- I would call into order this March 24th meeting of the Common Council Hiring Committee should be a fairly
- straightforward meeting. We're just finalizing some work that we didn't get to in the agenda on our
- last meeting, namely, finalizing our description for our terms. So with that,
- Let me get on the Zoom as well so I can share screen like we did last time. Is there an agenda for this
- meeting? No. Okay. I think the only item is that one. How do I get the Zoom link? It's on the calendar
- invite and I can drop it into the chat if I see this. Operating the two systems here.
- Actually, you're not there. I've got it. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm always hungry, so. Recording.
- I mean, no. Is there an echo? Nice. Need me to go away? Magic. Oh. I can't share my screen. Right. We
- went through this last week. We did. I just totally forgot. I'm not even... Rita, do it. If you can,
- that would be awesome. If you're able to. Why can't you share your screen? Because... At admin rates.
- Yeah. We have to get our computers updated.
- The other thing we should do too is if you want to drive, you could, you know, just keep the remote,
- the mouse. I can make the adjustments out here. So you want me to...
- You're able to share your spoon, if you're able to. Sharing is not turned on. Yeah, same thing. Oh,
- sorry. I think you've been able to share before. I think so. So that should take care of it. We'll see.
- Is Council Member Willow coming today?
- I just texted him. All right. Okay. I think we all had a chance to go through, but I think just for
- it to be thorough, it might be useful just pick up where we stopped and just make sure we talk through
- all the comments and then accept them. Then accept them.
- Question, though, for the packet, it would probably be useful to keep it redlined, or should we just
- have a clean version to go out? Hey, Dave, sorry. What do you think? What do we think? Would it be useful
- to have? OK, so I'll make a clean copy that we'll put in the packet tomorrow so I won't accept any of
- the things. OK, so the goal of the description was to really elevate the position, highlighting the
- overseeing functions,
- Et cetera. And that's what we talked about one last time. And we were on point. Uh, right there where
- it says, um, insures out of the staffing, I think is where we left off, right? Yes. Under four difficulty
- of work. We're all the way down there. No, I think we were here. Yeah, I think we're there. So. Any so I.
- Art in green is what I added. Overseas posting agendas and information packets for such units. I was
- thinking we should use the same insurers there. That's fine. I.e., make sure that this happens and if
- there's nobody, if our devolution has failed entirely, then the person does it. Yeah, I like insurers.
- Yes, I was leaving that to you. There's the city's collective bargaining team when directed by council
- and we took out the other stuff about, and then this, yeah, yeah, I remember. So we were here because
- we were talking about this question about whether council staff represents the council at public meetings.
- Yeah, I was wondering, I was trying to remember a situation in which our staff represented us
- at a public meeting. Like where we were not there, but they went. Right. Yeah. Do they not represent
- us when we are there, though? I think the word represent here is different. OK. I don't recall, but
- I'm a bit sick to private.
- No, I can't recall any time when somebody showed up to speak on behalf of the council as one of your
- staff members. Unless maybe for something like, and this is a stretch, but thinking about Residence
- Academy or Leadership Bloomington or some of those larger outreach events where it's possible a staff
- member went on behalf of council because council member or council leadership couldn't show up at the
- last minute.
- So there is some possibility potential for it. Don't they go to CAPS meetings? And Council does not
- necessarily go to CAPS meetings? Yeah, they're staffing those meetings. They're not representing Council
- meetings. Do we not want them to tell us, hey, this is what happened at CAPS meetings, like the way
- that if I went to a CAPS meeting, if I was the liaison, I would tell everyone, hey, this is what's going
- on? We haven't asked them to do that. Good.
- Yeah, but when they're operating in that space, they're not speaking for the council. Right, exactly,
- that's true. I've staffed a CAHPS meeting before and I was not speaking for the council. Right. Well,
- and now there's a council member liaison. Yep, so no longer, yep. It might be worth taking out the first
- chunk of that sentence and just putting, ensures appropriate response to resident and media inquiries
- concerning council business, because I think that that would be
- That would be inclusive of circumstances where they would need to represent us at instances like Residence
- Academy or speaking to groups. Yep. I think that's great. What was the comment? Thank you.
- So thank you, Sam. Meaningful. Yep. Perfect.
- Okay then, overseas processes for receiving, referring, tracking, and following up on constituent concerns
- to help ensure that matters raised with the council are directed appropriately and addressed in a timely
- manner. So my note here is that they've never done that.
- As far as I know, there's no process, but receiving, referring, tracking the phone. And this was it.
- So this was a purposeful addition that I made because what we currently have is a, is the sense of there's
- this counseling mill and it's just.
- collects all things and they look through it and if it's relevant, they just send it to us, right?
- There's no, there's not an active process through which they're trying to make sure that information
- is received and given to us. And I actually think that's something I'd love somebody to be thinking
- actively about, like how do we get better information and just, you know. I think also sometimes when
- we receive like a whole slate of PDFs from the council of the mail. Oh my gosh, yes. Or things that
- like summarize, it's a little bit unclear as like,
- Okay, well, there were 3 different resident concerns. Yes, kind of hard to tell exactly who is going
- to take care of that. Then they're going to use this. I'm sure you guys have talked about this before
- and my apologies for missing your 1st, 2 meetings, but. This is something that was done in the past
- and there was a tracking system, but over the last. 4 years, you've gone through at least 4 research
- assistance.
