Jordahl: Well, I met with Jan Peterson and Joe in preparation for a site visit that's being conducted this afternoon at 1:30 to look at our performance and grants and so forth in the area of... Joe, this FPSS, what's that acronym stand for...
Stutsman: No, Family...
Bolkcom: Family...
Jordahl: Family Preservation grant is what it's about, but I can't remember what the words are, FPSS. OK, Family Preservation Support Services. Thank you, Sally. That meeting this afternoon at 1:30. I went to the homecoming parade, it wasn't that rainy...
Peters: Saw you on television.
Jordahl: It was a little bit interesting out there. Then the power went out, so I had a real interesting day yesterday with the chain saw, trying to fight my way in here. I've been basically struggling with that ever since, so I hope to get my feet back on the ground here and get the house warmed up again, we're still without power.
Stutsman: Joe?
Bolkcom: Country living. No report.
Stutsman: OK, I just wanted to say I attended a MECCA Board meeting on Thursday and also went to the Safe Place kick off. Very well attended. It looks like it's going to be a good program for the community. Under other, I just wanted to say that the resumes are all in for the HR position and we had what, over 60 resumes, Carol?
Lacina: 70?
Peters: 70.
Stutsman: 70. So I would ask the Board that you begin going through the resumes and maybe come up with the top candidates. Limit to maybe 5 or 6? How does...
Lacina: Sounds good, Karen did a ton of work putting those together.
Stutsman: Oh, she did a tremendous job organizing the resumes. If you haven't had a chance to look at it, she is going to make our job a lot easier going through this many resumes. We had put for next week, maybe Tuesday and Wednesday, to begin interviewing. So I would like the Board to come up with their final decisions by Friday...
Jordahl: Wow.
Stutsman: Then begin thinking about questions they want to ask, maybe submit those to Carol too, so that we can come up with unified questions to ask during the interviews. I want to keep this process rolling. We said Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning that we were going to schedule interviews, so...
Bolkcom: I have a question.. Do we want to, I just thought of this and I haven't really thought it through. Do we want to include any other department heads in the interviews? In the sense of just trying to have a broader group. I don't know. I don't know the pro's and con's of that are, but...
Stutsman: Well...
Lacina: I would suggest a representative from the County Attorney's Office is doing a lot of our ADA compliance and...
Bolkcom: In terms of questions and stuff.
Lacina: And then of course Carol does the huge major other component of it.
Bolkcom: Carol.
Stutsman: Yes.
Bolkcom: Just a thought.
Lacina: No, that's a very good thought.
Stutsman: No, I think that is...Well, along those same lines, do we want all 5 Supervisors on the interview and the only reason I say that is, if we start including other department heads or elected officials, which I think is good, it's kind of overwhelming to have a candidate sit in with 10 people. So we might just think about that, how we want to do that.
Lacina: I would step off in order to have like the Treasurer or somebody sit in. I think that's a good idea to have a blend of Supervisors and some other elected officials as well as legal. Maybe that's an option.
Jordahl: One of the interview processes I went through in the past had staged groups, so you had an interview portion, maybe with the elected officials and department heads, and then a session with the Supervisors. So you might have a 2 stage interview process.
Bolkcom: That's an interesting thought.
Lacina: Well John Bulkley did send us a document saying when they were looking at a function, what would you do if, and gave them a scenario that they could then be ranked on based on their response versus other individuals. I think that's a good idea. Some of the FMLA or ADA components. They better be knowledgeable on that.
Stutsman: Yes, I have John's questions and I'm real glad, they were great. I'm glad he shared those with us and we can certainly take a look at those when we're putting our own questions together. OK, well let's continue discussing this on Thursday during the informal and how we want to frame this and maybe thinking about other elected officials or department heads and how we can set this up.
Bolkcom: Great, sounds good.
Stutsman: OK? Anything else? Carol?
Peters: I had 2 quick items please. I've distributed the agenda for your joint meeting with Linn County. I have on there adjournment at 1:30. Does anybody have an objection to that? I have 15 minutes to change it.
Lacina: The Juvenile Detention Center discussion will that be around the possible contract or expectations or I'm assuming that...
Stutsman: I asked Brian Beaudry from Juvenile Court Services to be a part of that discussion, or to be at the meeting, so he could add information. I also talked with Pat and I'm not sure if Pat's going to be there or not. He knows when the meeting is and he said it was a little early to talk about the contract.
Lacina: Is that out of Carpenter's budget, that $120,000 or...
Stutsman: No.
Lacina: That's Court Services?
Stutsman: Juvenile Court.
Lacina: It appears that we're going to get an update on the Eastern Iowa Airport. Linn County Supervisors have received this right? Are we expecting them to have a representative from the Airport there? Should we make a quick phone call to them to kind of...
Bolkcom: No. It looks like our agenda item.
