MINUTES OF THE COMMITTEE OF COUNTY OFFICERS DESIGNATED TO FILL A VACANCY ON THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
OCTOBER 20, 2009
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Discussion/Action: Minutes of the September 25, 2009 Committee Meeting................................ 1
Discussion/Action: Minutes of the September 28, 2009 Committee Meeting................................ 1
Review of Submissions by Applicants for the Position of Supervisor........................................... 2
Discussion/Action: Interview Questions for Candidates............................................................. 6
Discussion: Review of Tentative Meeting Schedule and Acting on Changes, if Needed............. 12
Discussion/Action on Appointment, or Special Election, if Required.......................................... 13
Discussion: Agenda for the Next Meeting............................................................................... 13
Discussion from the Public on the Appointment Process, or Special Election, if Required........... 14
The Committee to fill a vacancy on the Board of Supervisors was called to order in the Health and Human Services Building, Room 202A at 2:00 p.m. Members present were: County Treasurer Tom Kriz, County Recorder Kim Painter, and County Auditor Tom Slockett.
Slockett: The first items are discussion and action on the minutes. Does anyone have any corrections?
Painter: No. I didn't.
Kriz: I did not.
Painter: Do we need a separate motion for each?
County Attorney Janet Lyness: You should do that.
Painter: Okay. I would move approval of the September 25th Committee meeting minutes.
Kriz: Second.
Slockett: All in favor say aye.
Painter: Aye.
Kriz: Aye.
Slockett: Aye. No, the same sign.
Slockett: Review of the submission of the applicants for the position.
Lyness: You need to approve the minutes from the 28th.
Slockett: I'm sorry.
Kriz: I would move we approve those minutes as presented.
Painter: I'll second that.
Slockett: All in favor?
Painter: Aye.
Kriz: Aye.
Slockett: Aye. Opposed, same sign. Sorry, I jumped the gun there.
Slockett: Review of the submissions of the applicants. In that regard I have some handouts that I could explain that have some options for us. The handout contains a list of possible questions to ask the Supervisors. It also has some scenarios in case we don't want to interview all of the candidates. There is criteria that we could use. I’m not suggesting that we do it according to these lists, but I'm just saying if we use certain criteria this is the list we would have. I think we should feel free to discuss adding any name or striking any name to those. Or it won't be necessary to do that if we agree up front that we want to interview all 16 applicants. We do have 16 applicants who applied before the deadline. All of that information is on the County website or the Auditor's website, these minutes and other information relating to the appointment. We have a wonderful list of well-qualified applicants and I guess I'll just cover the options that I see. One is we could interview all 16. That would take quite a bit of time, but it's probably doable. Then I have some scenarios in case we would want to narrow it down that we could consider as a beginning point to add to or subtract from. The first one is the list of applicants who have not stated that they will not run for a full term. In other words some of the applicants said they want to serve in the interim position prior to the next election only and would not be interested in running. The first list is those people who have not said that they won't run. Then the next list is the applicants who have not been defeated in their most recent election. If an applicant has lost an election but then won a subsequent election, they would be included on this list. But if the last election they ran in, they were defeated, they would not. The third list is the list of people who have not stated that they won't run and have not been defeated at the most recent election, so it's a much shorter list. I would be happy to do what the majority of the committee wishes to do regarding interviewing everyone or narrowing it down. These are just some scenarios that I thought of. I don't have any particular preference for them and as I said I think we should feel free to add or subtract from the list. I could live with any of the four methods, interviewing all of them, or narrowing it down and adding. In the most narrow one for example at the bottom there would be at least one name I would want to add to it. So I'm not saying that this is what I'm recommending, I'm just saying it's what the list would be if we followed certain criteria. Also I'm open to any other suggestions, so I'll just put that on the table.
Kriz: I'm not totally sure why even a reference to a person having been in an election and been defeated in the most recent one or past ones would have any merit, at least for me. I know those are all grouped that way, but I don't see that as a huge criteria as to how I approach it. Whether if they have run and been defeated, if they have run and won, if they retired from the position and came back, that's not a high priority for me.