- three or four deputy attorneys and three or four attorneys. A lot of the things that you guys had established
- in the past have fallen off just through lots of institutional knowledge. One by one by one by one,
- we've actually lost some of the systems that were in place and the people coming in didn't know to train
- somebody on the things that followed. That's good to know. Really? I don't know about you, Dave, but
- I never knew there was a process.
- It would be welcome. Yeah, again, the only reason that I know that is because for years I was working
- next to council staff members and actually listening and watching. And hearing and sometimes being shown
- the systems that they had in place. Again, some of those things were not things that would probably
- rise to the level of your knowledge and or experience of them because on the receiving end of it, you're
- not going to see it. And if you're not in the office.
- 40 hours a week or more, you're just not gonna be aware of those things. So I'm not saying it like,
- how can you not know it? It's much more in the space of, I don't know that you would have known it unless
- somebody was sitting here walking through it every day. And so far as this job description is really
- helpful, and it's helpful that we have to do this in this type of format, because it's giving us an
- opportunity sort of line by line to think about counsel, staff,
- organization. And I think that, you know, saying very clearly, like exactly what you just described
- to me as an ad hoc process, where they're sort of deciding on their own, maybe council needs to know
- people are calling about this generally or something like that versus where we would say look like,
- like, we as a council might have some outcome in mind that we want in relation to how the general public
- gets information and talks to council and, and
- That if that sort of is no one's job, I think it's really helpful to say, actually, that's something
- we want us to have to do, which is, you know, which is think very carefully about how council receives
- and gives information. Um, I think sorry, something to add to that is that you have to also consider
- how constituents want to interact with you. Yes. Never wanted me to tell them the answer people to be
- represent basically represent, you know.
- They have they want to talk this is level they want to talk to you guys and there's some things where
- you can triage and be like, oh, for this, you should actually talk to this office. They can help. Yeah,
- for a lot of the things they want that direct interaction. Yes. Yes. And I mean, this really became
- all the more clear yesterday. We got an email and the email starts with like.
- You know, only some, some, some, some respond to my emails. And I'm like, I've never received an email
- from this person ever. And I know who this person is, but I'm like, I've never received an email in
- this, in this email cap from this person. Yeah. Unless they've been forwarding some packets. I'm sure,
- I'm sure they are. But my, but my point is, and this is, this is, you know, yes, both to compliment
- those who, who have seen those emails and responded, but to show that the process is such that I'm like, I've.
- I never saw an email, right? And then that's a, I think a concern that all of us share. And I think
- residents share as well, you know? So. There's also a public relations piece where I think that the
- majority of our residents assume that anything sent to council at bloomington.in.gov is going to go
- to all nine of us. And that's not the case. And like, that's okay. Yeah, but that's something we should
- be talking about. Yes, exactly, exactly. So that's why I added that. Okay, that's fine. I just had.
- wanted to talk through it, so I appreciate that. Overseas, this is just a change of sort of elevating,
- I think, along the same line. So instead of just supervises the development submission and execution
- of the department budget, said oversees the development submission, administration and monitoring of
- the council's department budget in coordination with appropriate staff and consistent with council priorities.
- The bit that I don't know if it's super clear is that this person not only, because we're trying to
- position this person as, you know, head of council department or whatever, right? And I mean, the idea
- is that it's not just they're a passive person who takes a budget and goes, then submits it and we ask
- them questions and things like that. But actually they also have a job of
- administering that budget once we have it. I mean, that's, I think, been what's left off of this, that
- they actually then run said budget, whatever size it is. Yeah. And this actually was relevant this year
- because Lisa and I were having all these conversations about, hey, we have this money for external counsel.
- Can we use this for, what do you call it?
- accessibility consultants as an example, right? And it's like, yeah, it falls within the category. Like,
- it sort of felt like the type of thing that she should have just been able to say, like, it's already
- in our budget, this falls within the category, and this is how I'm going to do this because it's a necessity
- of the things that need to be done. It's like, it didn't feel like a conversation that she needed to
- be having with me
- And then vis-a-vis the whole count, like it wasn't like, this was like daily operations, like the same
- thing. They shouldn't be asking us, can we buy pens and can we get furniture? Like, you know, right?
- Like there are certain things that just like run the office. Yeah. And we really should empower them
- to do so. I agree.
- And then the following goes, directs the annual review of department activities, services, operational
- effectiveness, and oversees the preparation and submission of related reports, both anticipating the
- fact that both thinking of staff oversight. So I think that was what originally was there, performance
- and reviews, departmental activities and services, but then elevating a little bit to the idea that
- we're moving toward outcomes, et cetera. So they actually should be mindful of however
- But it's like, you know, if we spend money, we want to be tracking things. And so we'll be creating
- processes. One hopes that in some future date, it's actually be reporting on outcomes of where money's spent.
