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.