- I'll call this meeting to order. Hello, Andy, thank you for being here. Call this meeting to order of
- the hiring committee for the Common Council on the 17th of March, 2026. My name's Isak, I'm present.
- Thank you.
- It's about Piedmont Smith, District 1. I guess I could have just said that. We also have Dave Rallo
- here from District 4. There we go. And Cindy Smith here from District 6. And two wonderful clerks, deputy
- clerks here as well. So thank you all for being here. We're joined also by Andy Wagner, who's going
- to give us a brief presentation about
- Some retain higher services as well as some ways that we may be able to work with them on finding a
- person for this office. And then after that, we'll move on to talking about the job description. If
- we have a little bit of time, we'll have some public comment. So with that, Andy, why don't you take it away.
- Well, hello. It's nice to meet everyone there in Bloomington. It's been a lot of years since I was down
- there, but it sounds like things are in good hands just from keeping tabs on the football team and all
- of that. I see some chairs moving around, so can everyone hear me okay and good to go? Okay.
- I figured I'd go less is more. I know there's quite a few people in the room, so definitely I want to
- make this interactive. I've been doing this 15 years, so I'm tired of hearing my voice. So hopefully
- we'll hear from you guys and get all your questions answered. But the first thing I'll ask is,
- show of hands, how many of you have heard of Robert Half?
- Okay, so quick version, Robert Half is a publicly traded company. We're a $6 billion company with a
- B. So Robert Half was started over 100 years ago and is in every state in the union and most countries.
- So between Robert Half and our sister division, Protiviti, we
- pretty much cover all the squares, and that's really the idea of Robert Half. I actually almost go the
- other way and say Robert Half does pretty much everything except forklift drivers and RNs, both for
- liability reasons. So yeah, we've learned a thing or two. So really, where we started the entry point
- with this is,
- Robert Half is really here to move as fast. And I always say this to clients, we'll be as aggressive
- as you'll let us for your benefit. And what I mean by that is what we've learned is having a plan to
- placement. And when you're working with good candidates and good consultants, they have options. So
- we've really learned to try to cradle to grave, work through that process. And what Isaac and I have
- come to learn about you all,
- Um, is really probably a two parallel paths going down. So one, the first thing is let's get the right
- person in the seat. And what that is, is basically coming up with match, you know, what is it that you're
- really looking for doing a deep dive on that? Um, I'll go into that a little bit in saying that.
- I don't know if it's true to this day since this is being recorded, but at one point, Robert Hapf used
- to be Salesforce's largest client. So the relevance and the reason I mentioned that is you can imagine
- we have a pretty mad database that has all the bells and whistles and yes, AI is alive and well and
- helping us go through and match those consultants to the gigs, different what it is that we're trying
- to look for for each client.
- Robert Half's retained search out of 250 firms, Robert Half consistently ranks in the top four. And
- I think the last couple of years, we've been ranked number two out of 250 firms by Forbes Magazine.
- Relevance of that to you is that in that space of retained search, executive search, there's a experience
- ratio in the 60s were 94 and above. And what that really means is
- when we do a deep dive and do a retained search for a company, that person sticks and they stay there
- and everybody's happy, both client and the new hire. So that's one of the parallel paths that we were
- talking about going down, which is, you know, you've got a chance since probably 1988 to refresh and
- reload and level set the playing field. And so
- that's exactly the time when we use our retained executive search, because they'll scour the globe.
- And at the end of the day, as an old auditor myself, I'll say that you've achieved the completeness
- objective with regard to looking at the populations of people that are relevant for that seat or seats.
- The second parallel path is an interim resource. So you could say everything from a temporary
- or a consultant. And that is someone to come in and keep the
- Keep the trains on time. In the audit accounting world, that's closing the books, closing the month.
- I think specific to what we're talking about here, that's a legal resource, someone who's well versed
- and well seasoned in getting the job done with regard to all things legal. And then just from a calendar
- perspective, that's a person that can come in, start early, deep dive, show me where the restroom is,
- give me a passcode, give me access, but then I know how to
- I know how to manipulate the widgets. You just show me where they are and then we will keep things going
- while you guys can take a breath and do a deep dive on the permanent placement. So I'll stop there and
- just see if I'm reading the room right and that we're kind of hitting what we're trying to do. Questions for me.
- Do you have any experience with local government clients? Robert Half definitely does, yes. I guess
- I'll back up and talk about who I am and what I do. Technically, I'm the practice director for our management
- resource division. I've been here. I've started my career. Actually, I should say this first. I graduated
- from IU, started my career with
- PricewaterhouseCoopers went into industry and worked east of you in Columbus for the Irwin family that
- went away during the financial meltdown of 2008 to 10 and then joined Robert Half then in their management
- resource department. So our focus and we specialize into our categories.
- Our focus in management resources is senior level finance and accounting. So read senior accountant
- all the way up to CFO, cost accountants. I actually have somebody out working with the city of Bloomington
- right now. So yes, we definitely have experience in the state. And then from the perspective of just
- experience across the board and the people who will be doing various searches,
- Um, well, well, 10 year group, um, that's very experienced and, and like I said, we literally all work
- off of the same database and Salesforce. So there's, you can imagine there's a lot of communication
- and really, um, you know, making sure that we've uncovered every rock when we're looking for, for different
- consultants or, or solutions for people. Does that, did that answer your question? Um, yeah, uh, somewhat.
- Uh, what about, um,
- attorneys for local government. Is that something you're seeing an experience with? Yeah, so I should
- even get even more detailed than that. So point being, I'm quarterback, right? So I'm kind of helping
- shepherd these meetings and keep the ball rolling metaphorically.
- The two groups that you'd be working with, Retain Search, they, yes, they work with local attorneys
- and work, you know, specific to even Bloomington. Robert Half of Legal is, they're based out of Chicago
- for this area, so I can't speak to a specific person, but definitely that will be part of the discussion
- with them and with you.
- And it might, it might be helpful to say a couple of things. So, so first thing is that we started talking
- because you're where the city is already working with you for for staffing and and in the, I don't know
- which office and the in the controllers office I assume.
- That's correct. And the way that your staffing works is you have a spectrum of potential hires. Sorry,
- the camera's here and the video's there. But you have a spectrum of potential ways that you can engage
- with the client, starting from temp consultant type roles, which would be pinch hitters on hourly contracts
- to people who can fill in full time while we wait for the position to be filled.
- So that's the sort of range of things that we're discussing. And the point that he made earlier, he
- made it very quickly, but they're the largest such firm in
- in the country, if not the world, so they have access to everyone who does anything other than forklifting,
- they know these professionals. And so the wide range of skills, whether we say we want a part-time sort
- of administrative person to fill in, if we want a full-time lawyer, everything in between that they
- can find for us now.
- And that person would actually come and physically be here is also part of the is part of the way that
- RH works. So if we got if we worked with them to get a temporary lawyer that person would come and work
- here for 40 hours and we can physically be in Bloomington.
- Similarly, if you want to do an administrator, they can do the same thing and everything within that
- spectrum. So I think that's an important thing to mention. The second thing that Andy's talking about
- is a retained search, which is what Kate asked for during our last meeting. This idea of both coming
- in and giving us consulting on how we shape positions and then actually going out and helping us find
- good quality candidates that fit the job description.