- And then the last one sort of just summarizes all the things above, which is to say, the person serves
- as the director of the council office, providing strategic leadership, vision, and continuity of operations
- across council terms, and supervises and directs the deputy administrator attorney, assistant administrator,
- interns, and other, and what I wanted to say was, what I was trying to say here is, this person directs
- the council office,
- I was trying to capture the fact that I think became attention in the sense reflecting on what you said
- multiple times David were like, you know, we had a time where Dan Sherman was in the office and he
- you know, was in the office and then you get a whole new set of council and he's still in the office
- and you get a whole new set of council and he's still in office. And there's, you know, you want this
- person to be thinking about continuity of council office, not thinking about just reactiveness to the
- nine people who are currently in council, right? And so that there's a little bit of institutional
- development, right? That it's like, it's still entrusted to the elected people, but at the end of the
- day, you want this person to be thinking about what does council office look like in four years?
- Um, you know, not just what are these nine people want right now? Um, type of questions. That's also
- helpful because apart from like the administrative onboarding that we received as new council members,
- like there wasn't a lot of like, Hey, this is how you do this type of type of teaching. And so it would
- be helpful to have, um, our office staff like,
- This is how you become a successful counsel number well not also I mean that also goes to this question
- why why we try to emphasize all the compartmental you know partnership parts, because you know. It put
- in myself in the shoes of this person and then there's a new Council right that person is also saying hey.
- Will you come in and give a one hour presentation to council members about, you know, for example, Robert's
- Rules, because you are a certified, you know, nationally recognized Robert's Rules person, right? Like,
- and you know what I'm saying? Like, like, that's the type of thing that somebody who's thinking about,
- you know, like the would be, would be doing, right?
- we may individually go and say, hey, Clerk Bolden, you know, hey Colleen, can you tell me about,
- you know, and actually I think the learning curve for a new council member became really heavy, right?
- So anyways, but I wanted, the thing that I don't think I've captured here is I didn't want,
- I wanted to say, like, I didn't want to name, I named the specific rules, but I wanted to basically
- just say, whoever works in council's office reports to this person in short.
- So I don't know, but I don't know if this, does this capture this well enough, right? I think so. Well,
- and especially if we take this job description as a whole and we see it go down, that they can have
- a role in reconfiguring. Yes. Yes. Yes. Great point. Yeah. Now the only, the tension here, and this
- just as we're being a bit meta here, the tension becomes to me,
- I don't know if we've outlined clear enough within this and maybe the job isn't as necessary. We talked
- earlier about sort of reports to council and navigates the nine different peoples, making sure that
- this sort of sets with different priorities. And we I think got at that nuance fairly well above, but
- I'm just curious if we need a clearer line, like a clearer reporting line within the job description
- or if that's something that can be dealt with at another time.
- in another document or through another tool. You mean a reporting line who this position reports to,
- or? Correct. Right, like, because we're walking this tension, I think, fairly well, but I just wonder
- if we want to be more explicit. You know, but again, we could think about this in another document.
- Like, right, we could come up with just a statement as a council that sort of says how we want it to
- be done, but I don't know if, no.
- to what extent you all think within a job description you want to be a bit clearer about. I mean, if
- I were applying for a job, I would want to know who I report to. Right. And it would make me feel better
- if I reported to one person rather than mine. Exactly. Exactly. But that's a pretty big decision to
- make. I guess we can put it in. Would you kind of not like to have a different boss every year as well, right?
- It's hard enough to have a different department chair. But what this really sounds to me a lot also
- is if you look at all the positions that report to boards of directors, take a look at nonprofits and
- see what their reaction is like. That's a great point. That's a great point. Thank you. That's a great point.
- Okay, I think this is the perfect point and one that we actually could answer while sitting here. Let's
- finish and then spend whatever time we have to do that. You're a brilliant human, thank you. Okay, so
- moving on then to job requirements. The only thing added there, took away the word special. Why?
- Yeah, because it's just like, well, it doesn't matter if they're, like, why does it have to be special
- circumstances? You understand how cities work, right? And then added a broader sense of, you know, not
- just like a working knowledge of budget preparation, but working knowledge of public budget development
- administration and oversight sufficient to supervise the council department budget and advise
- on related institutional issues. Now, we could make this a stronger requirement, which is the person
- needs to have had experience with budgets. Is that going to limit our candidate search? Yes. Is that
- a way that we would like to limit our candidate search? What way to work in budgets?
- Well, so whether it's a working knowledge, i.e. I get how budgets work versus. I don't think it's a
- huge ask. It's not like they're running a 40-numbered department, which is great. Right. I don't think
- it's fine the way it is. Working knowledge. Is that what you were getting at, Dave? Yeah. I mean, that's
- also something that we can ask in interviews. Sure. Yeah.
- I think that might be a better place to address it. This is the optimal, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean,
- that's why they don't, but they can pick it up because they're smart. Yeah. Yeah. It could also add
- like experience with budget preferred, but not necessary. Cool. Skeptical. Sorry. I just sat through
- a meeting at the comptroller's office today when you're like, oh, it's small. So they're going,
- oh my God. The comptroller, that's all different. Yeah, that's different.
- But it is true though, in the sense that there are certain things that already exist in the city. It's
- not like, it becomes a heavier lift if you haven't done budgets, but the process is already set and
- outside, you know, like the person ideally is participating in an active way here, but in the worst
- case scenario, the person fills out the form that is given to them, you know, right? So I think you're
- correct. Excuse me, I've been sniffing a little all day.
- Um, okay. So, um, yeah, exactly. There's public meeting. Are you? I assume you know, the contractors
- balloon. Yeah. Thank you for clarifying for the record. May the record show that council member is indeed
- not a cat.
