a good week. And I agree with what Councilmember Piedmont-Smith
- said about the work-life balance. And I think it's not an incentive to stay. And they can offer,
- you know, $250,000. It's still probably would not be an incentive to stay. It's just, it's not demoralizing,
- that's the word. You go and get this law and get your PDFs that are like,
- Overly complex. So who heads the office here? That's what I'm getting at. And who's he? Is the Deputy
- Clerk for Council Affairs, is that the attorney? No, that person is our administrator. The reason I'm
- calling them a clerk is just because I think that we cannot hire an administrator alone, so we'd have
- to put them somewhere. Well, getting back to what Sidney said, Deputy Clerk for Council Affairs doesn't
- sound like a very prestigious position. Administrator sounds like a prestigious position. You know,
- Council Projects Manager?
- in the clerk's office. Yeah, whatever we call it is project manager. Yeah, and we can think about name.
- I agree that I think that's the next step. But conceptually, the idea here is that is that, you know,
- and I think that this is the middle ground between what what Sir Isabel and I had said at first and
- what you're concerned, which is if we have someone who's embedded in the clerk's office, because they're
- already doing some of the administration so that it makes a
- whole thing around administration rather than, you know, it's like, just a simple example. We were scheduling
- a special session for tomorrow. And so I'm like, okay, well, Lisa's not here. Who do I talk to? I went
- and talked to Clark McDowell and she was like, well, that's actually a council thing that they do that
- meeting. So then I went back to them and then they were like, oh yeah, let's do it. And then Sophia
- was like, actually, I can do it if you guys want me to, but this is a thing that council usually does.
- That makes no sense, right? So you incorporate all of that, and then our lawyers get to do law stuff.
- So who's the top person? Our counsel attorney. Our counsel attorney is the chief person who basically
- delegates, and then you've got people who are doing under this person who are doing administrative.
- So then you have one, in my mind, you have one administrator,
- And you have one and you have one deputy attorney. Okay. So that is that is that time? I think the question
- is the first question that needs to be answered is if council can hire non evil. Cannot we have that
- that has been answered. I think clear. I agree, but I think there might be some concern about that.
- So what you're saying is in order to have someone who can focus on the.
- doing of the stuff and not the expertise of the stuff, like running Zoom, let's say, combining the packets,
- that person would need to be housed somewhere, and it doesn't make sense to house that person in the
- administration, or, and it's not legal in council, therefore, the default could be the parks office.
- And that person would still report to Perkfolden, but would also have the council's interest in mind.
- I think those are the details that this committee and the council will bring out.
- and just everyone in work's office, would the capacity be there to add an extra staff member? I think
- it would almost need to be, especially if this person is gonna be evenings and Wednesdays and Wednesdays.
- Absolutely, right. Because the public comment, the presentations, the way council, we talked about this
- a minute ago, there's four computers that are run, and I find that, I don't know, I have not run it,
- I don't think that that's ideal.
- but I think in terms of capacity, it would behoove the council to have their own person in the first
- office or wherever this person can be housed. I would agree, thank you. So it looks like this, council
- turning, and then deputy clerk for council affairs, who's doing administrative stuff, who then delegates
- out to potentially other people, right? And then- I don't think there ends up being any, I mean, I suppose-
- Okay, so I suppose that the people like our cox fellows and stuff like that could work with this person,
- right? Yeah. And the attorney. Yeah, and the attorney. I mean, you know, the idea like dotted lines
- and direct lines, I think is something we need to incorporate here, right? And this person coordinates
- with the clerk. Correct. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. But would work under the clerk. Just be housed under
- the clerk.
- Wait a minute, the deputy clerk for council affairs of the house under the clerk? This council cannot
- legally by state code hire anything other than a legal position? No, but the council attorney hires
- that position. See, that's where I think the gray area is. That's the question that might need to be
- answered by. I mean, with all due respect, I really like the council to have autonomy apart from the clerk.
- administration, but I think we would have that. I think we would have that with as well as your answer.