- Description in the first place. That's a paid service and we can talk about what that what that looks
- like. But it's a separate thing. So, and the so we're talking about two separate possibilities of ways
- to engage with them. And there's a wide spectrum in the tool. Well said, well said. We're next steps
- or the next step be
- Yeah, and I should say to you, Andy, I said this when we talked the 1st time and I also was saying it
- quite quickly, but the.
- So this is the hiring committee. And so our charge is to then make recommendations to the broader body.
- So if we were to, for example, want to enter into some type of agreement or explore such an agreement,
- what we would do is once we've discussed here, we'll take it to the broader body for a vote on that.
- And assuming that we get majority approval, we would then sort of continue the conversations. But with
- that in the background, assuming that we have the approval of our colleagues to pursue something with
- you, what would it look like?
- Yeah, what it would look like is exactly what we're doing now, but with much more eloquent people that
- I would quarterback and shepherd into this call, where we would start, and I go back to a comment that
- I made, which is, we'll be aggressive as you'll let us be for your benefit. So what I mean by that is
- the teams, plural, that I would,
- include on this would we would jump on a call just like this we do this every day and really kind of
- go through cradle to grave what the process looks like so i'll take retained search they will do you
- know assuming that you you hire them they will do a deep dive on everything from you know what the positions
- are like i think i think you guys already have alluded to it help you write the job description give
- you and really what you're paying for
- of it you're really paying for two things one is hey find us the person and that you know there's a
- um as i say a butt in the seat you know you got that we've got a the right person here but also all
- the things leading up to that so what they would do is walk you through what we call a plan to placement
- so it's everything from okay what is the marketing that's going to go out to search for this permanent
- person what is what are all the requirements of the job and they're also going to give you a lot of
- background so
- part of what you're paying for or talking to people who are in this space every day and can give you
- a lot of metrics to really say, ah, you might want to, you know, might want to tweak this area here.
- Um, here's what we're seeing in local government scene. Here are the things, you know, there's just
- a lot of trends and data that they know, cause that's, that's what they do all day. Um, and then it's
- back to that plan to placement. It typically goes where come into some kind of agreement of, of,
- What does that process look like? Who are the players and decision makers? Who needs to meet this person?
- And then all the details around benefits and what it looks like to bring them in and get them going.
- I even shared that I think one of the secret sauces that we have is that
- on the flip side, if we're matchmakers on the flip side, we're really getting to know those candidates
- and know those candidates' families and even their motivations as to why would you want to move to an
- area? And sometimes that includes kids going to schools. What kind of schools they want to go to? Is
- IU on the list? Maybe a candidate you're going to see has a senior in high school that's thinking about
- XYZ, what just so happens, Bloomington has a great school. So there's really, point being is they will
- really tell you why they're presenting the people. And at the end of the day, it behooves them to get
- it right. And we are in the matchmaking business. So that's kind of part of that process is not only
- knowing exactly what you're looking for, but also helping, like I started out saying that, you know,
- good people have choices.
- Time kills all deals, so we will help you once engaged, keep that ball moving at a pace that gets you
- where you want to be. And Andy, could you talk a little bit about, so if we were to engage with you
- in a retained search, what's the sort of timeline to placement? Question one, how do the finances work?
- And then things three is that if we're
- Let's say that we engage with a retained search, but then we find a candidate locally. Are we still
- on the hook to pay you? And I don't want to speak for them because they're more eloquent and can give
- you the real-time details, but you can throw people in the mix, for sure. And they like that. It's a
- good benchmark, and it also helps you compare and contrast that is part of the process.
- Typically, and I thought this was in front of me. I want to say that they are filling jobs within a
- month and a half. And the way the finances work is pretty simple. It's a retained search and it's an
- exclusive search.
- um the there's a retain they break it into three payments in the first of the so if if the fees let's
- say 33 percent um a third of that's due day one then halfway through the process that's 33 that's 33
- percent of the posted salary right that correct so whatever the yeah whatever the first year salary
- payment, the total all-in salary is, it's a third of that, or 33% of that, a third of that. So read
- 11% is a check written day one to engage us. And then they usually work with folks on the next two payments,
- but it's essentially one in the middle and then one at the end when the person is in the seats. And
- then there's guarantees and all kinds of things that go along with it too.
- I've kind of forgotten what those are, to be honest. Is it? So do I understand correctly that the cost
- of your services, as you described them, is one year salary of this position? It's basically a percentage
- of, they use that, it's a percentage of what the person's paid. So yeah. Yeah, it's a pretty standard
- in retained search that they take a percentage of the fees. And then actually that's,
- pretty much industries. One third of the year salary is the total. Correct. Good. Other questions or
- comments? Well, yeah, I have maybe some questions. So we have immediate needs. I don't know what our
- timeline is with administrative assistance.
- the administration's assistance. You know, they're providing, right? They're a backup, right? So,
- so far, that's what I've heard from Margie Bryce, of course. Yeah, and clerk's office, of course. But,
- so our media needs, our attorney familiar with local government, familiar with, you know, Indiana code,
- some administrative background,
- they could fill the gap for a couple months, probably two, three months at the most. I mean, that seems
- to me the most urgent and what we should be on point for. The rest of it, I'd like to consider it, but
- that to me seems to me to be the most urgent, so. I agree.
- I guess, having been on the hiring committee last time our top position was open, we didn't have very
- many applicants. And I think that part of that probably was the job description. But I think that it's
- very important for any consultant to have experience with
- attorneys who work in the public sector because we cannot compete with private sector attorneys. We
- need to immediately narrow down the field to people who are willing to pay work for less money in the
- public service. With a firm your size, I'm sure you have somewhere experience with that, but I will
- just emphasize that needs to be part of your team. Somebody who is experienced in reaching out to people
- who have law degrees,
- are public service oriented. Yeah, totally understand. Actually, I wish I had her bio. But yes, I mean,
- they're literally named Robert Half-Legal. So that's what they eat, sleep, and breathe all day. So very
- familiar with everything, including not just
- I mean, in fact, I even look here, you know, that group is dealing with litigation discovery, legal
- secretaries, word processing, file clerks, office clerks, receptionists, they get involved
- with administrative assistance work, regulatory affairs, data privacy, every industry pretty much out
- there. So it's, it really is coming at it from a
- your point of making sure that they've uncovered or turned over every rock and at least addressed it
- so they um that that by design is kind of how Robert Half approaches it is to really make sure they're
- looking at starting with the you know the whole population and then narrowing it down and then as far
- as um as your um you know the kind of
- And it is kind of something that evolves. As you bring people in and meet them, new questions will come
- up. We get this all the time, where a job description, it gets enhanced. You're basically getting free
- consulting, if you think about it, when you've got someone who's a subject matter expert coming in to
- interview for a job. During that process, we all learn a lot about, well, actually, we really need someone
- more like this, more like that.
- And it's kind of neat to see how it unfolds. And I do kind of get that there are not a lot of applicants.
- That's something that is part of our process. Not only do we help quote, write job descriptions and
- the like, we're also broadcasting
- you know, those across our inter, you know, throughout the company. So what I mean by that is, generically
- speaking, in our Indianapolis office, we're talking to a hundred people a week. Now, that's not all
- attorneys or whatever, but we're talking to people. You know, if someone's out there and they're interested
- in working, we've probably had an intake call with them. We've probably have profiled them in our system.