- What? A Zoom joke. Don't you guys remember? Your honor, I'm not a cat.
- Okay, let's move on. Okay, under number three, consult regularly with the common council regarding major
- legal policy governance and administrative matters, reports directly to the council. Okay, so we actually,
- I actually did anticipate this reports directly to the council and work is reviewed primarily for alignment
- with council objectives, legal sufficiency and overall effectiveness that echoes what we have above
- on council priorities. Yes. The word effectiveness, any concerns there?
- I like it. Works with substantial independence and exercises a high degree of professional judgment
- in carrying out the responsibilities of the position, provides executive oversight of the council office
- within general policy direction and supervisory boundaries established by the common council. Well said.
- Thank you.
- No, they don't spell incorrectly. What's spelled incorrectly? What is? Judgment. I think there's supposed
- to be an E. It can and cannot. What is this? British? I know. Is this British? No, they're both. They
- have free variation with some words. I do spell gray with an E, if anyone's watching me. It's good to
- know. They're both accepted. I've been wondering that for years. Right? I think they're both accepted.
- Which is preferred?
- Okay, thank you. People started adding it after a popular low-cost gym started adding it and making
- me crazy. Is that right? How interesting. There's a low-cost gym. Okay. Stay on task, everyone. Do you
- say judgment more than once here? Is it consistent with
- It's a little smart. Oh, true. The other thing on that note, I was going to request if you could say
- common council. Yes. And not jump between city council and council. It consists of, yeah, where did
- I, let's see. I would just do a finding a place at the end. I didn't say city council ever. Oh, good.
- I'm going to start rocking. Okay. Okay. You do say common council versus council.
- Shoot, okay. Well, council is this short. I think I said, no, actually, I think, I think I've said council
- office. I don't think I've ever said common council office. Listen, council office. See if I. Give me
- a moment for me to interject something. Please. That's why you're here. My initial plan was just to
- listen. Two foot rule. I'm not good at this.
- Are you planning on regrading the position before you post it? That's the hope. If you are, you might
- want to consider some of the phrasing that you're using in terms of
- received exercise and everything else, because part of that goes into the rubric that the HR department
- uses. And so there are some things where you say independent judgment actually will grade higher as
- opposed to considerable or professional judgment. If they're writing policy themselves, that will actually
- impact versus if they just are on the receiving end of it and execute it. And I just, I want to throw
- that out there. That's what, this is actually the intent that I was trying to get at here is to elevate
- it. And so that's why, so, but I don't know if I,
- And the other part about that is, well, oh, no, because your employees don't serve at your pleasure,
- right? They're hired, so they're not appointees. Nevermind. So are we, if I go back to the beginning
- here, it says job creating 12s. Is that currently an 11? No, it's currently a 12. Oh. I just highlighted
- it to be like, who knows what it will be once we reevaluate.
- So do we have consulted with HR about the process of? Well, yeah, the process, yes. So once we agree
- on the job description, we'll then start the process of getting it evaluated before posted. OK. Yes.
- I clearly actually anticipated my own concern now. I brought this up earlier. It shows up right here
- very clearly.
- So in coordination with the council president and consistent with applicable city policies that human
- resources procedures, exercises, supervisory authority over council staff, including participation in
- recruitment, interviewing, selection, work assignment, performance, management, professional development,
- discipline, where appropriate recommendations concerning termination, may recommend revisions to subordinate
- job descriptions and organizational structure to improve
- council office effectively. So instead of terminate employment, which is what is in the crossed out
- text, you have recommend recommendations concerning termination. But won't this position have the power
- to terminate employees? I mean, I think should, right? Yeah. So we should adjust that.
- Okay, so I will say, in both cases, I'll take away the recommend, yes. And more appropriate decisions
- concerning termination may recommend revisions, so actually may make revisions to subordinate
- job descriptions and organizational structure to improve council items. Are you okay? You can't all go.
- You can't all leave. To improve cancel out the effectiveness. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder like in coordination
- is maybe the wrong verb there though. Right.
- Is there a better word? Well, because the coordination suggests that the council president is also doing
- these things. Right. So, so consultation. Yes, right. Consultation better better. Yeah, now I'm wondering about.
- So including participating in recruitment, interviewing selection, work assignment, performance management,
- professional development, discipline, and where appropriate decisions. So you have somebody participating
- in decisions. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not right. You should have a make-up decisions. OK, so including.
- Maybe just delete participating in, including recruitment, interviewing selection. Yeah, that sounds
- good. Perfect.
- And recruit okay so let's read again in consultation with the council president and consistent with
- applicable city policies and human resources procedures exercises supervisory authority over council
- staff, including recruitment interviewing selection work assignment performance.
- performance management, professional development, discipline, and where appropriate decisions concerning
- termination may make revisions to subordinate job descriptions and organizational structures to improve
- council office effectiveness. Yep. Okay. So structures, I would put the S in there. Thanks. Okay. Difficulty of work.
- The work is highly complex and requires the application of advanced legal knowledge policy judgment
- and administrative leadership to address novel sensitive and high impact issues facing the common council
- and actually the city you know.
