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.