- And what I mean by that is,
- granularly got into their skill sets and what they want to do, what they can do, what their experience
- has been. We've even tranched into work from home, work remote somewhere in the middle. So really getting
- very granular. And that's really where AI comes in and helps you very quickly scour a lot of data points
- and really come back and say,
- here's a priority of the kind of people that match this. And I'm now I'm just speaking about general
- jobs, but you know, these, this, you probably want to call these next 10 people because they all have
- all the things that you're looking for. And then it's now, now we're talking about, you know, the human
- side of it now. Okay. These people on, on paper look good. What's the, what's the rest of that process?
- And then that's also obviously part of what we do, which is putting them in front of you all in a way
- that, that keeps the ball
- rolling and then gets locked it down. Can you talk just a little bit more about the actual consulting
- side? How do you work with us? What's the cadence of that? And then maybe just walk us through, if we
- were to go with a retained search, maybe just sort of walk us through from the time that we decide to
- do it to the time that the person's in seat so we can really picture what we're talking about.
- Yeah and I would even say so those are parallel paths but kind of the the working with Robert Half is
- similar in that it's kind of uh we we steal from the healthcare industry I guess it's an intake call
- you know and what we mean by that is is we have um people on the just like yourself you know we have
- everybody there who has a chance to ask questions and hear it uh without the telephone game and kind of
- really agree on what are we trying to do here? What is the job? Whether that's retained or, you know,
- what are we trying to put in the seat? And then from the details of that, sometimes we'll test it and
- what I mean by that is, I think the gentleman before kind of mentioned, you know, the concept of the
- sense of urgency. If we already have, you know, we may have some people we've already thought of that
- may be, you know, good for that.
- throw up their information, their resume on a screen just like this, or at least we do on Microsoft
- Teams. We use a lot of Microsoft Teams. And literally, you know, go through and talk about, here's a
- consultant that's worked 4,000 hours for us, yada, yada, yada, and kind of go through what we know and
- maybe, and what we've found is that kind of sets a baseline and we can kind of start morphing up and
- down what it is exactly. You know, it helps people kind of,
- picture in their mind's eye what it is they're looking for. And then the way the calendar works is we'll
- literally get out the calendar and start going through, okay, my team has looked at this, we think we've
- got this, let's set a next appointment. And that's, you know, it's pretty much a sales technique that
- works well, which is to close to a next step and not a gray next step, but a very black and white next
- step, which is okay, on this date, this is when we're going to do what? And typically that is to,
- Review resumes or even back to that aggressive posture, especially for the temporary piece depending
- on depending on the sense of urgency and if there's a pile building up on the proverbial desk of the
- person who's going to take the job, you know, we will.
- we'll move that as fast as you'll want to. And so what I mean by that is they're gonna come in, do the
- interviews, maybe have a smaller team meets originally and kind of windows down, depends on how many
- people are interested in having a voice and need to have a voice in that process. I totally get that.
- And then it's, let's get this person started. We've done, so I'll stop there and say, so it's basically,
- let's get, let's start honing in on who,
- And then from a timeline perspective, we don't just drop them and leave, which I've seen a lot when
- you do a conversion, go live day, here's a post-it note with a 1-800 number, good luck. What we do then
- is we have what we call quality control calls, both QCs for the client, which we do, as well as EQCs,
- which we're following up and we stay
- tight to our consultants because we, one, we get a lot of information on how it's going. And also we're
- a soft place to land as far as feedback from both sides. And then any course corrections that need to
- happen. A lot of times clients, they're like, I don't know. The reason I'm calling you is because we
- have this issue. Let's see how it goes. So we, in other words, shepherd that whole process. We're listening
- to you even, you know, if you're familiar with CRM Salesforce, you know, we're literally
- logging activities in that job order for that client, for those people.
- Typically, I'd say 90% of our gigs usually extend beyond their original date. So the gentleman who mentioned
- two or three weeks or two or three months, we're talking to you every week, if not every other week,
- kind of getting a report card, seeing how it's going. I'd say 90% of our gigs extend. And what I mean
- by that is, hey, we were originally only going to have this person out here for X.
- We love them. They love us. It's going well. We're getting value. Let's keep this going because it's
- working. And then I think the one thing that we talked about, which we do a lot with this parallel
- conversation is, again, the person in the interim is sitting there and the idea of them is really to,
- like I say, keep the trains on time. In the accounting world, that'd be closing the books, making sure
- we're reporting.
- And then also getting that seat kind of prepared and making sure that if there's institutional knowledge
- that walked out the door, that that's being recorded. Maybe that's desk books, standard operating procedures,
- kind of helping implement best practices. And then probably a little bit of overlap with the retained
- search person. So let's say, you know, there's usually a little bit of overlap to make sure let's, as
- we send this person into this job, let's make sure that they,
- They've handed off everything and moved on. Well, thank you so much, Andy. Did anybody have any final
- questions? All right. Well, thank you so, so much. Do we say something? No, I say thank you. Just generally
- thank you. We'll discuss, and then I'll let you know what we're thinking.
- certainly you'll hear from me one way or the other next Thursday. Next Thursday. All right, sounds good.
- I'm here to help always. We'll answer any questions and I appreciate your time and considering Robert
- Half for whatever it is you need. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay. Okay.
- generally on that, um, which is all over the place, but the thoughts on, on, on the, but I think sort
- of there's two, two tracks here, which is, you know, the question of whether or not we want to think
- about a retained search. And I really share your, your view, Isabel. I mean, like, when I think about
- how we hired last time, I think one of the reasons why I wanted them to talk about a retained search
- is because.
- We didn't get a lot of applicants who are looking for somebody fairly specific. So we need to have a
- broad enough pool to pull from. So I think that's question one is, what do we think about retained search?
- And then question two is whether or not we want to continue down the path of trying to find some temporary
- person in the office in the short term, regardless of what we want to do with the retained search. Is
- retained search a term
- Retained search it retained sir. I had to look it up Okay, and that just means hiring somebody to help
- us find no writing searches that they help us there we retain a company to do the searching with and
- for us and so that's that's that's what the retained searches that they go that they go and search for
- somebody that they help us and
- figure out how to best position this job. I think it was general. Yeah, exactly. That's that's that's
- a retained search. Chicago office, because it felt like there were questions there.
- both asked that he didn't really answer that I do think that someone else from that company would have
- been able to. Somebody from their legal recruitment team or somebody who's worked with local governments,
- what he said was also general. He's the generalist, he's the salesperson, so we certainly could have
- follow-up conversations with those people. Even if we were to make the decision that, hey, we wouldn't
- like to go down this path of pursuing it,
- to me, the next steps would just simply be that we get approval from the broader council, which, I mean,
- we should have just forced that to be in the charge. I wrote that in the charge originally and then
- gave it up to you all for a vote. And you all said that you wanted to remove that from the charge. So
- we have to go back to council to get that charge approved so that we can engage with somebody to get
- a temp hire. But regardless, I think then we would have a conversation. And we're actually seriously
- talking about it, I think, with the actual specialists that
- I think that makes sense. I wouldn't bring a specialist to this call and for us to then say we don't
- want to have the conversation. Do we have $33,000 in our budget to spend? Well, two things. We have
- money in our budget first and foremost already for external consulting. That covers the short term.
- I've talked to the mayor.
- about this also, and she's very happy to submit an additional, what do you call it, appropriation if
- necessary. So, I'm ballpark, the salary is $100,000. I'm not sure exactly what it is. So, we have $33,000
- plus money to pay for a temporary person, because obviously the contract with Robert Capp is not going to pay.