Stutsman: Yes, I guess we put it one. Is that what the afterwords are, is who generated the agenda items, it's not necessarily who is going to present it. But just who...
Peters: I followed the same format that we have with City of Iowa City, who wants it on.
Lacina: Maybe we can just ask them to tell us what they know.
Peters: Well and from the discussion that you had when you went over these agenda items, that was my impression.
Lacina: That one was mine. The only thing in reading this it sounds like we're going to do the presentation. I guess I'm hoping they do.
Stutsman: We thought it up, now we want you to talk about it.
Jordahl: Put Linn in there, give them a quick phone call. There's an item that I had hoped might be on this agenda and maybe it's under regional planning issues, but that would be regular scheduled meetings with Linn County. I think we should formalize this. Should that be an agenda item?
Stutsman: You mean continue meetings?
Jordahl: Schedule of ongoing meetings, something like that.
Lacina: I think we could just ask them before we adjourn if they would like to continue. It doesn't have to be specific.
Bolkcom: Do we have to make any other changes?
Stutsman: Well, I wonder if we do have to put that on as a separate item, do you think Carol?
Peters: Maybe we should, given the response that we had to the other one. My reason for asking about the 1:30 is, if you have adjournment at 1:30, do you think your conversation, your discussions with Linn County will last for 2 hours.
Jordahl: Easily.
Peters: OK.
Stutsman: Why don't we just put number g, future meeting plans.
Peters: And that way we can... OK.
Jordahl: If it says adjournment at 1:30, do we have to adjourn at 1:30?
Peters: No, but you have to stay there until 1:30; lets say you get done early, because the public's going to count on you being there.
Jordahl: OK.
Bolkcom: I have a 2:00 back here at Iowa City that I have to be back for, so I hope we'd be done by 1:30.
Stutsman: I always like a time, then people can kind of plan their schedules accordingly.
Bolkcom: I'm OK with 1:30. I don't think we'll get done before 1:30.
Stutsman: Uh-huh.
Lacina: Well we don't technically have to have a quorum to be there for public discussion, as long as somebody is there right? I mean to enter into action we would, but if somebody wanted to speak...
Stutsman: And these are all discussion items. They're not...
Jordahl: Is that correct? It seems to me like the meeting would no longer be taking place if the quorum had departed.
Lacina: We've opened meetings in the past without a quorum; we just couldn't do anything until somebody was there.
Stutsman: I think as long as one of us is there, I...
Lacina: What do you think Carol?
Peters: They would have a quorum there.
Bolkcom: Yes. We'll have a quorum there.
Peters: I'm sure you'll have a quorum for as much as you folks have planned and counted on this meeting, I can't imagine not having a...
Stutsman: Yes Joe might have to leave a little early but...
Bolkcom: Who is covering these items for Johnson? Do you want to nail that down...
Jordahl: Yes, let's nail that down.
Bolkcom: The landfill. Who is doing that one?
Stutsman: I just thought it was a discussion about where they're at on the landfill and just kind of fill us in and maybe sharing our concerns from constituents in Johnson County about what's happened with the landfill.
Duffy: I've been to 2 long meetings, about 3 hours long.
Stutsman: Well maybe Charlie you can take the...
Duffy: I gave a report.
Stutsman: ...lead on that then.
Lacina: Because doesn't Jim Houser serve as Chair of the Bluestem Board of Directors.
Jordahl: When it says Landfill (Johnson) there, is Mr. Houser going to know to, I mean obviously he's knowledgeable about the subject, but is he going to expect that we're going to do a presentation or is he going to expect to be ready to make one himself?
Stutsman: I thought these were just discussion things. I didn't think we were making formal presentations.
Jordahl: Well I'm just asking do we need to call him and ask that he be prepared to do something?
Duffy: Well I think they'd probably take the lead.
Bolkcom: I guess it's just a status report on the siting.
Jordahl: Maybe we should say that, landfill status report, something like that. Expand the agenda a little bit.
Stutsman: Well then if we do anything else then we...
Bolkcom: We've got 11 minutes to do it.
Stutsman: Let's just move on. Landfill, Detention Center (Linn County), Update on the expansion of Eastern Iowa Airport. I think there we're just asking them to give them an overview, give us an overview of what's happening with the airport. Legislative issues, I put this on. I thought if there were some issues that we're thinking about and Linn County is thinking about, if we could be coordinating some efforts as far as working together and lobbying. I guess I would like to know too if they are going ahead with their plans to hire a lobbyist for legislative. They talked about doing that at some time. So just kind of maybe touch base there and...
Lacina: Yes the utility property tax thing.
Duffy: That's a good idea Sally.
Stutsman: Budget information, Jonathan did you put that on?
Jordahl: I don't believe that I did, but maybe I did.
Stutsman: What do we want to discuss there, do we want that on?
Bolkcom: Maybe about Dawn coming down a day a week.