- We'll go to you next. I think we would have that with our with two lawyers that are our lawyers and
- And we can put some element of administration in their jobs, right? But it's just the heavy burden of
- administration, the things like we're, I mean, it's listed out in these job descriptions, PDF making,
- room booking, staffing, Zoom meetings, you know, like- But this person's serving under the clerk, so
- it's in your budget and they work for the clerk, not for us.
- I mean, but we can change what the clerk does by changing code. So it's not like the clerk doesn't get
- to just do whatever they want. I guess what I'm saying is, but this person is working for the clerk.
- It's not for us. And we were saying a minute ago that- But the clerk by code has a lot of things that
- they are supposed to do for us. Yeah. And that administrative stuff would fall under that. And I think
- the job descriptions would have to be massively
- you know, very detailed. Exactly. Not in code, not codified. Yes, but very clear that- This person is
- responsible for the packet, the meetings, that sort of thing, like really hammer that out. And this
- isn't like a position that would be making a lot of decisions. It's just- No. I mean, for a project,
- it's like front work. Project management. Yes. Project management. No, because summaries can be, I mean,
- the question- The summaries are made by our lawyer. Yes, I know, but I guess, all right. So it's just,
- Compilation, I mean, all right, so. So what does this person do with the question? Yeah, so we're giving
- out, we're just gonna have one attorney instead of two. No, I think we should have two attorneys. Okay,
- where is that in that scheme? So I said, let's let Isabel talk and then I'll answer that question. And
- did they work for the clerk then? No. Okay. Go ahead, Isabel. Okay, so I've also made a little chart here.
- So yeah, I feel like we have counsel attorney and that's the major, like, I don't know, the one at the
- top of the chart. And then we have the deputy clerk for council affairs or whatever you want to call
- it, the clerk's office, kind of works directed by the attorney, but also, you know, does administrative
- work, so works with the clerk.
- And then on the other side, also reporting to the council attorney is the deputy attorney. And then
- our interns work for- You could have garbled up, I didn't hear that last bit. Oh, so then we have a
- deputy attorney for the council that works for our council attorney. And then the interns can be on
- projects reporting to the deputy attorney, the full attorney, or the administrator, which administration equals
- administrator in my book equals this deputy clerk position that's equal to the administrator. So where
- the interns are most needed, they will go and work with that person. So I think this is something, like
- Isak said, that we could work out with the clerk's office and put in code that there would still be
- reporting to the council for that administrator position. And to add on that, I think that that role
- would not do current work
- responsibilities. That's right. They would not be, they, I mean, by nature of being in the office, they
- may need to answer the phone sometime, but they would, we triage all the time. So that person would
- not do like legislation processing post meeting legislation processing. It would be to support the council.
- Yes. Well, that raises the issue of the location of that person too. We're not in the same office anymore,
- but that could, that could be negotiated.
- I think that's a good question to answer is whether, because your point was counsel can hire the attorney,
- so therefore could the attorney hire that administrative? I don't know the answer. I think it's, I think
- it still remains the council office who hires, it's not the administrator who's hiring that person,
- it's the council office. I agree, but I just don't, I don't, sometimes it can be so legally that I don't know.
- like the council attorney to have autonomy and hire their own staff. Yes, and so they would get a deputy.
- Yeah, so I'm looking at a chart like that. Council attorney has, and then the deputy clerk for council
- fairs is doing administrative stuff, working under the clerk? I mean, they're housed somewhere. We don't
- know if they're in the clerk's office or council. Let's answer that question. Where else could they
- be housed?
- We cannot, if we hire them, they have to be a lawyer. So. Well, no, I mean, we've got a separate attorney
- over here. No, that's what I'm saying. So our administrator, there's no other place to put them but
- the clerk's office is my contention. Okay, so they're working for the clerk and they report to the counsel
- attorney. So it's another, it's an expansion of your office because we're going to hire somebody in
- the clerk's office. Correct. But then are we down to three?
- People in the... I think at the moment we have three lines. I think what we're doing is turning the
- legal research line into an administrative line and keeping attorney and deputy attorney as counsel.
- So you keep three lines. In the future, we might want to add another line. That's something we can discuss.