- Yeah, keep in mind that we have three lines that are not going to be getting paid. So you have that
- plus the money in our budget currently for external consultants. And I have obviously never done a retained
- search since I didn't know one of it. Is that a going rate? Do we have any idea whether this is a good
- use of our funds? I mean, if you compare it to
- you know, somebody coming in. I think we need to think about it the right way, which is, this is really
- getting consulting to get a person who will stay here for the long term. And that's really what we're
- doing. And all the other things are just bells and whistles. There are additional things that may be
- nice use of life for us, right? But if you compare that to any other plan we do at the city, any other,
- you know, you bring in a consultant to help us think about,
- you know, how we're gonna brand the city or something like that. It's, you know, I mean, it's comparative
- to that. It's not that much money. I mean, we're talking about, I mean, again, I, you know, my preference
- would be that we didn't spend money at all, but I mean, if in the realm of us getting external consultants,
- I mean, we've had a lot of work disruption, a lot of, you know, process disruptions, et cetera. So,
- I mean, I think that it makes a lot of sense if this means
- you know, if we have high confidence that we can get a good person that will stay for a long term and
- that will get a really, you know, that will also help us think through some of these questions that
- we're struggling with about, you know, what does the job look like, et cetera. The other thing is staff
- turnover is expensive. If we can find somebody who will stay for a long time as our attorney, hopefully
- that will save council money down the line. That's right. Well, and that's only partially thanks to
- a good recruitment process. It's also thanks to
- improving the system that we have in the office. Well, I might differ with the last point, but I think
- that my initial questions are, how long will the administration clerk be able to fill in for us in terms
- of, and what's coming down the pipe for us in the next, say, a couple of months? We have a relatively light
- a legislation schedule right now. OK. Now, I mean, that can change at any time. And I don't think that
- we all should be holding off on doing work that you think is relevant and important. Right. I mean,
- I think we've been holding off for two years. Yeah. And I don't think we should. I mean, it's also like
- I'm like, I mean, I'm at the moment. I mean, if you all have things you want to put on the agenda, we
- should be putting them on the agenda and working through those things.
- It's hard to answer the question right now because you could tomorrow say you want to write some legislation
- on something and we should be putting that on the agenda. The question is, to what extent do we need
- some type of legal input that's outside of what's currently in the city, Juan? I think obviously the
- clerk's office is exceedingly helping in many ways.
- in many ways, making lots of efficiencies where inefficiencies existed previously, which is also really
- good. But I think it also, you know, there are a handful of things that, you know, I mean, are gonna
- be, are gonna get missed, that, you know, we have to decide how important they are to us, or we'll realize
- how important they are when they get missed, right? I mean, like, just because they're things that we
- did out of custom or so soon. So I guess my question really is, if we're going to have a temp person
- filled in,
- How long would we need? A couple of months, three months. Can we obviate that with the assistance that
- we have right now or do we recommend to the council? We have somebody fill in that. We need a legal
- person as soon as possible. I mean, administration could do one thing. Just think about the amount of
- time I'm spending doing administration.
- Like it would be great if we had if we had somebody so so what I liked about what he proposed that though
- he began he didn't say it super clearly but in the conversation that I had with him now pretty prior
- to this they can get somebody like to us you know like.
- but this week type of thing. So they can move very fast in getting us somebody who could be here for
- 40 hours. But we need the full council to decide that, so we can't move until we meet again. But my
- point is that I think what's very attractive about working with a large company like this is that they
- can find, and it's then a question about what help we actually need. So you could imagine getting somebody
- who's just
- you know, like the, who does all the administration stuff. And then, and then us paying for three hours
- of a lawyer a week, as an example, you could imagine us trying to get a full-time lawyer who wants to
- do some administration, you know, it's going to be much more expensive, right? And so, so getting a
- temp hire of a legal person, I mean, it's, you know, we're talking about probably three times what we
- would pay a full-time lawyer in this position, right? So,
- It gets too expensive for them. So that, I think, is the tension point is, do we want to move beyond
- the ways that we currently think about the role? And I think the big pain point right now is more so
- along the lines of just administration, keeping the trains moving than it is on legal advice, per se.
- So we could just hire an administrator and then maybe- And then do a couple hours of a lawyer as an
- example. Yeah.
- That would be what I would suggest. It would be helpful to solve specifically during council meetings,
- just because I know that we have a lot of instances where the nine of us maybe don't know, it would
- be helpful to have somebody who... So that's, I think it really, that was my initial perception as well.
- But then the more I think about it and like, well, for the most part, what we use our lawyer for,
- During a council meeting and don't take this as discouraging. I'm just just trying to observe is mostly
- to ask process questions. Right. It feels to me like the higher impact use of a lawyer. So if you're
- paying a person a thousand dollars an hour, I don't think you have them sit in the background in case
- we have a Roberts rules question. Right. Right.
- I think that if you're paying somebody $1,000 an hour, what we would want is a very high quality memo
- on legislation. I think that you would want some consulting time so that every council member, if you're
- working on something, we could all have, let's say 30 minutes a week, like where you all could have
- a one-on-one with this person and say, here, I'm working on some things. Could you give me your opinion
- on them or next week report back on XYZ?
- I think that that's like, you want like high, high, I'm sorry, high. Yes, exactly. High, high level,
- high quality, you know, work. Right. That'll be my thought. So yeah, I would agree. I guess just. We're
- going to have to get a book from. Yeah, yeah. Or we have one. Yeah, I mean, all the time we have procedure
- questions that work.
- But also, but I think, I think it's also, it's also part, part of this is also us moving beyond our,
- like at the end of the day, if, if, if, if we have a discussion about, wait, we're calling the question
- and this happened last week. Okay. Calling question. What are we working on with? At the end of the
- day, like big scheme of things doesn't really matter. Right? Like, like it's annoying and, and it's,
- it's, you know, it's waste time and stuff. Fine.
- The big scheme of things that does not really matter when we're having a conversation about, is it even
- legal for us to amend a PUD? That's the question that you pay for. We certainly don't need to pay for
- somebody to tell us, wow, right now, this was the motion. We have a parliamentarian, and the parliamentarian
- Can make that judgment and so, even if they make the wrong, we have a process by which that person make
- the judgment and we also could just ask chat. So, I think there's a very simple way of having like,
- those type of procedural conversations. That's not worth a thousand dollars an hour. Right? Oh, yes.
- Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
- But again, like most of our, you know, we're not, our lawyers, our lawyer has rarely had to step in
- to be like, wait a minute, we're not observing the rights of the minority. It's, you know, the lawyer
- stepping in to say, actually, if we put this off, we have to put it off until whenever, because the
- rules that, like that, you got what I'm saying, that's a low leverage point. Now I'm saying it doesn't
- matter. Just a little bit. So to summarize what Andy was saying, the options that,
- you're considering is to have this firm look through their current, I don't know what to call them,
- prospective employees, but we could, you could potentially hire someone to come down with the full council's
- vote, but you all were using the word administrator. So is that allowed? So I personally,
- feel that I'm not entirely convinced that Margie Rice's interpretation of the state statute really disallows
- us from hiring an administrator. And I've heard both. He said it with time. So that's what I'm going
- on. So it seems we can. We've done it in the past. Yeah, because you brought up the question. So I don't
- know if you had a chance to get that specific question answered. I have communicated with Fort Wayne.