Jordahl: Well, yes, I think that's to the extent that we need to discuss things with them about the budget if it pertains to whether Dawn can help us with the budget and to what extent. I'm not sure that we should have that discussion for the first time in a joint meeting. It's probably some Board to Board communication or something.
Peters: Well when that got put on the agenda some of the background information that went into that was trying to just get more information from them about how they're budgeting process works. Because you and Sally have reported...
Jordahl: How it works for them.
Peters: ...but I think there were some other Supervisors that were interested in getting some additional information.
Stutsman: OK lets just ask them how they feel their process works, how they benefit from it and get feedback and that.
Jordahl: Deal with the Dawn question separately.
Stutsman: Regional planning issues, transportation, comp plan.
Peters: Those were issues that Joe and Jon mentioned.
Bolkcom: Update on what they're doing.
Stutsman: Yes OK. And discussion from the public and adjournment, so...
Bolkcom: Cool.
Lacina: Good.
Bolkcom: Got 8 minutes.
Peters: OK the way this is set up is you will arrive at 11:30. I have asked them to take your order for lunch to be served at 12:30 to help try to conserve time. Before you go to your next meeting you're going to have to have something to eat.
Bolkcom: Cool.
Stutsman: You sound like my kid, he's always saying cool. Everything's cool.
Bolkcom: I want to go home.
Stutsman: Yes, Joe wants to go home. That's the way Mike is too.
Peters: This item is not on the agenda, but I just wanted to gloss over it under other, that your meeting schedule for November: you have the 11th as a holiday; you'll be in Des Moines at ISAC the 19th, 20th, and 21st. Then you have Thanksgiving in the 27th and 28th. On Thursday's agenda, I will have a suggested meeting schedule for you.
Stutsman: Are you suggesting we just don't meet in November?
Peters: Sounds good.
Jordahl: Now November 11th Holiday we have a SEATS Director evaluation here at 1:30. Is that incompatible. Does anybody else have that?
Stutsman: Looks like it.
Bolkcom: Is there a holiday on the 11th?
Stutsman: Do we have Veterans Day off?
Peters: Yes.
Stutsman: Oh.
Jordahl: What are we going to do with that evaluation then? Push it to the 18th?
Stutsman: Or the 19th.
Peters: When the SEATS director evaluation was set up, that was set up when Larry was still here.
Stutsman: OK.
Bolkcom: OK. So you're going to present a Thanksgiving holiday schedule.
Peters: Uh-huh.
Stutsman: OK. Well for the month of November.
Peters: I just kind of wanted to prepare you.
Bolkcom: So you're thinking we won't meet that week?
Peters: Oh, I thought it was not during the month?
Bolkcom: The 24th.
Peters: Oh, just the week, OK.
Stutsman: But your talking about we're not going to meet the 11th, so you're talking about a whole November meeting schedule.
Peters: Right, the 11th I'm assuming would be changed to the 13th. The 20th would be in addition to the 18th and the 27th would be moved to the 25th. That's what I'm assuming.
Stutsman: OK good.
Peters: But I'll have that written up, so that you can review it and if you have a problem with it...
Stutsman: Then we need to decide what we want to do about the SEATS director evaluation. If we just want to...
Jordahl: Now the Tuesday the 11th meeting, being on the 13th is an evening meeting with zonings. So we've got everything from the informal on Tuesday the 11th would go in addition to the S and G application and the rest of the zoning business.
Stutsman: We'll put that on then for when we discuss about the meetings then. Take that into consideration. OK any discussion from the public?
Welsh: Just 2 real quick things. On salary schedule, because we're going to be starting to work on the budget for the Nutrition Program (inaudible), what's that schedule?
Stutsman: Carol?
Peters: You mean the salary survey?
Welsh: Uh-huh.
Peters: After the jobs had been expanded, Jerry feels that now it will be after January 1st before he gets that (inaudible).
Welsh: We'll probably just make a notation that that study is underway is all we can do. Second real quick, I keep getting concerned about Carol's workload (inaudible), just (inaudible) this offer saying that if you went to the voicemail, which would relieve some of your staff, I would think, and then having that be a credit later sounds like to me to be a heck of a good thing to be able to do that for $2700 and get up and running and here while you go through the other steps that your taking. Might be a way of receiving calls if you think that might help your office operation here.
Jordahl: That $2700 would only obtain though, if we had digital, do the other installation.
Welsh: That's true.
Stutsman: Good point so we can take that into consideration on Tuesday. Anything else. OK, we're recessed.
Recessed at 11:27 a.m.; reconvened on October 30, 1997 at 9:27 a.m.
INQUIRY (JEAN LATHAM): CLARIFICATION OF NOVEMBER MEETING DATES
Stutsman: Inquiries and reports from the public? Jean? Jean could you identify yourself please for the Auditor?
Jean Latham: Yes I'm Jean Latham. Johnson County resident. I would just like to clarify the time for the Supervisors informal and formal meetings on the 18th and 25th, is that at 9:00 a.m.?