- But I think that what I would propose to this committee is that we take
- which is different than what Isabel proposed, is that the job that we post immediately, once we can
- get that already, is our, and again, names, we can talk about names in a second, but council attorney
- job. We should also post, I think fairly soon, a council project manager, administrator, whatever we
- want to call that, director of operations, I don't know, we can think of a name, right?
- That one we would have to create the position first. Correct. That was correct. Under the clerk. Yeah.
- So that would take longer. Exactly. So I think you do those and then you let the council attorney hire
- a deputy attorney. If this administrator could not be in the clerk's office, that would be great. But
- I don't think that counts. I don't think there's any other place. That's the downfall.
- But I think there's a lot of benefits than being in the clerk's office because we said there's a little
- bit of a devolution of things that the clerk's office should do. It creates more synergy amongst. So
- it's not this question of are you going to do this? Am I going to do this? Who's going to? It's just
- a clarity of all of those tasks live in that office, right? And there's a point person that we liaise
- with as counsel. So for example, this person would not be able to affect the schedule.
- of legislation, they would not be able to do any sort of, it's really compiling and making things proper
- and a, in compliance usable. Well, the lawyers would be more at that level. This person is gathering
- the documents and doing all the administrative work that has been pretty clear for me for four attorneys,
- council administrator attorneys is like the, the,
- not difficult part, but the more cumbersome part. And it really takes away from their legal research
- abilities. So the difficulty I still have is that this, I don't know who this person reports to, the
- clerk or the council attorney. And if they're displeased, if this person doesn't measure up, as far
- as clerks are concerned, but the council attorney loves this person and it works out great. But the
- clerk doesn't like them. What happens? Well, and that's a huge part too, because it's an appointment.
- and they serve at the clerk's pleasure. So. Isabel, what do you think? That's the, that's the thing
- I'm most concerned about. Who ultimately has control over the. Well, I think, I think that the, the
- clerk and the council attorney would both have to be involved in hiring this person. And I don't know,
- we'd have to write into code somehow. So the reporting line is. I don't know.
- I see it as a potential conflict. Are there any other examples in the city where you've got two different
- departments who have a co-hire? Oh, I'd have to think about that for a moment. You'd like to know if
- HR has dealt with this kind of thing. I don't know. I think it's difficult because it's local government
- and municipalities have such great rules about things. If there's a way to see if that administrator could be
- Under the council and training that would be great. We have corn issues. We just have to have 50% of
- the one. We've run into this before I know we're all good. Okay, so well, here's, here's, here's, here's
- where they get paid from to have from the council's office and you have to look around. I don't know,
- because ultimately their higher fire is going to be based.
- I think that this is like a really good opportunity to determine what the best case scenario could be.
- So whatever, like what's the gold standard, although I don't like gold, let's say silver, you can design
- it and put it wherever it works best to where council doesn't. So HR would be good to tap.
- Okay, so here's an alternative structure. Yeah. Well, okay. Here's an alternative structure. You're
- gonna be sold on this one up. Yeah, so see, I agree with you. I think that that is a pain point, and
- I'll tell you my counter to this in a second, but here's another thing to consider, which builds on
- what Isabel suggested. You could say that our chief, the leader of the council office and staff is the
- council attorney.
- and we remove all of the main burden of administration from that job, and that it's actually the deputy
- who is deputy attorney stroke administrator. So, I mean, that's a possibility. Now, I'll tell you why
- I think that's a challenge, is that again, we run into an issue of, so now you have a person, you know,
- a person who's, so like at the end of the day,
- when that administrator is incapacitated, sick, not there, that means that all of the administration
- falls back to our counsel attorney, and then we cycle back in this issue. That person's not there, how
- do we hire? That means that we have to hire the chief attorney and then wait for them to hire, you know,
- whereas, so I think that that's a little bit of a pain one, but a possibility. I think that that is
- one possibility we should present to our colleagues. I'll tell you why I think what, as though I totally
- share your concern that,
- And I think that we've seen, okay, I think that there could be, you could imagine a time where the clerk,
- the politically appointed clerk, right, the politically elected clerk decides that, you know what, like,
- I don't like, let's say I don't like Esau, council president, I don't like Esau, and we're going to
- thwart what Esau does. Now, in some hypothetical universe, it's possible, right?