- They interpret the statute to mean it's silent on this so we can do it. I talked to Dan Sherman and
- that was his interpretation as well. I don't think we're precluded from doing that. I'm not even sure
- we need an attorney in the room. They could be on Zoom if it costs less for the taxpayer. But somebody
- who is an administrator, we need probably on-site to be able to meet with
- various offices and things like that. My second part of that question was who would train that person
- coming in? The administrator or the? Yeah, the administrator. So if the full council votes next week,
- who would then train the person who would arrive that following Monday? Well, I don't think the council,
- two separate questions here. I think one is that
- we should discuss what it is that we want to propose to the council because I wasn't operating off the
- assumption that we should propose a, let us hire a person with Robert Haft as an example. I think that
- what my suggestion would be that we go to the council and say, we'd like to be able to engage with companies
- like Robert Haft to explore doing a, and so then we can have further conversations about what that design
- looks like. I think that,
- realistically, that person gets trained the same way that the person who would come in and take this
- job would, a little bit by clerk's office, a little bit by different departments around the city, a
- little bit by council members. But I think that we just want to think about that carefully so that we
- do a proper onboarding of the person not sitting in the office wondering what's happening for a little
- while. Well, it'll be unprecedented because there'll be nobody acting in the office.
- It has worked there for more than exactly two months. Exactly. To do that hiring. Would it be worth
- it to develop an onboarding process? I would agree. Okay. I would like to think generally it's something
- we should have. So there's a ton of material. So this works office has developed. We were going to maybe
- give a little perspective if that's all right. So in the past, there's been historical problems. Training
- has been acute onboarding and training has been a huge problem. I think Colleen, when you were first
- hired, um,
- It was just Steven. No, it was Ashley Spell. So you'll think that's two other full-time attorneys. There
- was no time for me to get trained. My training was to read the Amy and Mrs. Byhand book and learn to
- drive. And really the people who trained me the most was the clerk's office, especially with Sophia.
- That's what I went to all the time. Cause even still, Steven, great.
- We really like him, but constantly door closed, constant, constant calls, things to do, important. No
- training at all. So that's part of the issue. Even when you had a full other staff who were attorneys
- who had been there for over a year, I think two years maybe for Ash, there was no time to train me.
- And so that's just a lot of work. And through that process, some of the onboarding and training documents
- came about. So we, we even in the clerks staff have like a quick guide. Here's all the links to.
- you know, council page, like essential, very basic, but very important resource guides, let's call them.
- There is a training document in the council folder as well. I made some when I was leaving. So there
- are themes. So no need to reinvent the wheel in terms of like what needs to be done, but it would in
- terms of like office structure. And I know that, um, all right, Lisa and Christine, she was still being left on.
- some step-by-step, here's how you do this, and here's how you do that. So you just need to tie all that
- together and leave time for that training. And I'll reiterate, not just allowing or giving someone these
- materials to read. Exactly. There has to be some. Exactly. So am I hearing correctly that in terms of
- the question of trying to get a part-time
- sort of part temp, I should say, because it could be full-time, that we like the idea of trying to work
- with a company like Robert Half, it doesn't have to be Robert Half, there's others, but to find a temp
- position. And we're also saying, our positions is what I heard, is that we want sort of part-time legal
- consultant and then somebody to do administration. I think we would need their help for an administration type.
- I thought that, um, maybe you had mentioned a few weeks ago that there's a law firm in Indy that does
- local government. I mean, they, you know, they have staff in the city. So I'm thinking we already know
- that they specialize in that. We could just engage them. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I think that makes
- a lot of sense. And again, I don't, I don't.
- I think there's several, but that was not the one we said, but that might be a good example as well.
- Just to be very clear, the Robert Half thing, they're a large company, they already work in the city,
- so it might be a bit smooth. I don't think that there's any preconceived, we do not need to agree that
- we're going to work with Robert Half when we put the question to council. I think that we should do
- our diligence and actually talking to other places, and I'm happy to continue to do that, but I'm just saying,
- you know, we already have a relationship with them as is why, you know, they were willing to come to
- a meeting already, et cetera. So it seems prudent from my perspective to have two people, I think is
- long Harry, one for administration that has local government legislative experience hopefully. I mean,
- he seemed to think that they're out there or they've got these people, which might help the onboarding
- because I'm already familiar with, you know, they've been working in a council office somewhere
- they should sort of know the ropes a little bit and then have an attorney on retainer or something that
- we could have to get. Or I think even better, as Isabel just said, I think getting a law firm on retainer.
- Yeah. Right. And then so then the question becomes, what are the
- ways that we want to engage attorneys so that when I continue having these discussions, I mean, what
- are the high leverage points that you want attorney input for? If we don't have something that's really
- critical coming from the administration, I mean, critical in the sense that we're controversial,
- I should say, then they could probably write an amendment filled out of the legislation that's coming
- at us, and we could have that reviewed by the attorney.
- This has been for our attorney that it comes from our G scheme. Oh, okay. The legislation to us,
- the staff, they send it to us. We send it to the attorney. They say, can you sign off on this, you know,
- with the legislative body? Is there any questions that we should be looking at here? Or is this all,
- you know, forward with, you know,
- Yeah, give the perspective of our point of view. Yeah. And that would probably save them time, obviously,
- and they can review it and look at the local state statute or local code or whatever and give us their
- opinion on that. I mean, writing legislation. I mean, if I can really think we should stop holding it,
- then I have some that
- I could use a lawyer to help me write. Sure. I would just say I'm going to be judicious about bringing
- anything forward, I think, just in the sense that I'm hoping that we have an attorney on staff in a
- couple months, few months. But I'm not going to, if you feel you need to move on things. I've been telling
- myself to wait for ever since Stephen left. Do you have things that you want to move on?
- I mean, I'm more focused on the process right now, but I think that everyone who wants to write legislation
- should be. Yes, I have things I want to write. I think there's a little bit of a double-edged sword
- here. No, it's not really a double-edged sword. That's a mischaracterization. If we're saying that we're
- willing to wait, then we don't need that person at all.
- if we're just going to take in things that the administration already has planned, as an example. So
- I think that we should build to a functioning body to our fullest extent. And I don't think that it's
- appropriate for the people who elected us, for us to be like, I'm sorry, we're not doing anything because
- our lawyer's not here. I think that we should hire a lawyer and get going with our work. Yeah.
- Yes and no. It's a matter of personal choice.
- I've got things hanging out there I can wait on. But I'm not going to diss anybody wanting to move on
- it. I'm just curious who does. Isabel says she'd like to, you do. Matt has something that's going to
- be. I think Kate does. We have the entire Title II overall. For example. So we've got a number of people.
- Okay. I'm just trying to- But I'll say this. Matt has something that's on the agenda for this coming
- meeting. I think there's the other side of it, which is to what extent are you happy to get feedback
- from city legal on the basic review of things. For me, for example, I have never had council attorneys
- write legislation. When I write the legislation, I give it to them and say,
- Thoughts. Right. And so, so I'm interested in, you know, if, if, but if we're, if it so depends where
- we're at in the value chain. Right. And so, so if you, if, if what we think is actually, we need somebody
- who's going to be. You know, I'll give the idea to, and they can write the legislation type of thing.
- I think that's a different engagement than.
- I bring you sort of a draft and you help me finish it versus I give you something that's roughly final
- and you give me opinion on it or something like that, right? Things that I may have coming up are more
- like, we have to work with city legal and our own attorney to determine how best to put this into law.