Stutsman: Right. Anything else? OK. Reports and Inquiries from members of the Board of Supervisors. Jonathan?
Jordahl: Well it's been busy since Tuesday morning already. We had a site visit by a woman from the University of Northern Iowa, I think, to assess the family preservation grant of the Decat project. Sally and I both attended that. Sally may want to say more about how that was developed and so forth, but it seemed like there was a very positive outcome in terms of involving the consumers as to say the people, particularly in the Tiffin area in deciding what services were needed and then refining the services being provided to families, particularly prenatal and early childhood care, so that people get a good start in life. Also went to the Regional Trails and Bicycle Commission Meeting Tuesday evening. We discussed the development of the called peninsula area that has been opposite Iowa River Power Company from Coralville or opposite Rocky Shore Drive from Iowa City and saw how the roads that were maintenance roads essentially for the new well system that Iowa City is putting in there were going to be available as bicycle trails, because basically it would have one trip or so from a truck each day to do maintenance from the wells. The rest of the time it's just going to be untrafficked and be blocked off to motorized vehicular traffic, so that you'll have a bike path available there. But we were discussing possible routes that instead of looking at well maintenance, would also look at what would be most scenic. So that's something that I've been appointed to I hope a short term committee to meet 3 times, go out there and look at the site, make recommendations about alternate and additional trail routes to take advantage of the view of the river primarily. I think others may have more things to say about this, but I was very gratified to see that we've begun, I think begun will be the correct word, meetings with the Linn County Board of Supervisors to discuss our issues of mutual concern. We talk about the North Corridor, that's on the other end of the North Corridor is Cedar Rapids ;and Linn County, the development pressure, the economic development opportunities that exist along 965 and 380 are obviously of concern to both counties. So it was really a nice productive meeting. We had the media there, including television, and we held this at the Shueyville Junction Restaurant and Café, I think was right. It was really a good time, a positive attitude spirit of cooperation between both Board of Supervisors and it was a fine thing to see. Maybe I'll leave off there. Others may want to say other things about that joint meeting.
Stutsman: Joe, do you have a report?
Bolkcom: Yes just a few things. Last week I attended the Heritage Area Agency Advisory Council meeting and the Johnson County task force had prepared a resolution for approval to encourage the Area Agency and their various committees to become more involved in making improvements to the State Ombudsman program that oversees care in nursing homes and Bob Welsh put a great deal of time in on that and we presented that and that was passed unanimously by their Area Advisory Council to make that more of a priority. A brief update on SEATS, met yesterday afternoon again in an ongoing series of meetings with Burnell Chadek our director as well as Joe Fowler from the City and Ron Logsden, as well as Jean Schultz and her staff. We're getting very close. The reports as people know there are about a list of 14 or 15 reports. We've got all of them completed with the exception of basically one that we need some help with... Or maybe a couple. We need some help with the reprogramming from the software company. We're going to be doing monthly reports for past months as agreed by the City. So we're very close. Next week those draft reports will be presented to the staff and then at some point, probably in the next couple weeks, I think it would be appropriate for us to get back together with the negotiators to continue to work on a contract. The City staff has been very helpful too in the process and they're very pleased with the reports that have been presented at this point. So that's that. Finally I attended with Sally this morning the Iowa City Human Rights Commission Human Rights breakfast and awarded some folks some awards for their service to the community and human rights. That's it.
Stutsman: OK. Charlie?
Duffy: Well first of all I think we should thank the workers that helped restore electricity for residents of Johnson County, working all day and all night and it's dangerous work. For a couple days at least I thought it was great and the storm did create havoc on trees in the cities and out in the rural area. Evidently Iowa City's crew will pick up tree limbs that you put out by the driveways and the streets, but don't block any driveways and streets with them, and a 4 foot minimum size, and (inaudible) requirements have been waived during this period. So that's a great opportunity for Iowa City to get residents to have these tree limbs picked up and removed. Out in the rural area there's a chance that we might even get some dollars for this. I think Sally remember...
Stutsman: Uh-huh, talked to Jim McGinley yesterday.
Duffy: ...And probably should keep track, especially the road crew, like there's trees down and anything to do with the County roads, but it was quite a storm. I'm on a Federal Water Committee. I gave reports about this before, but I got an update. It's a national water quality assessments program, where there's about 20 basins that is called... for the rivers and one of the studies is the Iowa River and just what is in the sediment of some of these rivers. It's very interesting, this is an update and it's... Let's see we started this back in 1993 and some of the information is from 1993, so if everybody wants to look at this it is interesting and its backed by a lot of Federal dollars. I think it's about 6 million dollars in 4 years, so we know just what's coming down the river and sediment where it comes from and things like that. There's a lot of work involved here and we have our meetings in Cedar falls about once a year. But if you want to take and look any of this over I would be glad to give it to you. I guess that's all Sally.