- Because it's not just facing the common council, but it's like, because if we're doing an ordinance
- to change the UDO, like that's not, the sensitivity is not, it faces the council. It's the sensitivity
- is like, this is a thing that matters to the city, right? So should I say common council and the city
- of Bloomington? Yes. Or the residents of Bloomington, right?
- Maybe the city and residents of Bloomington. And its residents? Yeah. The incumbent must interpret and
- apply a broad range of laws, regulations and procedures while simultaneously managing competing priorities.
- And then we didn't like political considerations earlier. So should we take it out here? Yes. Because
- you don't want this person making political considerations, right? Yes. What I said in my comment was,
- They could warn. Perhaps we could rephrase to say a folding the council's role as legislative body and
- final fiscal authority. Okay. Um, I'll put that at the end. Um, So that's the only political thing is
- just asserting that we, you know, have our own powers. There was a, I think when I originally bought
- this up though,
- My thinking was that, and this was also building off the way I think are kind of we've all made around
- how, I mean, at least in my tenure, the type of memos that we get for example.
- And for context, I teach memo writing, and I always tell people when they write memos that you need
- to tell the person the implications through multiple lenses of the decisions that they're making. And
- if you're giving somebody advice, you might say, yeah, this is the decision. If you want to do this,
- then you should do this. If you want to do this, then you should do this, is the way you write. We often
- just get summaries, which is, this is what's going on.
- And the space in which you can act, you can approve or disprove. This is roughly what the memos that
- we get. Very rarely do we get things that are like, you know, like what we got recent, what we got right
- before our staff left about PUDs where it's like, you can do this, but you can't do this and you can't
- write. And we don't often get advice. Um, and I would love advice. And so that's what I was trying to
- also to capture here a little bit.
- That's not what I would understand reading the phrase polynomial considerations. Exactly. But I do wonder
- whether, I mean, maybe we've already captured that by talking about the sensitive issues, how they matter
- to the city of Bloomington as residents. I think public consequences actually might cover that. Oh,
- good. Yeah. Okay. So you think,
- Let me, sorry, I was in that. So replace, upholding the council's role as legislative body and final
- authority. So I'll add that at the end here. And then, does this need a that? And then you said, you
- said what? Oh, just in the next sentence, it says the role regularly involves time of sensitive and
- public consequences, which I think
- Um, it's actually more what we're talking about than like political considerations. Yeah. Agreed.
- Very good. Are we happy with this? Yes, sir. Right. Let's go around with this.
- balanced well reason and objective legal and strategic advice. And so I capture that there again, the
- strategic part to council members, particularly where legal risk policy disagreement or competing
- institutional interests are present. And then I added the part about provides legal opinions during
- public council meetings. I know that that's something that's very stressful. Yes.
- People should know that it will be expected. Yeah, I agree. Thank you for adding that. And then I wonder
- here, like, you know, so we said maybe called on to work in the evenings under weekends. They do like
- it's not maybe called on the person. Well, the evenings is will happen. The weekends may happen.
- You know, I think there should be an expectation that, you know, hours are irregular, right? Yes.
- There we go. Incompan should expect irregular hours. Including evenings and weekends, yeah.
- This will include evenings. Incumbent should expect irregular hours. No, but irregular hours. Evenings
- and occasional weekends? Give me the full sentence out. Oh, sorry. Incumbent should expect irregular
- hours given the council's scheduled period. This will include evenings and on occasion for blank weekends.
- If we're setting up the office in a way that's functional, they should not have to work most weekends.
- I think the expectation is... That's a big if. Right. I would not say rare. I'm talking about occasions,
- and on occasion. Occasion. Yes. That's a fantastic thing. And then it says scheduled evening meetings.
- Well, we probably don't need that last...
- Yeah, right. Yeah, that's right. Is it worth saying council generally meets on Wednesday nights? Well,
- we also meet on Tuesday nights for Jack Hopkins, right? But like, regularly, like the full body is that
- like, you should not expect to have Wednesday nights available. It's like, basically what we're saying.
- I love typing. Now it breaks the cycle. No, that's hard. Could we put it after the unforeseen complications?
- Thank you.
- Maintains frequent contact, but okay. Any last thoughts? Last, maybe going back to the top, we didn't
- really decide on title. I floated this Chief Attorney to the Common Council and Director of Common Council
- Office title, but it works. It is very mouth, it's a mouthful.
- Chief, chief attorney and director. Yeah. Maybe you take away that. So it could be chief, could be chief
- attorney and director of the common council office. Yeah. Yes. Okay. May I ask a question? Please. What
- is the value of adding word chief? Um, it sounds more important. Yeah, I think.
- And it implies there's another attorney. When I hear the word chief, it implies to me that there's somebody
- who's directing the chief in some way, shape, or form. There's a mayor, or there's somebody above them
- in some way. Oh, that's interesting. I hear it as a diminishment. Really? Yeah. It is a change of title.
- I thought it was just going to be.
- I don't know. Maybe we should ask the chief deputy. I was going to say in most of the conferences that
- we've been to, it's always a council attorney. There's not the word chief. There's something implied.
- rising to that level that you're kind of referencing. That's interesting. I think it's a more common
- knowledge type of phrasing. Yeah, okay. That makes sense. I don't mind the word. It doesn't mean we
- don't. But the reason you're the chief deputy is because there are other deputies. Exactly. You're the
- big dog. You're the big dog. See, that's how we interpret it.