- Right, right, right. Well, one other thing about the legal versus administrative,
- Work I want to kind of jump up higher level. There's really this is spring break. There's 1 more regular
- session before April starts. Then there's April made. Yes. And so then you have the recess. So, if you
- think about it in that kind of. Time frame, there's 2 months, 2 and a half months. It are crucial. Quick
- staff, if quick staff receives.
- fully vetted and what I mean by that is you all draft legislation or it comes from the administration,
- your lawyer, because it's a disservice for counsel to not have their own attorney in my opinion,
- my personal, if it's fully vetted by your attorney and given to counsel staff, or I'm sorry, clerk staff,
- we can distribute the packet. We can do that administrative work and we can still schedule many, many
- meetings as we do. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. So that may alleviate somewhat like
- maybe use your need for the legal stuff more than for the administrative stuff in this interim period.
- You need someone like immediately, but there's help that we can offer. Thank you. And then also, I mean,
- to me, I mean, I've said it, I mean, I'm a devolutionist, but like I do think that this, it's really
- one of the silver linings here is that we're getting to see, like test all of these types of things
- here, right?
- So I think that that's, I thank you for saying that. As long as we do not have to make any legal decisions.
- Exactly. I think speaking on Rick Bolden's behalf, that's kind of an emotional part. We should never
- ever offer a legal opinion to TWA, maybe parliamentary rules, yes. But if we get a fully vetted, and
- not just the memo is given to your retained law firm, but all of the materials, they are fully accessible.
- Then we can easily do the distribution of those materials.
- post them, do everything that's needed. And I think that that would alleviate the administrative side.
- And that can be cashed out a lot more. Well, and the accessibility, is that something Aria could do?
- Yeah, and we have an app for that as well. So once things come in, you can run it through the app that
- tells you whether there's any issues with it. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. The tricky part is... Oh,
- thank you. The tricky part is...
- third party materials and the way it's, I'll just leave it at that. Third party materials, thematics,
- that sort of stuff has been tricky for us. So what are our two fellows and Aria doing now and who is
- keeping an eye on them?
- their Friday meetings at 3.30 to hopefully be able to steer them in the correct direction. So, and we've
- also met with, yeah, if I may, yeah, we've also met with them a couple of times individually and then
- in the scheduling meetings. So there's kind of some skeletal structure, but also we've worked with Aria
- in terms of accessibility things. I don't think that really there's any problems internally. With that,
- it's materials received and then
- I believe it is, it's CAPS, Jack Hopkins, and yeah, I'll turn it over to you because that work is divided
- up. Yeah, so right now, so they divided those three. And the third thing is Manning council meetings,
- right? So there's some sessions on council, but we also had another idea about that at the scheduling
- meeting, but we're about to get into heavy Jack Hopkins time. So that's happening now. Which of them is?
- I think it's Michael. I think it's Michael. I haven't written them. I can send you all a note on what
- they all are doing and stuff. Friday is Monday. Okay, great. It'll be you this Friday. I don't think
- so. Okay, I don't think so either. We might join you if that's all right. Yeah, please. That would be
- great if you could. Yeah. We don't need an attorney for Jack. No, I don't think so.
- Not at this point, just someone who's willing to do a lot of labor. Do we know who's staffing the camp's
- meeting on Thursday? If it's happening. It's this Thursday. We don't know. I don't understand. I don't
- have visibility on that. So just before I forget this, so I just want to clear. So an attorney would
- be ideal. And Sophia, thanks for the offer too, for the administrative part.
- So we need an attorney to evaluate legislation that's coming from the administration, advise us, answer
- questions that we might have, be on service for legislative questions during the meetings,
- probably be, certainly be available for any modifications of legislation by any, if people have reasonable
- conditions or they have any amendments, then that person could,
- draft that. And then there's sort of the higher level things, which is drafting legislation, which to
- me would be an added expense. But if people feel it's necessary, because I don't know what they're charging
- in terms of per hour, charging per hour. So am I gathering that correctly? And then we have maybe, I
- don't know, a dozen meetings before our recess.
- Something on that order? Yeah, roughly. And then we've got a breather and hopefully by then, you know,
- we've got an add out, we've got people applying and maybe even evaluating candidates at that point.
- So we're in pretty good shape then. It's busier than we think though because of admissions. So CAHPS,
- Jack Hopkins, PS Lin, I believe is coming up at some point in the council process. All the committee
- meetings, fiscal committee meets,
- bi-weekly, monthly, and certain business hours. So clerk staff can always be there and give us the memo.
- But I think we are in good shape, or you are in good shape, but it's still very urgent in my opinion.
- And if I can continue, I think it's also hugely important to use a recruiting company. Yeah, I do too.
- And my biggest concerns was not having good candidates. Yeah, I agree. OK.
- I'd be willing to put the ad out right away. We've already got drafted. It's my opinion, but. We haven't
- agreed on. Well, in our last meeting, a couple of people proposed just putting the ad out, but that's
- yet to be decided, I think, by the council. Well, I do think that we should review the most recently
- updated job description for that council attorney.
- Yeah, do we have access to that? Just share it with you all. But real quick, before I forget this, when's
- the next council meeting we can make a decision? The 25th. The 25th to make a decision at the council
- meeting to get an administrator. I think that the argument now at the table is rather that we shouldn't use that.
- Just just think about getting a, an attorney and that we should use them for high leverage things because
- the, I think that was the proposal made here. So as long as an attorney, and you can do all the remaining
- administration until until our research regular session. It's not regular special sessions because we
- also have to correct those things. But committee meetings will continue as normal. So my.
- thought is, I believe Michael is still available. But one other thing I was going to mention is that
- it might behoove you all to see if ITS would volunteer. I have asked that and it's inconsistent. So
- I think the, and yes, Ari and Michael have rearranged some things so that one or one, they're going
- to like one be there and then the other take over. So I found Michael is going to start and then Ari
- is going to take over.
- Brown are concerned about whether you know if they have 20 hours and we have a long meeting. I mean,
- that is an awful lot of their time. But something for us to consider. I think I think that so that we
- can move to the job description. I think that the the things that we that will move the things that
- will move to the entire council.
- about on Wednesday is approval for us to engage with, and ideally me so that we don't have to all like
- do this again, like so that I can engage with third party companies on trying to think about, you know,
- some iteration of retain hire plus temp hires. And so we actually have the ability to move forward with
- one of those decisions. And so would that include perhaps the separate
- Legal contract, right? I think so. Yeah, I think we've talked about exactly. I think that we, and so
- we then as a committee can continue to think about what is the iteration of this will bring, you know,
- but, but, but basically number five in the, in the initial charge. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. I was
- the other day playing around with the idea of maybe if.
- ITS added a part-time position for someone who would be able to man the meetings and ensure accessibility
- for documents and that kind of thing. I just want to put that out there. I don't dream about it. Yeah,
- and I think the issue is just a person who was like for it. The issue is that they can staff short time.
- They're happy to do it. It's just they can't all that's not in their current, you know, scheme of work.