Stutsman: Steve?
REPORT (LACINA): UPCOMING JOINT MEETING WITH PLANNING AND ZONING COMMISSION TO DISCUSS COMP PLAN
Lacina: This afternoon we meet at 5:00 or 5:30 with the Zoning Commission to discuss comp plan.
Stutsman: 5:00.
Lacina: I think the Board did a good job on their reports so other than the fact that it is always amazing to me the diversity of tasks that this Board has to deal with. This morning's meeting kind of points out some of that so that's all I have.
Stutsman: OK.
Stutsman: Well I'll agree with what has been said about the Joint Linn County-Johnson County meeting yesterday. I thought it was real productive and I think both counties felt it was worth their time and are looking forward to meeting again with the issues that we're both equally interested in. Jim McGinley also mentioned that there is a mitigation workshop next Friday, November 7th, at Montgomery Hall, but it starts at 8:00 and goes till 5:00. It's a workshop that's set up to talk about accessing moneys that the State has been awarded for mitigation and its' over one million dollars. So he really was encouraging Supervisors to attend this workshop, if you could. I may try to go for just part of the day. I've got some other things on for the 7th, but I will pass this around to the other Supervisors. So if you're interested in going, I think it would be time well spent. Also I received a call from Keith Kaffering and the Woods Center is having a meeting on Quality in Government and these are ongoing monthly meetings that discuss different aspects of government. The topic this week is going to be barriers to communication in the government sector and they are meeting at the Board of Supervisors Office in Cedar Rapids. Keith is going up if anybody is interested in getting a ride with Keith. He'd be more than happy to take some people up. The meeting starts at 8:30 and goes till 10:00.
Jordahl: What day?
Stutsman: Friday, tomorrow. I've attended some of these meetings and our schedules just get so busy you can't do everything, but it might be a good thing for some of us to attend if we have the time. Also the Innovation Zone Executive Committee is meeting this afternoon at 3:30 and we will be meeting with Vic Elias and Charlie Bruner. They have applied for a grant to do some pilot projects in 4 counties in Iowa and Johnson County is one of them. So we will be talking with them about the grant proposal and what they plan to do in Johnson County so if any of the Supervisors are interested in attending that meeting it will be at 3:30 and it will be in the back conference room. HR position, we need to have names of the people that we have selected for interviewing and I think it would probably be better to try and get those to Carol as quickly as possible, because it's going to take some time to set up interviews and things. So we did say Friday, if people could get it done as quickly as today, it would be real helpful.
Peters: If we could have that extra day to try to contact people it would be great.
Stutsman: OK. Report from the County Attorney?
Assistant County Attorney Janet Lyness: Nothing.
Stutsman: Nothing Janet. OK.
DISCUSSION: INTERVIEWING PROCESS FOR HUMAN RESOURCE POSITION
Stutsman: Discussion regarding interviewing process for Human Resource is that things that we wanted to cover under that Carol that was there? Oh, I guess we were talking about interviewing questions and things.
Peters: The questions and also how you're going to proceed. If you're going to incorporate other department heads and elected officials into the interviewing process.
Stutsman: It was mentioned on Tuesday that we invite other department heads or elected officials to be a part of the interviewing process. I didn't know if the Board had given that any more thought, any comments on that?
Lacina: Yes I had suggested that I would step off if it was a case of too many people involved, but I do think we should have it, department heads and not only elected, but appointed. The HR function for the County will deal with over 430-some full-time employees and part-time and it will be a major change from what we've had in the past. So it definitely has to be a buy-in by everybody in the County or else it will fail.
Peters: Would you like me to try to touch base with everybody and then just draw up a document giving everybody's thoughts on the process. When I say everybody I mean the 5 Supervisors.
Jordahl: We could... I mean it's on the agenda to discuss. I have thoughts on this and maybe we'd be able to share thoughts.
Stutsman: Because we're talking about interviewing Tuesday and Wednesday...
Peters: I just thought maybe people weren't prepared to talk... That's the only reason I suggested it.
Stutsman: Well and I know one of the people we were talking to be involved with the interviews was the county Attorney and I don't know what his schedule is like and it's always so difficult. I think when somebody starts the process, they need to be involved with all of the interviews. I think it's unfair to do 2 and then not be available for the rest of them. Although I think it's a very good idea that Pat be involved I don't know what his schedule is like the next week.
Lyness: I'm sure if he was going to be involved he'd try to prioritize it, try to cover other things for him, so that he could attend the interview process.
Stutsman: Do we want to include Pat as one of the elected officials.
Lacina: Given the fact that he's our ADA officer, deals with the Federal Family Leave Act and has worked on the employee handbook, negotiations, and that, I think it's extremely important that we have representation from that office. Because some of these functions are obviously going to transfer to your HR function. It's going to have to be a really close working relationship between the offices.