- I mean, we could just say council attorney and director of the common council office. I mean, I'm happy
- with that. What is Margie Rice's position? Corporation council. Yes. I mean, it could just be council
- attorney and director of the common council office. It's kind of reads like it's the chief attorney
- of the common council office. Right. Yes, I think that's fair. So council attorney and director of the
- common council office.
- But yes, let's make it legal state of counsel, lead legislative counsel. Now, thank you for the contribution.
- By the way, that's how we should do public. Okay. Is there anybody want to.
- Any of you AIs want to apply what I've been thinking? No. That's what AI sounds like in your head. Any
- other thoughts on this? Okay. So last question I'm here is,
- Um, because I think we can take on the question of for your governance, like, as, as, as we get the
- person in, because I think we dealt a little bit with it within the document. But I do think that we
- should advise ourselves by how boards. Right? I mean, I think that we have a perfect natural model to
- look at. Um, the, the last question is that I'm going to.
- Be drafting a memo to the council to go out tomorrow in an agenda. Is there anything so from what from
- our discussions with what I'm saying in the memo is that here is.
- Here is the job description that we would like your approval on that we have to vote for according to
- our charge and that the second one was a brief update on the conversation that we had with the Robert
- Haft people as a model of the type of engagement we can do and that we are also asking for a vote on
- item five in our charge, namely our ability to start talking directly with
- or people who could, I'll think of this in a more eloquent way, but people who can in the interim service
- as counsel, attorney, et cetera. Okay, so both asking approval to engage somebody, a firm like Robert
- Half. Correct. And to post the job and to engage either through Robert Half or directly an attorney.
- a temporary attorney. Yes. Because that could be a separate thing from Roe's. That's a good point. Should
- I separate those questions or should I just say that we want to have the authority as was originally
- envisioned in the charge. We would like to have the authority to engage with external entities, both
- to assist in the hiring process,
- process as we deem relevant and to find interim help. Something along those lines? Yeah, one thing,
- too. Please. It might be good to proactively answer some potential questions that might be asked. OK.
- Who is going to determine the firm? How is that going to decide those sorts of things? You can preempt
- some of the questions that might come.
- And do we have an answer to those questions? I mean, do we, the broad guidelines by which we'd like
- to operate on this type of decision, do we want to do it as a, you know, as a collective? Do you want
- me to go and find people that we then bring to a meeting for us to decide, like, how would we like to
- do it? Are you able to find people? I don't want to overdo it. Okay. It might be helpful if we could have a,
- list of three or four and just pros and cons of each, and we don't need to like interview them all,
- but if you could just send us a couple and- And then we decide this way? Sure. Yeah. Does that seem
- reasonable? Two or three would be fun. Yeah. But do you think we should separate this question, namely,
- so that everybody's aware that we're going to pursue at least three things, which is putting out this
- job description,
- get potentially engaging with somebody to help with recruitment, and certainly getting somebody to fill
- in in the short term. But what that somebody looks like could be a lot of things. I mean, it could be
- Larry might want to work with our time. I mean, it might be worth having the discussion on what that
- looks like as a full council, but saying we will take your advice.
- We certainly don't want to come. Do we agree? We do not want to come back to council because it just
- puts us on the fear timeline. We don't need to come back to council. So if we had somebody tomorrow,
- Thursday, who says, hey, I'd be happy to work part-time for the council as legal. We don't need to have
- to go back to council and say, is everybody okay with us hiring Larry?
- I agree with you. Okay. And similarly, we don't want to have to go back to the council and say, are
- you all okay with us engaging with Robert Half? Like, you trust that the four of us have made a good
- decision here? Yes. So would the four of us also decide on the temporary? I think that's a good idea.
- I think that's a very good idea.
- I just really believe that in the multitude of council, there's safety. I just think it's a lot better
- to do it this way. Any other concerns you might think that would come up? Maybe further down the road,
- the one thing that popped into my mind is it does take a minute to get people as vendors into the city.
- Which is one of the reasons why Robert Athens was a good choice. I think if I could also say I think
- separating those
- make it easier to move forward. Good point. Good point. And then the other thing that comes to my mind
- is the question about finances. And so I imagine the guiding principle that I have now is that we would
- operate within the budget that we already have, essentially. It's like that would be our sort of immediate
- constraint.
- because anyways, anything about that, we'd have to go to council to get some type of appropriation or
- something like that. Even though I've talked to the mayor, she's willing to do that if necessary. But,
- any other? I think you guys might want to also discuss timeline. Yeah. And get some milestones in place.
- Good point. Okay. Okay. There's a recess coming up, but then what? Yeah. Realistically, if you put out
- the job description, it will take some time to get someone in. Yeah.
- Okay, excellent. Wait, did you mean right now we should think about timeline? Yes. Yeah, I think there's
- a little bit more of a urgency. There's two paths that you're on, right? There's the immediate need.
- I mean, there's a potential regular session next week. There's two more months. So can we make a temporary
- hire in the next two weeks?
- That's my hope. Can we meet again as a committee? Yeah, for that we'll refer to meeting again. And then
- I would hope that we would get who we're aiming at, you know, having somebody established by our end
- of our recess. Yeah. I think that's doable. Yeah, I do too. I have an optimistic essence.