Slockett: Do you have a suggestion of who you would like to interview or how you would like to proceed.
Kriz: I think interviewing 16 people is a taxing, daunting type thing. I put this back into the perspective of how I do something when I hire for my office, trying to narrow it down to three or five people. It's pretty hard when you have so many good, qualified people, that's the real tough part about that. So it would be my preference to narrow it down. The other problem I have with interviewing all 16 is we've talked that we would like to have the interviews open unless the candidate doesn't want that. But if we have a standard set of questions for people to answer, which I would assume we would ask the same questions to everybody, with the media and data put out, the people that interview first, the people that come after that would know what all the questions are already and I think that makes it an unfair playing field. It's like you and I took the test today, Tom, but Kim has had the answers and she takes the test tomorrow, and had the questions. I just think it gets a little tough how we approach that, trying to do all 16, assuming all 16 wouldn't be done in one day.
Painter: Of course that's going to be a problem, regardless of how narrow it is, and Janet I don't think there's anything we can do to change that.
Kriz: It's such a public procedure.
Slockett: It's such a public proceeding. I can just say that in the past what we did and what I would recommend in terms of full openness and transparency is just put them on the web ahead of time, so that everyone has them and there is no particular advantage to anyone. That would be the questions that we've agreed to ask everyone. I would like to leave open the possibility of follow-up and asking individual questions. We're a statutory committee. We have the authority to make this decision and I wouldn't preclude asking additional questions although there is only a certain amount of time that is reasonable to expect in an interview as well. That's the way I would look at it and what I would suggest, regarding the questions. I agree it's desirable to not interview everyone if we can come up with an agreed upon method.
Kriz: I'm fine as long as everybody had the questions and had them in plenty of time, so the first person isn't short of that ability to do that.
Slockett: I can also just throw in while we're thinking here that Deputy Auditor Casie Parkins sent an inquiry and made phone calls to all of the applicants to ask them if there were any times that they weren't available on Thursday or Friday, which are our tentative meetings that we scheduled for interviews, and she has that list. She just got a call from Charles Panzer and he is available on both days, so he is not included on the list. In addition to that we haven't yet heard from Kenya Badgett, Cami Jo Rasmussen, or Edgar Thornton at this point in time, so we don't know for sure about their availability. Do you have any thoughts on whether to interview all or narrow it down?
Painter: 16 does seem like an awful lot of people to talk to about it. The first list that you have here, whether you like the criteria that got it there or not, it looks like there are still 14 of 16.
Slockett: It doesn't narrow it down very much.
Painter: I don't think any mechanism we have would necessarily narrow it down very far. So then we just have to decide do we want to go through the applications. We've got an agenda item two down for discussion and selection of candidates to be interviewed. My idea would be to go through all 16 and vote on them. Do you like any of these lists Tom? It's pretty clear its everybody that we want to pick, so how do we want to pick? How do you feel about it?
Kriz: I certainly think I could go through and come up with a number, be that three, five, seven or eight, going through the literature that we've had so far that I would be most interested in talking to. That would be how I would perceive that.
Painter: I kind of heard everybody say that people feel 16 is a lot of people to interview. Is that inaccurate? Does anybody have a strong feeling we should talk to every single one?
Slockett: I don't have a strong feeling that we should, but it's an important position and I wouldn't be opposed to it. On the other hand, it might not be the best use of the interviewees' time or our time to do it that way. That's why rather than having it be completely subjective I thought if we could think of a rationale or criteria by which to narrow it down.
Painter: I know. I know.
Slockett: Frankly I kind of like the third list that was arrived at. One thing I wondered since we can't talk to each other or communicate with each other, I just wondered have you all met all of these people? I have not.
Kriz: I have not.
Painter: Not every one of them. A number of them have stopped in, but not everybody.
Slockett: I don't believe I've met Gregory Pickett. I've spoken to Cami Jo Rasmussen on the phone and I've met the rest. I feel like that list of seven is a list of extraordinarily well-qualified candidates. It’s got a good cross-section of the population in terms of affirmative action. There are people who are currently serving in elected positions and people who have been active in the community. To me, I would want to interview all of those people. I would advocate interviewing all of them. Frankly, I would add Mike Lehman to that list.