Jordahl: On the other hand we have our interview times outlined and we have Pat's probably got trial times or something outlined.
Stutsman: Well all we could do is ask and see if he's available or if he has somebody else that he wants, a representative from the County Attorney's Office to sit in his place.
Lacina: And my mind's priority, I would reschedule as opposed to not having him.
Jordahl: Exactly.
Stutsman: You mean rescheduling our interviews with pat's calendar?
Jordahl: Right. I'm agreeing with that.
Bolkcom: He's also done a lot of hiring.
Stutsman: Yes. Any feelings about how many of the Supervisors should be involved in this interview panel?
Jordahl: I think all of us should be. I'd like to see maybe 3 parts of this thing: the Board as a phase, department heads as a phase, and the Board could sit in on this phase, but rather than have a panel of 17 people or something, maybe you could have it staged, so half an hour with the Board, half an hour or an hour whatever we choose with elected officials and department heads. Pat White fitting into that somewhere, maybe with the Board. Then we had mentioned the idea of response to written question and those questions conceivably could include I think as Steve suggested some scenarios of what would you do in response to this situation. I think all 3 components would be useful. Perhaps have the person respond to the questionnaire portion first as a kind of background to additional questions people might ask in the interview.
Lacina: I guess I would like to see the written component that we would all see, but as far as the actual physical interview I think it's unwieldy with a large number, unless you have one individual asking the questions. If your bouncing around 10, 12 people it becomes unmanageable. I have a suggestion we keep it small, that anyone could set in but as far as the formal interview it be 5 or less.
Stutsman: I guess I would agree with that too. I think it is pretty unwieldy to have a room full of people interviewing a candidate. It's pretty awesome for a candidate too to come into a room and have 15 people sitting there or whatever.
Jordahl: I didn't mean to say that. I guess when I said elected officials and department heads I did not say, but meant to say that we should have a selection of them. I'm not sure what the mechanism of making that selection is. I'm thinking a group comparable in size to the Board of Supervisors would serve as a representative of elected officials and department heads, so we'd have a written component, a department heads-elected officials component, and a Board of Supervisors component. So that it might take an hour and half or 2 to interview one person. We could also cycle them so that you could have some things happening at the same time.
Bolkcom: Right. I think that makes sense.
Lacina: So we're going to have 3 components? We're going to have them go before 2 boards?
Jordahl: That's my suggestion.
Lacina: I guess one just put together a committee of 5 people that would do the physical interview and anyone could suggest questions that they would like to ask in addition to questions for the written component. We would all have an opportunity to review it, but I'm concerned that the individual coming in, we don't want them too intimidated by this huge...
Bolkcom: We want to be thorough though and if we want to make a commitment to have other elected officials and other department heads be involved, and the 5 members of the Board, because I think I would agree with Jonathan. Ultimately we are going to hire this person, the 5 of us are going to vote on it and we all need to have a sense who this person is. I don't think we get that if we're not in the interviews. So I think if we are committed to having more people than ourselves interview we need to have 2 separate committees if we don't want more than 5. I think it could go on simultaneously. We could start with somebody, they'd move on. We'd get the second applicant, otherwise I don't think we as the people that are going to supervise and hire this person are going to have a good enough understanding by reading some notes or some minutes of somebody about that. I don't know how we're going to decide how many Supervisors we're going to have. If we only have one committee of 5 doing the interviewing who is going to do it.
Lacina: I still think it should be on one committee.
Bolkcom: Who's not going to do it?
Lacina: I just don't want to set somebody up before banks and banks of people.
Duffy: Sally.
Stutsman: Charlie?
Duffy: You guys are the ones that really decided to do this, that we should have an HR person, and when we interview some might want to go into an executive session, which is very secret. That's up to the person interviewed, that's very private information. If you have too large a group, I don't think I'd be for that. I certainly wouldn't be for 2 groups.
Bolkcom: Well frequently in other places where people go to get jobs in the private sector they go through a series of interviews with different people and different parts of say a company. It's not all done at one time with everybody in the room. I think we should be thorough about this. If it takes an extra half hour and a little more time I think it will be well worth it.
Stutsman: I guess I would support too having 2 sets of interviews, but not so much with department heads and with Supervisors, but maybe a mix of 2 panels so that there's some Supervisors and some elected and department heads on each panel.
Bolkcom: That's a good idea.
Stutsman: Asking the same questions and then having the written part too. Maybe limit interviews to half an hour with each panel and go from there.
Jordahl: Are you saying that each panel internally would ask the same questions as that panel asks or that... You're not suggesting that questions be repeated are you?
Stutsman: No. I really don't want them asking the same questions as...
Jordahl: Exactly. But the concern I have with that is the same one that Joe raised about if we're taking responsibility for hiring this person, then we should all have the same information and if we participate in different panels with different questions, then we're going to have different information about why this person would or would not be hired. Where if we had a separate panel of elected officials and department heads we could then get the feedback from them about whom they chose to hire and we would all have that same information without necessarily being in the room.