- What is the next time, as you know, because next week is the state of the city. The 31st, right? Yes.
- We could meet before that if anyone really. I also I don't know if you all have noticed, but. We may
- not need to meet. I'm debating. Also the bank saying this out loud, but he said it in the other meeting.
- Yeah, I'm debating whether we whether we need
- whether we need to have a meeting on April 1st at all, because at the moment, we have no legislation
- scheduled, no reports scheduled. Well, so as we bounce helpful to them. Well, correct. I mean, but if
- we do that, then I think that's obvious. But if we don't tomorrow, then we might want to, I mean,
- let's see, there's no point for us meeting for meetings. Yes, we don't. Yeah, we don't. It's very unusual,
- right? But it's just we have things that will be,
- The following of the 22nd, but we don't have anything. It was your little phone. In a first, could we
- do a 545? For the committee. Yeah. I hate to schedule anything less than an hour. Well, if we're expecting
- not to have that meeting, though, but we schedule it for an hour and a half. Why don't we why don't
- we just do it when council meeting?
- You could also wait to see how Wednesday goes and then do a full. And if there is no meeting,
- that's good. Yeah, that works. I will put it on. But actually, actually think about this slightly
- differently. It might be if what we'd like to do is get some interim people. So let's assume that everything
- goes well tomorrow. Everybody goes, yes, please go ahead and do that.
- I mean, there's a, there's a case where they go, no, don't go ahead and do that, which changes our timeline.
- But let's say they say, go ahead and do that. Then this would give me time. If we said Thursday,
- for example, for me, it would give me time to go and like, collect the data, talk to people, right?
- So that we have some options by, you know, to actually discuss it. Cause if we meet right away, I mean,
- we may not have those considering that we have state of the city as the 31st and.
- I have a hard stop at 630, but I can do before then. What are we talking about now? Could we tentatively
- hold 530 on Thursday the 2nd? Oh, Thursday the 2nd. I actually don't work that day, so I could do before
- that if we could meet during work hours. So that would work better for people. I am not. OK. Sounds
- like it doesn't.
- Um, so. I usually say that this particular one, I couldn't. Okay. No, the earlier timeline. I can do
- an earlier time. We're talking about the second. Yeah. Okay. Does that work for. So five 30 to six 30
- or seven, six 30. And then we can hold that. And if we just dispose with the council meeting, then why
- don't we just meet when we would have met for council.
- Okay. Yeah. I placed goals on rooms. Thank you. And I think on some clerk staffs, I think we'll have.
- On both wings? Yeah. Worst case, I'll let this be here on Wednesday, so you guys can be. Chief Clerk
- McDowell is a member of this committee, so. Oh, my God. An official. So I have a question before we
- adjourn. Did anyone else?
- Well, just perfect. So Thursday, April 2nd, five 30 to six 30. And then I do also have a whole from
- five to seven in this room on April 1st. Okay. So I'm eating is canceled. So if someone could follow
- up with work email, just for Western S as soon as whatever happens tomorrow happens. Yes. Just so I
- can release the room. Thank you. So my ask to you is, um, so we're,
- The executive session is tomorrow at five. And we start at five. Is it scheduled for five? Is it scheduled
- for five? Five to six. And I wonder if we could do it. It's scheduled for five to six. We can't. We
- have to have 48 hours notice at home. Oh, we do even for an executive session? Yeah. We're running from
- the... Okay. My second ask is, so the whole thing, we have a dispute
- interpreting our legal authority to require reasonable conditions and the nature of those reasonable
- conditions. I'm sorry? Yeah, are you saying can we get external counsel tomorrow, for example? Can we
- get external counsel within the next thing? I mean, we have until May 13th to make a decision on the
- law. I'm not saying we take that, but I'm just saying that we contract out for an attorney who has
- expertise in land use planning, government affairs, whatever. We can settle this dispute so we're not
- arguing the veracity of, you know. If you all agree, will you agree with the following, with the following
- set of reasoning? It was under, as council president, I could have said any charge I wanted to the committee. We agree.
- However, I chose to give the charge up to vote, right? And so I mean, the question is whether, do I
- have the authority to, if there's somebody who's already in the city system that we could, some lawyer
- that we already contract with in some way, and we do have funds to do this, so it's not a question of
- allocating the funds, do I have the authority to say, hey,
- Robert Taft or whatever, Taft Law or whatever. Hey, Ice Miller, can you please be on a call tomorrow?
- Can I do that? Well, I think in terms of being on a call tomorrow, I think they need to do research.
- I think that, well, the question is, so we have 13 reasons why it's delicious. If you just leave it,
- go ahead, Bill, because it's just, I mean, because the question on the first topic is the generality of
- Reasonable conditions, but but so so how about how about I find okay? I don't know if we could find
- it within the week. It doesn't have to be Yeah, we need to have somebody hired to do a couple hours
- of research to figure out Yeah, are we in within our authority somebody would give us some legal opinion
- basically. Yep Okay, now we'll settle this and we don't have to go tit-for-tat corporation counselors and Kate
- And I talked to Kate in her favor to this. Yeah. I mean, I also think we have a long history, though,
- of every single time we've done PODs. I don't think that a single, well, this now is getting outside
- of the question. So we can talk about this when. I think we're within an hour, right? But I just want
- to settle this so that we don't spend time. Yeah. But let's adjourn this meeting in because I think
- the, I do think that's an interesting question to generally have that's more strategic than Ben said.