Painter: I would too.
Slockett: I think that would be an awful good list to interview. But that's still quite a few people.
Painter: Right. Well, it's a manageable group. As I look at that, if I add Mike Lehman to that list, it's very close to what I would have had just going through and selecting. Tom, where are you at with that? Close?
Kriz: Yes, that would be close.
Painter: Would there be other names you would want to put in? Setting aside how it got to that list I realized as I looked at it that it did match up with what I would have selected.
Kriz: It would match the majority of five or six that I looked at, including Mike on that. Four for sure.
Painter: So that would be eight interviews.
Slockett: I don’t know how we want to proceed. We do have review submissions. I would assume we’ve all reviewed them independently.
Painter: Yes.
Slockett: Whether you want to go through each one. What I think would happen is we would be full of compliments for every one of them, and I don’t think any of us are going to say absolutely not that one. This is a public process. These are all people who are willing to contribute to the community, and they have admirable qualifications. I’d be just as good coming up with a list of people to interview, and then leaving it open to discuss eliminating one that’s on a list or adding. Probably, we would mostly want to add, I would guess. I guess I would like to know how you want to proceed. If someone would like me to make a motion to interview the last list plus the name we added, I’d be willing to do it, but I don’t want to make that motion, unless people are interested in hearing it and voting on it. I am open to any other suggestions. It’s difficult, some way or another, we have to come up with a list.
Painter: Right.
Kriz: Uh-huh.
Slockett: It’s not going to be easy no matter how we do it.
Painter: This covers a pretty broad range of people from various backgrounds, too, which is another nice component of it. Were there other names? I really didn’t have other names that I would insist on adding. I was kind of wondering about the one.
Kriz: I would pose this to Casie. Have we heard back from this group of people.
Deputy Auditor Casie Parkins: I haven’t heard back from Kenya Badgett…
Slockett: Edgar Thornton?
Parkins: Edgar Thornton and Cami Jo Rasmussen
Slockett: Cami Jo Rasmussen.
Parkins: And I think I’ve heard back from everybody else. I did hear back from Greg Pickett. The people I had emails for, I emailed. The people I didn’t have emails for, I called. I was just assuming a couple people haven’t checked their emails yet.
Slockett: So the people we haven’t heard from are Kenya Badgett, Cami Jo Rasmussen, and Edgar Thornton.
Painter: I would just say, for my part, that this list, regardless of how it was arrived at, it has hit most of the picks I was wanting to be sure to interview. I don’t have an issue with the others that might be included. I don’t have a super strong feeling about wanting to add anybody beyond Mike Lehman, but I’d be willing to listen to anybody else’s concerns on that score too, before we have a motion.
Kriz: Well, I don’t have anybody else that I’d have a burning passion to have to add to it. I think the inclusion of Mike is a key on there for me.
Slockett: Does someone want to make a motion to interview a list of people or do you want me to?
Kriz: While we’re talking about it, that’s eight now, which is about half of the pool. Are we looking at 20 minute, 30 minute interviews? Does anybody have a feel for what they’re looking for? I know we had like a standard set of questions, but if things go too long.
Slockett: The last time and on the proposed list of questions, which we are just that, just something thrown out. We also, on the last page of the list are questions used in 1999. So it’s pretty similar, but it’s updated a little bit or changed a little bit. But in both of those, and I just kept it on it, we had a two minute opening statement and a two minute closing statement. Then we’ve got on the list, I have 18 questions, and we could pare that down, but I think we could also tell the applicants we don’t expect a treatise from them on any of the subjects or anything of that nature. We just want somewhat of an idea of what their views are and what their level of knowledge is on a broad list of areas that affect county government. That seems optimistic to me, 20 to 30 minutes, but that would be good.
Kriz: Do you remember what we allocated?
Painter: Did we allocate an hour or something?
Kriz: It was 45 minutes
Parkins: It was 45 minutes to an hour last time, and I think a lot of them went over a little.
Slockett: I know when I try to limit interviews in the office, it’s very difficult to do.