- You know, I think we'd have to think very clearly about, like, what are the mechanisms by which this
- person, you know, actually gets leadership guidance, et cetera. But, you know, it's not, the clerk is
- not able to ruin, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's all right.
- There are many, many ways to do just that. Exactly. I'm so sorry. Is there any way you could just pause
- for just a teensy bit? It's a bit distracting. Oh, sorry. Is that okay? Just like a little bit.
- Thank you. Go ahead, Isabelle. Well, I think another option we might consider is just turning over all
- the administrative duties to the clerk's office.
- Yes. I mean, this is what was envisioned by Indiana code. And this is probably why we're not allowed
- to hire other than attorneys is because it was envisioned that the clerk would do all the administrative
- stuff anyway. I just consider that option as well. I disagree. I just think I mean, especially considering
- with our budget, are we going to turn that over to the clerk's office as well? But what part of the
- budget are you are you thinking of? Well, it's entirety of the council office.
- I mean, but you mean you mean the deciding what's in the budget or the or the preparation of the document,
- all the budget? Well, OK, what's in the budget primarily, but that includes, you know, resources, hires,
- you know, staffing. Yeah, you know, whatever the council, we had various. It's not a complicated budget,
- but it's a budget that and it's minor compared to a lot of
- But the point was that we had autonomy over our budget and I don't want to turn that over to anybody
- else. But I wouldn't turn it over to the mayor either. But we're the fiduciary. We hold the purse strings.
- We always get to decide every budget. No, we don't.
- But no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
- no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
- The same way, I mean, you know, if we for some random reason, and this is just an example, but if we
- for some random reason said, you know what, we think that the clerk has way too many people on the staff,
- we could reduce their budget. That's within our power to do it. So I'm just saying we don't. You know,
- to me, I think that better option is in terms of packet preparation, there's a lot of stuff that could
- be the clerk
- obviously is equipped to do that, does it in other communities and stuff like that, in coordination
- with the council attorney, because the council attorney will be writing summaries of what it is, researching
- legislation, anticipating questions from the council, handling potential amendments and things like
- that, kind of vetting those, understanding sort of state statutes so that they're prepared so that when
- we go into a meeting, like we did with the discussion on first readings, you know? I want somebody who
- could game that out.
- I want somebody who anticipates where that could go so that when Hopi turns and says, gosh, I'm confused
- here exactly what could happen, we have somebody who's prepared to do that. Now that's the council attorney
- role, but I'm afraid that there's going to be some tension there if we don't have control as we have,
- except for the delegation of very basic things. I'm sorry, Sydney. I'm sorry.
- Part-time person in the clerk's office and a part-time legal researcher in council's office so that
- we could have But still, um Yeah, you know delegate some of that work would that work for the clerk's
- office? I think so. I mean, of course we'll have to defer to clerk bouldin, but I just I do want to
- provide a little bit of context because when I Was first hired what I saw was Legislation and other
- pieces of documentation whatever it may be would come to
- council incomplete, insufficient, wrong. I've seen schematics be wrong for allegations, things like
- that. I think that that's why 40 years ago it switched into being more of the council attorney's role
- to do some of that administrative stuff. I also understand from having read some of the documents in
- the past that at the time that council attorney agreed with that idea as did the clerk at the time.
- So it wasn't that
- the clerk at the time did not want to compile the packet. It was about things not being properly done.