Stutsman: But we wouldn't' have the same information from elected officials and department heads.
Jordahl: Well if they spoke to us as a Board though, I mean we could have a conference with that panel about their interview and get their recommendations, and that way we would all have that same information. I mean I think consistency is what I'm looking for here.
Duffy: Well I was all along when we discussed hiring a HR person to have the department heads and other elected officials involved before we made the decision whether to hire the HR person and that fell on deaf ears. We decided to do it before and now I can see you want to get these people involved, but I think they should have been involved all along.
Jordahl: But that's not a reason not to involved them now.
Bolkcom: Well I think they have been. We've met with our department heads and they've given us instruction on things like what we want this person to do in terms of the job description.
Duffy: There were some I didn't think were for it then. They should have been...
Bolkcom: Well there was some disagreement out there, that is true.
Stutsman: Yes.
Duffy: There was some disagreement, but still we're the ones that made the decision.
Bolkcom: Right and I think we made a good one.
Stutsman: Well and a matter of fact I can remember going and talking...
Duffy: I don't think we did Joe, but...
Bolkcom: We've already made that decision to go ahead and do that Charlie.
Duffy: I know. You should've had them involved and I see this thing...
Stutsman: Charlie we had them involved. I remember going and talking to department heads one on one and talking about their feelings about an HR person, so I think that they were more than involved. We had department head meetings, we had individual interviews with them. They gave us their input, what they...
Duffy: Individual interviews.
Stutsman: Uh-huh. Yes.
Bolkcom: Yes.
Stutsman: We divided up, if I remember, and we did a survey too.
Duffy: They were for it then, the department heads and elected officials?
Stutsman: Well it wasn't unanimous Charlie. Nothing ever is, but I think the majority ruled to... The feedback we got was to go ahead with the HR person and that's why we made that decision.
Lacina: Summarize for me where we're at.
Stutsman: OK, what we're doing is talking about 2 panels and I think we're still discussing whether it should be all Supervisors on one panel or whether it should be a mix. I would say lets have Supervisors on one panel, department heads-elected officials on another panel and then plus written response from the candidates.
Lacina: Sounds good.
Jordahl: Where does Pat fit into that?
Stutsman: Well he would be elected.
Jordahl: He would be elected officials-department heads?
Stutsman: So who are the elected department heads? Do we want to send survey out and see who wants to be involved in that? Do we want to just arbitrarily pick individuals, any comments?
Bolkcom: Maybe we could ask for volunteers and if we get more than we need we can select...
Stutsman: Talking about a total of 5 on this panel? OK. Would that be all right to do that?
Jordahl: Yes.
Stutsman: Charlie is that...?
Duffy: I guess.
Stutsman: OK. Carol if you could send out a survey saying that we're planning to do this Tuesday and Wednesday. There's a lot of things to pull together.
Peters: Well, I was just going to say this is Thursday and Tuesday is...
Lacina: I'm going to suggest we push back the interviews. We cannot get as much done as we think we can get done in that short of time period.
Peters: I don't think we can get the answers back from your department heads and elected officials and also in addition to that whatever questions that they are going to want or suggest, whichever it be, for the written portion.
Bolkcom: How about the 12th or the 13 of November?
Stutsman: In the afternoon?
Bolkcom: Mornings.
Stutsman: We could do it on the 11th. I bet nobody has got anything on their calendar.
Bolkcom: A 3 letter word that day, off.
Stutsman: How about the 12th in the morning and the 13th in the afternoon?
Peters: OK, I'll try for it.
Stutsman: I think it's sometimes gives more flexibility for people if they can have a choice between a morning or an afternoon which they'd rather come in. Department heads it has to be stressed too, that if they agree to do this that they commit for all interviews.
Peters: I'm sure some of the department heads and elected officials will have some very outstanding questions to ask for the written portion.
Jordahl: I want to again point out that Thursday afternoon we're going to segue right from these interviews then into the double evening meeting regarding both our informal meeting from Tuesday and the sand and gravel zoning public hearings.
Peters: As I understand it your Zoning hearing will be... You have a lot of zonings.
Lacina: That's why we get the big bucks.
Stutsman: Or do we want to do them all on Wednesday?
Lacina: Let's see what their schedules are?
Peters: I was going to say I really need a second date for the applicants, because a lot of them...
Stutsman: Well we could do it Thursday morning too.
Bolkcom: Wednesday and Thursday morning. Thursday morning is fine.
Jordahl: Thursday morning, again it's a long day. If you have started interviews at 8:30, 9:00 and who knows when the evening meeting gets out.
Stutsman: I would suggest Wednesday afternoon. Joe do you have a conflict with Wednesday afternoon?
Bolkcom: I'm fine with Wednesday afternoon. I'm free all day Wednesday.
Stutsman: Let's say Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning.