- Regular exactly. Exactly. So, you know, if you're, we're, we're having a meeting that goes till 11 or
- something and you know, that's, you just took lots of hours from ITS. I think the idea of getting some
- part time staff, you know,
- Again, something like that all works. I think that we have the tools available to do all of this. It's
- not just a question about what's the right combination of them, but I think we have enough to move forward
- with that. So I'll write a memo as well to be in the packet for this next week so that we can report
- out and have a brief discussion and hopefully get the charge approved. Awesome. Awesome, okay. And granted,
- I'll say all this to say that at the end of the day,
- I could have just said this is our charge because that is actually the authority that I was supposed
- to exercise. I didn't. So hopefully everybody will support it because we should stay true to our processes,
- but we need to just, we need to make some progress here. So, okay, so strike the administrator on the
- 25th, we're gonna ask the council at large to whether we should,
- have a law firm over time. What are the things that says on part five, do you have that open still,
- but yes. So originally written, we want to be authorized to identify and contract and coordination with
- appropriate city processes with external, temporary legal counsel is necessary to ensure uninterrupted
- functioning of the council office and overseeing and supervise the work of council. Okay, that's, we're
- already doing that, but. So this one did specify legal, so maybe we have to add administrative. Add
- legal and administrative, yep. Yep.
- Yeah, someone. Yeah. And then I think, I think the four of us can discuss what the best, you know, what
- the best and what, you know, we can all can bring here five options where we move forward with that.
- Yeah. Okay. Excellent. Does he want to be a co-host to share the job description? I don't have it open,
- but I'm not on the Zoom, but yeah, I can chill and give a second. Perhaps now would be a good time for
- public comment. Yeah, let's, let's, let's have public comment and then, and then we'll,
- We can move from what we comment to looking at the job description. There's a public right there. Would
- you like to comment? I have no comment. Thank you for being here, Ms. Rose. Anybody online? Would anybody
- like to make a comment? All right.
- Okay, so let's move on then. I'll join the Zoom meeting here. I have a hard stop at 6.30. Yes, I think
- we all do. Okay. To blood sugar. Oh, sorry. Sorry, guys. There you go. Yeah, you want that? Okay. Glucose molecule.
- Thank you. I'll just show my screen here. Thank you. Massachusetts.
- Shouldn't mean something different. Massachusetts. Massachusetts. Should we go into business together?
- I have a shoe in my eye. Allow Zoom workspace to share your screen. Yes, please. It is sharing your
- screen. Yes. Sorry. It's okay.
- I'm allowed to allow my computer to share my screen. OK. Do you want to? Yeah, I'm around it. Or put
- it right in the chat, and then I can pull it out from there. Why do we not have administrative privileges?
- It makes it safer so you don't download some virus or something.
- I think you might be the third person. If those are sitting in computers, we might need to help. Yeah,
- that's a bad admin. Did it disappear? No, it's hard to click the screen share. I think it opened up,
- and then you just have to share your screen, then click on it.
- Do you think you may have to sign it? No, there it is. OK, so I tried to reflect all of the comments
- that have been made so far. Main thing, the thing that's maybe a highlighter question mark here is that
- I was trying to highlight the fact that this person serves as the director of the Common Council Office
- and so elevated most of the tasks to be
- Thank you. Elevated emotional task to highlight the supervisory nature, the fact that this person owns
- certain processes, et cetera. Other than that, I mean, so other than this, this is me being editorial,
- but other than that, the vast majority of things I tried to do here. I can read it out loud if you'd
- like. I have an overarching question.
- When we talked about this, when was it? February 25th special session. Did we come to an agreement to
- keep the chief administration and chief attorney duties under the same? I think the agreement that we
- came to was that we are going to hire some type of an attorney
- And that then thereafter we can change the other two things as we see fit, but that the responsibility
- was that the call was get a, oh, you weren't, you weren't, I think you weren't at the meeting for,
- for one, like the once in like eight years that you've missed the meeting, by the way. Yeah. I mean,
- the, the broad sense was, you know,
- All these questions about whether we do a clerk into this that they said they they want to just have
- a habit that an attorney as is. Which meeting was that I'm sorry it was just on Wednesday. Wednesday.
- Oh. Okay. That was the do it. Do you do you remember that when they've been sitting as well. Yeah, I mean.
- All right. I watched the discussion section, the deliberation, but I didn't watch. Yes, we have a special
- meeting. Yeah. Okay, sense. All right. Basically, the position was keep things as are, but we can revisit
- this conversation once we hire an attorney, was essentially where everybody decided, not everybody,
- but the majority of people landed. Was that a close vote?
- Yes, yes, yes, I wish I wish. I didn't really vote, but that was the vibe. You know, I think one take
- on was the attorney once hired could evaluate what administration administrative duties needs to be
- farmed out.
- And what I and so what I've done what I've done here is about to reflect that is try to give a little
- bit broader of a bucket in which these things exist so so there's a little bit more, you know, catching
- all here but also showing that this is a more senior position so okay so
- Maybe cheekily I've named a chief attorney to the common council and director of the common council
- office. In terms of the summary serves as the principal legal advisor to the common council and provides
- executive oversight of council administration operations, ensuring effective governance continuity and
- the smooth functioning of the council office. One of the things that I was trying to capture that came
- up in multiple conversations is the notion that this person should, if we hire well, this person should
- For example, if we work with RH and we do the retained hire, that this person should outlive, you know,
- you know, I mean, I mean, Sydney might might do a Dave Rollo and be on here until she's, you know, for
- 30 years or something.
- But the idea, but the idea though is that you know this person needs to actually be in charge of making
- sure that there's some continuity in the office etc right and so I tried to capture that.
- JavaScript is illustrative only. It's not a comprehensive listing of all job functions. This is just
- necessary boilerplate. It advises common counsel regarding federal, state, and local laws anticipated
- or threatened litigation, potential liability, and risk in various legal circumstances and situations.
- It reviews all legislation before the common counsel to ensure that the counsel remains within its legal
- authority.
- And that the legislation complies with applicable law and then I added, and this is to this is to reflect
- and I think a point that Dave you made multiple times that I really strongly share. Making sure that
- this advice that you're advising the Council to this appropriately reflects Council's direction and
- policy in there. I don't just give us a memo that says this is what it's doing, but tell us what
- what it is that advise us. You say, you guys want to do this? Well, this is how you would do said thing
- or this is how I'm going to contradict what you're trying to do. Assist the council in reviewing the
- proposed city budget for legal procedural. This may be a slightly different paragraph. I can't adjust
- it here. Yes? Go ahead. Appropriately reflects council direction and policy intent. I'm not sure what
- that means.
- I can understand that when it's a council initiated piece of legislation. These two council members
- want to do this. Make sure we do that. But how does it apply to the majority of our legislation that
- comes from the mayor? If we receive a piece of legislation, let's say the PD,
- Right? There's an element of advice, which is these are the possible actions that you can take. The
- part that you also want your lawyer, the reason why they're there, your lawyer, is to tell you if what
- you're trying to achieve is X, then you might want to do Y, right? Like there's actual advice. Yeah,
- but you're saying that the legislation complies with ethical law and appropriately affects, oh, you're
- thinking of amendments to,
- No, I'm just saying that the person uses so that the action here is reviews. And so they're reviewing
- all of the legislation and maybe it sure isn't the right word then. So let's say instead of ensure,
- you know, ensure the council remains within the legal and, and, and that the legislation applies with
- applicable law. And then how would I just add a separate thing? Advises, something like that. Advises.
- council on whether legislation appropriately reflects council direction and policy intent. Which could
- be different policy intent for four council members than for the other five. Correct. And a good memo
- would do that.
- would say, would say, if what you're trying to do is this, this is the action that you should take.
- Okay. Yeah. How about advise as council members? Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you. Yeah. Perfect.
- Thank you. Thank you for highlighting that. So, so before we move on, so essentially you're reviewing
- the city budget, but I mean, the role of this chief attorney is also to create our own, create our budget.