- Can I just share a bit of information? It'll take a minute. So South Bend, Evansville, Terre Haute,
- and Lafayette all have an administrator. No, all their administration work is done by our trust. And
- they hire legal counsel on contact. Just so you know, we are right.
- Well, we are unique in having the staff. And also, I think that it's important to say that the clerk's
- office has been very clear that there's a lot of things that council took from the clerk's office in
- 1988. And so I think that there's, you know, I mean, I support that. I am a devolutionist.
- May I have leave to make a couple of quick comments and things like, like, you said, I think it's totally,
- I mean, this question is pertinent. Yeah. Well, some of that's not related to that directly. The clerk's
- office has been administering and helping the council heavily and working for the council for years, but.
- far more so over the last two years. This is the second time you've had a complete turnover and large
- vacancy in your office that needed additional staff support. Last time it lasted for about nine months
- total in terms of heavy staff time, from the time of the vacancy occurred, the hiring process, and then
- the training of the new council attorney, because even on their first day, there was no council member
- here who actually helped with their orientation. They do the HR orientation,
- but literally knowing where to hang their coat, or go to their restroom, or where their coat machines
- are, and all the things that you actually have. The new staff member that fell to clerk staff, that
- day in particular was me. But there are clerk staff who have continued to assist in training, answering
- questions, and that did not stop after three months. That stopped pretty much right around the time
- they gave their notice to leave. And I want to underscore that because
- Um, from what I saw some comments made about not wanting. Job support to come from the clerk's office.
- Personally, I support, I find apparently insulting to the staff members who've been doing. A buttload
- of work on the council for the last several years. As far as having the assistance come to your point
- about. Devolution or good wrapping and administrating coming through the office.
- I am to quote a former council member, I see the value in it and I also see the costs. So I think that's
- a further conversation. There are times when I'm like, yeah, that'd be great. And we can do these things
- with the council and make sure we streamline and do project management so that everybody has systems
- in place. And I nerd out over that stuff in general. So I love it. And then I think that some of the
- things that come with it.
- Yes, I just want to kind of throw that out there because what I really, really don't want to do is disrespect
- my staff, you know, throw it my way and I get it, but depersonalize it and recognize there are people
- who have been doing amazing work on behalf of the council for the last several years, two of them in
- this room in particular, but the others have done so as well. Yes. I'm concerned about the vacancies
- that are going to occur in the first week of May. Your researcher is leaving.
- And at least one, if not two, of your fellows are leaving. So by May 8, you will have zero staff again,
- unless you get somebody hired in. We also have the accessibility guidelines that are coming into play.
- And those are a hard start date of April 24. So you have to have somebody who can come in and actually
- work on that in terms of the administrative council.
- whatever day you post for the new position, when you're actually doing it, you have to have those discussions
- about where it's going to be posted and how long it's going to be posted. If you want to get a good
- pool of candidates, there are minimum 30 days, especially for hiring an attorney. It's going to take
- some time to actually go through and you should hire slowly for this position, which is very painful
- to say because it feels so urgent right now. I know it's a big opportunity to look at the process as a whole.
- But if you rush to hire somebody, run the risk of hiring somebody who doesn't have a full grasp of what
- they're facing, and lawyers want a lawyer, and clerks want a clerk, and administrators want to administer,
- and you're asking for somebody who can do all three of those things in one, you should really think
- about that. And last coming, but the best case scenario I could sketch out, everything goes absolutely
- perfectly, starting from the timing in this meeting till
- posting and hiring. Best case scenario, you'll have somebody in by the end of June, and I don't see
- that happening. But I'm a pessimist. She's an optimist. I'm a pessimist. And last, the role of the clerk's
- office. Again, this is taking staffing away from our office. And I know... I don't know how to say this well.
- When asked to hire some of the 200 boards and commissions, so we now have a dedicated staffer as far
- as I can tell is kind of running ragged, doing all these things with boards and commissions to the point
- where I'm like, wow, that was a much bigger job than I expected. And I know you guys need help and we're
- trying to do it and it's taking time now. Council, or Sophia and Colleen prepared the packet last week
- and thank goodness Colleen had done so before.
- Does it help a lot in terms of familiarity with the processes? And it's not something that personally
- I object to. I don't want to see a loss of continuity. I want council to continue to actually operate.
- I don't want the city to have any stumbles. But I do think there is some consideration that council,
- not just the hiring, but the council should talk about in terms of the time and resources the clerk's
- office has lost in their work in terms of
- supporting council staff and council members. And it is real. And it is, what do you call it? Something
- that you can enumerate. What is that word? Yeah, countable. Quantifiable. I don't want to end up in
- a situation that we ended up in last time where there was no public acknowledgement of staff for the
- work that they did.
- from either the council as a whole or from council leadership. That happened last time. I don't want
- it to happen again because y'all know I think my staff is underpaid, but I also think they are at least
- told that they are valued by me. But sometimes even my saying is not going to be enough. And again,
- however different council members may feel about me, I really have a low tolerance for my staff not
- being properly appreciated.
- With that, I want to thank you. All right. Your adjournment.