Jordahl: OK.
Stutsman: Or the opposite. I don't care. I just think we need to have a morning and an afternoon.
Lacina: On which date on (inaudible).
Stutsman: The 12th in the afternoon and the 13th in the morning. Questions to Carol and are we going to review those questions Tuesday, which ones we want to ask? OK.
Lacina: I may not be here the afternoon of the 12th depending on what the 6th Judicial District does, because of the ISAC convention. They're not going to be be holding the meeting the third Wednesday But again, my position is that we've got capable people that can do it and we can't hit 100%, so we'll deal with it.
Stutsman: OK.
Lacina: I do think the discussion though that we just went through is a good example of why we need this position, so that when we hire people we have a consistent policy of going through the interviews and it will be a benefit to the County in the long run.
Stutsman: I agree and that's why I want to do a good job of hiring the right person for that position too. So interview questions we want to get in by Friday, who you want to interview, your top candidates, as quickly as possible, and we will discuss interview questions on Tuesday and decide which written questions we want to have them respond too.
Lacina: In the written component, lets throw out just some broad topics. I'm assuming we're going to give some scenarios and John Bulkley has given us a document with some examples of how to deal with certain ADA or questions of that nature. I'm assuming the question would be in the past we have had certain skill levels to make sure that they're up and running on word, excel, types of things, to talk about confidentiality of that, but we could build a component that could take 5 hours. So I guess how do we build an instrument that would be effective but not be burdensome and non-productive?
Jordahl: Well I think Pat would be the primary source on that as you suggested, he's probably the most knowledgeable. We have gotten good feedback from Mr. Bulkley. You're right if every department head suggests questions and we make up some, we come up with a nice long test. I'm not sure that we need that.
Lacina: One of the limiting factors will probably be the length of time. Do we want the individual to go through this in what half an hour? If we go beyond an hour suddenly their train of thought could...
Stutsman: Or do we want them to have it ahead of time? Send it out to them and have it complete before they come to the interview?
Bolkcom: Uh-uh. Somebody might do it for them.
Lacina: I think we want to do it here.
Jordahl: Yes, and they might have access to information that would be written, that they would like to see what they would respond to in this situation too.
Peters: We could set it up as we did when the Deputy Administrative Assistant was hired, or interviewed, set it up with Information Services, where they'll have access to a computer to carry out whatever exercises you wish.
Lacina: So a targeted goal would be less than an hour, but if obviously they need more time to expand, we'll give them that time, but when we build this thing lets just shoot for an hour.
Bolkcom: OK. Makes sense.
Lacina: Then they could plan it when Carol makes the telephone calls we can inform them at the time please allow some time for that.
Bolkcom: On that point how much time is reasonable to give 5 people to ask 10 questions. I guess I'm concerned that if we do 30 minute blocks that that is going to be really rushed. Because the person is basically going to have to kind of reintroduce themselves to each of the groups. Kind of do a little bit of that, I would assume there will be a little bit of redundancy. I think 45 minutes per group.
Jordahl: Could we have the groups all in the room? That would eliminate the idea of doing things in separate rooms at the same time.
Stutsman: Then you get back to that whole room full of people and...
Jordahl: It would be kind of intimidating.
Stutsman: Why don't we say 45 minutes. Half hour to 45 minutes. I'd rather say half hour to 45 minutes than 45 minutes to an hour.
Jordahl: It is a senior central important position and it to me it's reasonable that we would spend an hour. When we interviewed the people for the engineer position for example, I frequently felt that the interview got better toward the end.
Stutsman: But how long were those interviews Carol, do you remember? I don't think they went an hour.
Jordahl: No, they were half an hour.
Peters: Around 45 minutes.
Jordahl: Half an hour, but ran 45 minutes. I'm saying that the reason they ran 45 minutes is because they got better at the end. I'm going in favor of an hour.
Stutsman: Why don't we look for 45 minutes and see how that goes. I had another thought and now it escaped me.
Peters: There may be a situation where you'll want to invite somebody back for a second interview.
Stutsman: Oh, that's what I was going to say. Very well can be looking at second interviews. So think we should keep that in mind, that if we feel that we need to spend some more time, we can always ask them back for a second interview.
Bolkcom: Sounds good.
Stutsman: OK anything else?
Lacina: We all need to sign the labor contract.
Stutsman: Right, right so don't everybody leave before we get that taken care of. Sign the labor contracts that we passed in the formal meeting. Anything else Carol that we need to talk on that? Is everybody pretty well clear where we're going or what's happening?
Jordahl: So the deadline now for our selections remains Friday or...
Stutsman: Or as quickly as possible. Questions by Friday. That's tomorrow. OK anything else?
Bolkcom: Trick or treat.
Stutsman: I guess we are adjourned.
Adjourned at 9:58 a.m.
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By Melinda McCleary and Casie Parkins, Recording Secretaries