- And so ideally you would get legislation and it's been fully vetted and fully ready to just be read,
- but that's not the case. So I think that's why those administrative pieces got shifted over to the council
- attorney. I think rightly so. I mean, I hate the,
- Surrender that because otherwise we're because the clerk's job is just simply potentially compiling
- stuff right giving it to us and Not vetting it which is you know, Bloomington code does say that they
- help with preparation of of legislation And send title to well I You know, I just fiercely guarded about
- losing autonomy to the office. That's my point. Do I hear correct? We have three choices on the table
- here that we'll present tomorrow to our colleagues. Choice, and this is not in any preferential order,
- just in the order we've discussed them. Choice one is that we have two council attorneys,
- and then a additional position of the clerk's office named to be determined. Choice one. Choice two
- is that we have a attorney, a deputy attorney stroke administrator. Tell me if I'm misrepresenting this
- idea, Isabel. And then a legal researcher. So switching the administration job rep from the lead attorney
- to the deputy attorney.
- Choice number three, choice number three is that we have a part-time person who that third role is a
- legal researcher. We have a part-time legal researcher and a part-time counsel liaison or something
- like that in the clerk's office. And then we retain two attorneys. And then I suppose option four is
- the keep things as they are option. Isabel, did that interest you?
- Could you run through that again? So the first one I understand, two attorneys and one buddy and one
- person in the clerk's office. Option two was basically keep things as they are, but change the administration
- functions from the lead attorney to the deputy attorney. Okay. And then number three was what?
- Number three was two part-time people. So a part-time council liaison and something administrator in
- the clerk's office and a part-time legal researcher in council's office. And the fourth one is status
- quo. Status quo, yeah. Wait a minute. So option three only has two people?
- Four. Oh, four people. So I have two attorneys. But you split the full-time research role. OK. Yeah.
- Got it. OK. OK. Dave, do you think we could preserve some autonomy that way? I think that that's a better
- idea because that gives us, it's a lower level. And I'm just afraid of higher levels of
- people butting heads. And I think that's maybe where we're where we all are saying the same thing, but
- that's somewhat speaking past each other is the fact that to me, like when I write down the administrative
- responsibilities for the load of administrative possible that we're talking, we're talking about coordinating
- meeting logistics, coordinating and preparation of council agendas, managing legislation, legislative
- document workflow,
- maintaining records of some sort, because there's some of that that overlaps with the clerk anyways,
- improve council workflows, develop administrative systems, implement technology improvements, support
- council members with scheduling and coordination, manage communications and documentation, and some
- elements of constituent services.
- the things like managing the council office, overseeing council staff, still is on the side of the legal
- person. So, okay, so the first, the last one is keeping the code as it is, essentially, more or less,
- right? And the other three basically mean changes, right, in terms of that we need to pass legislation
- for or not?
- I don't think choice number two would require that type of change. Um, but it might, uh, I think that
- would just be changing the job descriptions for attorney versus deputy attorney. I do think anything
- that we would put, if we're putting anything in the clerk's office, that is going to be legislation.
- Is that correct? I would think so, but. Appropriation is what it would take. Yeah. And I think, well,
- just one quick thing. I think.
- the job descriptions are gonna be the key point because all of the duties are going to blend, no matter
- what, no matter how you try to set that up. Isabel? To me, option number two is basically the same as
- status quo. I mean, just calling, putting all the administration on the deputy attorney, you have the
- same problem of burnout and of,
- not getting an actually highly qualified attorney because there's the administrative part of it not
- having a salary, et cetera. I'd be willing to go with number three. So I don't know if we really want
- to separate that out or not, but I guess, I mean, on paper it would look different, but I think in practice
- it would really do. So didn't we have room for people in the current council office
- I mean, in terms of what's actually allocated, we have three lines. We have only three lines in it.
- Yeah, three full-time lines. So, I mean, one alternative is that the deputy attorney administrator has
- two people under them to delegate out various administrative duties. Yeah, so there's the option of
- adding more positions to counsel. But our right hand, like SGA used to be on hand, too.
- you know, if Dan couldn't make the meetings or whatever, SJ would fill in just like Brooks would and
- we'd have an attorney there regardless. So, okay, just trying to write my head around this, sort of
- those four options. So I'm thinking that, you know, despite our ambitions that we should get, because
- our charge explicitly says that we'll take the options to counsel. And, you know, I think that
- what option we land on is going to determine what the job descriptions look like, right? So, would you
- all agree it's not worth us? I mean, we've started to redline job descriptions, but we'll need a little
- bit of guidance from the full body before we can fully commit to that. Do we agree? I agree. Okay. In
- terms though, just so that,
- Because we have a few more minutes here. It'd be nice to also give cats a little bit. Yeah, we'll give
- it some time. So we'll, we'll get out of here. I think they're next week. That's six thirty, right?