- Right? Yep. So is it there? Um, say if I roll up city development for the city, we oversees necessary,
- uh, good. So we should add site took that out because this one with the, before it said, assist the
- council in reviewing the proposed city budget.
- and farms council member Nelson. Yeah, it's further down. Yeah. Overseas the development submission.
- Yeah, fine. I'm really sorry. So assist the council in reviewing the proposed city budget for legal,
- procedural, and institutional implication, keeps council members informed of significant changes in
- local, state, and federal law and legislative developments affecting the city and the council's work,
- which is a repeat of above, isn't it? Not really. Sorry? Because it's about the budget.
- Overseas and as necessary contributes to the drafting of ordinances, resolutions, contracts, and other
- legal documents for action by the common council, including conducting or directing legal research as
- assigned by the council. Here, I'm highlighting the fact that this is, again, to your points, Dave,
- at the meeting on Wednesday about that this person has people reporting to them that they can direct. Perfect.
- oversees the preparation and distribution of legal documents, legislation, agenda. So this is just changing
- a little bit. Before, this basically said prepares and distributes legal documents. I think to Clerk
- McDowell's point that what we rather want is that this person is making sure that this has gone through
- the proper legal review and then that they're passing it on to the clerk's office. That's what you actually
- want to happen. And so then the clerk is doing the preparation and distribution of the legal documents.
- agendas, et cetera, right? And ensures that council meetings are conducted in accordance with applicable
- state and local laws. So thank ODL, but also in our case, Robert's great rules, including public notice
- requirements. What about federal law, like the accessibility? For example, yeah, sure. Applicable, so
- I should just say applicable. Oops, I can't change it there.
- including public notice requirements, attends, I'll say, and accessibility, just to be clear. Attends
- council meetings, advises, yes? Do you want it to be public notice and accessibility requirements? Because
- they're both relevant. Perfect. Attends council meetings. So you can delete the first requirement.
- Oh, it says they're quite sorry. Thank you. Um, attends council meetings, advises on legal and procedural
- matters as required and supports the effective conduct of, you know, effective as a problematic word,
- but, um, uh, something. The something need that last clause. Now, which one communicates and meets with
- city departments.
- and supports the effective conduct of meetings and coordination with councils. Yeah, I mean, it's saying
- make sure that meetings happen, but I think you're right. We can't just remove it. Attends council meetings
- and advices on legal and procedural matters as required. Yeah.
- communicates and meets with city departments and other stakeholders as needed to resolve issues, facilitate
- legislative work, and support council operations, conducts legal research, and prepares court, I should,
- how about, conducts, well, I think that's fine, conducts legal research and prepares, yeah, exactly,
- conducts and or supervises, how about supervises and when necessary conducts,
- Yeah, we're just going to say when necessary because it's not a normally. I'm other conducts legal research
- and prepares court cases and prepares court cases and represents the council and litigation and various
- legal proceedings. Represents the common council on city committees. That's not quite accurate. City
- committee. Yeah, that's right.
- Um, represents. So we originally, it said represents the council on various city committees. But I think
- it should say represents the council at city city committee commissions, right? Commissions, maybe.
- To say here that they staff the committee meetings. That they, they may go to committee committee boards,
- commissions, those type of meetings on behalf of council. They ever do that? Well, they go.
- when we go, they go, well, you wrote before, what was the other thing before, it was represents the
- council on various city and serves on city collective bargaining team. Yeah, I don't think that was
- right to begin with. They don't represent the common council on city committees or missions. I've never
- seen a time where a council member has not, or where a council attorney has gone in the side of council
- members. Yeah. Even in collective bargaining.
- Yeah. Okay. So do we have? They've never gotten really. Okay. But the person could. Yeah. The person
- could do this, no? I don't understand. I mean, we could say we'd like to send Lisa to the, for example,
- the- A lot of things, but I wouldn't put it in the job description as a call it out. I mean, there's
- always other duties as a sign, but I wouldn't call it out. It sounds like, you know,
- Here's another thing of the 29 things that I have to do for this job. And it really, I just don't see
- any point in putting it in because I think it's sorry. Another way to look at this though is that it
- highlights the fact that this is a public facing job. And, and, and so again, if part of the goal is
- to elevate the position and make it
- pay as we think it should and all of those type of things, that by saying that on occasion, this person
- can represent the council when the council so desires. We say, not to vote or something, we want you
- to go and watch the negotiations with the firing police office and report back to us. Well, I believe
- the collective bargaining in there, but it's just the other city committees. Do we have in a separate
- paragraph that the staff meetings
- Council committees. That might be better than represents staff. How about staffs? Staffs to call my
- council? How about insurers that insures adequate staffing at meetings at council
- Council committee meetings. The committee meetings serves on the city collective bargaining team directed
- by the council. That is that, okay. Represents the council at public meetings as requested and responds
- or ensures appropriate response to citizens and media inquiry concerning council business. Can we change
- citizen to resident?
- Yeah, thanks. Good point. Again, the goal of this paragraph was trying to capture the fact that there's
- a public-facing element in this, that this isn't a private job. Overseas processes for receiving, referring,
- tracking, and following up on constituent concerns.
- To help ensure that matters raised with the counselor directed appropriately and address in a timely
- manner. That's more than what the staff has ever done. Yes.
- which I think is super important because we said before, it refers constituent complaints to the appropriate
- department. If their job is, I forwarded your e-mail, I think we actually want them to think about processes
- by which we receive and engage with the public generally. I think it follows naturally from there's
- some public facing element and we want to make sure that you're aware that all of us have a public facing
- element and you are part of our face. If you're embarrassing, we're embarrassed. Vice versa.
- Like, I guess, like, a minute. Do you, is there a chance this committee is going to meet again before
- the 25th? To finish looking at this, if so, I would recommend doing scheduling next. Oh, yes. Same time
- state of the city. No, it's not.
- Next Tuesday. Oh, I'm sorry. I was on the wrong week. There is the council committee. So until five
- 30 council process, maybe I could do five 30 to six 30, but I have to be going five, six, but the next
- Tuesday, next Tuesday, 24th, between what? Wait, so you could only five hours. No, I said I could five
- 30, six 30. Yes. Does that work? I'm good. And you all have access to this. So, so take a, take a look
- through it. Um, and then, um,
- Yeah. And just ideally not all at the same time, but if you have, um, if you, if you can comment, if
- you have any other terms. My comments so far is this is good. Okay. And even if you just go down and
- say, you know, thank you for doing it. And then, and then we can, we can make sure that we're all happy
- with it at our next meeting and then we'll put it in the, in the agenda for staff is available then.
- Oh, sorry. That was the most important question. Sorry. I took that for granted. Cause you, you asked
- the question.
- March 23rd. Thank you. Importantly, are you available because you are a member of this committee.
- You are. Honorary. Okay. Awesome. You're honorary too. Okay. I'm sorry that we didn't get additional
- time for public comment here, but we will be meeting to finalize this conversation on Tuesday. Any other
- things to close out? Just to ask and then it's going to be presented to the council on March 25th.
- Yes, that's correct. And then again, hopefully, you know, if they if they watch this later, thanking
- Robert Taft, Robert R.H. for for the presentation. I think I think it I think it does give us some clarity
- on like some directions we can go on. So yeah, I think I think that was helpful. I suppose Monday at
- five is out of the question, just to give our colleagues time to. You all can meet you all can meet
- with me. I can't do that without you. All right.
- Thank you, this meeting is a nurse.