- No, six. Okay. Well, we can was booked until six. Okay. Um, one thing that we all can think a little
- bit about, um, um, sort of ahead of tomorrow, um, just in case there are questions, I'll be thinking
- about this as well. Um, but outside of the list that, that I listed of like, what are the,
- What are the responsibilities like the administrative responsibilities? Because I think I think you've
- illustrated an important point that, you know.
- In council parlance, administrator means director. It means the person who leads the thing, rather than
- the way that maybe a lot of people think about it as administrators, the person who does a thing, or
- something like that. I don't know. There's lots of problems with those type of definitions, but I think
- we do need to be thinking about what are all the things. Okay.
- Um, so we'll propose this to council tomorrow and have a, have a vote and then we can, we can meet again.
- Um, yes. When, when, when would a good time to meet again? Everyone would need to be after council.
- One suggestion to you is you could send them a poll. Maybe you should see more to have a little bit back.
- Since it again, I'm sorry, just a scheduling for like a went to meet or something like that. Yeah, you're
- fine. You know, if you, if you want to pencil something right now, I'm willing to, but you're gone all
- of next week. Right. Right. Are you both done next week? No, are you here next week? Yeah. Talks about,
- I will be here next week. Oh, you'll be here next week about meeting meeting sometime next week, a little
- bit longer. Sure. Sure.
- I'm like, wide open so I can meet any time I'm traveling, I think on Thursday, just for a quick recruitment
- thing, but I could do it like any time on Friday, I could do any time on Wednesday, Tuesday. I can do
- a Friday or Tuesday. Tuesday is totally open in my book. St. Patrick's Day. Are you close to St. Patrick's Day?
- So should we do a, we have an economic development meeting at four, so I could do five or I could do
- any type of four, four. On Wednesday? On Tuesday. Next Tuesday is that? Are we closed today? Do you
- guys want to do five again, or Claire McDowell, does that work? That should work. Do you want to do
- two hours, hour and a half? Would that be okay with everyone? I have to be somewhere, like probably
- right after 6.30. So we do five to 6.30, or?
- Yeah, 90 minutes is good. Yeah, to 630. Okay. Five to 630 Tuesday, March 17th. And we'll all come with
- our list of responsibilities that we think for each. Yeah, based on what's loaded on here, because the
- council may vote to lead things as it's, I mean, and then, you know, and then, and then our conversation
- will more be, I'm also going to ask for a slight, slight amendment of the charge then once we discuss
- it so that we can, we can be empowered to,
- Actually go and make the job and send it out. Like, right? Like, I think we've sent it to everybody.
- We'll get their comments, but I don't think we need to then go back to counsel to approve the
- job descriptions. After. Yeah. Did hope you mentioned something to me about.
- Maybe you didn't have the most up-to-date job description. The one that I shared was not the one that
- you all updated last time, apparently. But then she said she sent it to me. I didn't see it. I don't
- know if maybe she just put it in her folder. So I'll find that and circulate that around to you as well.
- OK, thank you. You all might consider also a discussion on something in the interim.
- or like, March 25th. Oh, yes. Also, one thing I'll bring up as well, the question of the interim. So
- I think we're fine to work on that. But I am talking to an organization that already contracts with
- the city for the
- people who count money, accounting reasons, but they also offer lawyers, municipal lawyers, and so I'm
- talking to them on Friday. I've reached out also to people like Larry Allen and stuff like that to see
- if they wanted to, if they would consider, you know, have a call with Steven Lucas as well. So this
- is just for the interim? For the interim, of course, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's because we can, you know,
- if we need to hire some. I think Larry just got done with piloting housing. Yeah, so I understand too, so.
- All right. Thank you so much, Isabelle. Safe journeys. We're adjourned.