Painter: Yes, I’d say an hour slot is probably what we want. That’s my view on it. Would you think more, Tom Slockett?
Slockett: No, I would hope that we could keep it to an hour.
Painter: And we may need less.
Slockett: But if we were all committed to less that would be nice. Tom, what were you thinking? I like the idea of keeping it short, but it’s difficult to do.
Kriz: It depends on how extensive the questions are.
Slockett: And I imagine some of them will be much shorter and some will be pretty long, just depending on who the individual is. That would be my guess.
Kriz: So based on hourly stretches over both Thursday and Friday.
Painter: Yes.
Parkins: Do you want me to schedule those or am I getting ahead?
Slockett: You’re getting ahead.
Kriz: We need to decide on that.
Slockett: We haven’t decided anything yet. We're just discussing it.
Kriz: When it gets to scheduling though, I think yes, absolutely. That’s fine.
Painter: Well, given that this list of individuals hits the majority of the people that I had as either the most qualified or the ones I’m most interested in having a chance to visit with, and that we’ve added Mike Lehman to it, I would move, if it’s appropriate, that we interview these eight individuals for a period of approximately an hour and select our appointee from there.
Slockett: I’ll second it. Should we vote on it? All in favor say aye.
Painter: Aye.
Kriz: Aye.
Slockett: Aye. All opposed, same sign. Passed unanimously.
Slockett: The next item would be the questions that we want to ask, that we’ve agreed upon to ask all of them. There were 16 the last time and we’ve got 18 this time. I brainstormed with a few people in my office. Chris has ducked out now, so he doesn’t get the blame, but Chris Edwards is one of the people I consulted with, and this is what we came up with. So you want to just read over them and either agree or aye or nay on them? The first one: What makes you the most qualified person for this job? There’s a two minute opening statement first. Also, we could tell people they’re not required to, we’ll ask each one, but some people may cover, for example, the first question may well be answered in the 2 minute opening statement. So a two minute opening statement. Then, what makes you the most qualified person for this job? Should we just read over them first and then go back to see whether to keep them?
Painter: Yes, that’s fine.
Slockett: Okay. Two: What would you hope to accomplish as an individual and as a Board? And then a County government section: What are County government’s strengths and weaknesses? How would you enhance the strengths and address the weaknesses? Number four: What do you feel are the greatest challenges facing Johnson County, and how should the Board address them? Number five: Do you feel a new Johnson County justice center is needed, and if so, do you favor combined or separate jail and court facilities? Where should it be located, and how should it be funded? Number six: How would you go about selecting from a pool of applicants to serve on various boards and commissions? Number seven: What is your long range vision for Johnson County? Then we get to a land use/environment section. Number eight: What criteria would you use in making land use decisions? On what basis would you make decisions concerning road improvements, maintenance, construction, and roadside weed eradication? What is your opinion about Newport Road? I think at least one of the applicants would probably like to discuss that. Number nine: What do you think should be the County’s role in protecting the environment? Number ten: Describe your approach to balancing economic and business interests, with interest in the health and well-being of citizens and environmental concerns? Number 11: What is your opinion of the Johnson County Comprehensive Land Use Plan? And then a section on taxes and budget. Number 12: What do you know about and what is your opinion regarding the impact and incidence of Johnson County taxes? Number 13: What, if anything, should be done about the nature of County tax options? Number 14: Are you in favor of implementing a local option sales tax? If so, for what use? Number 15: What are your ideas about budgeting? Number 16: How would you balance spending requests versus increasing taxes? If it became necessary to reduce the County’s operating budget by 10%, how should the reduction be implemented? Then the next section, appointment versus election. 17: and this is exactly the same question that was asked in 99. If you were appointed and an election is called, would you seek your party’s nomination? Will you run for reelection if appointed? If you are not appointed, would you petition or would you run as a nominee in an election that was petitioned for? Number 18: Do you have any questions about the appointment process? And then a two minute closing statement, and as I said, these are just possible questions. I’m very happy to cut any out or modify them or add whatever.
Painter: I did an update too, and I was glad to see a number of things in here that I would have wanted to have added. One was the issue of the potential for a 10% cut. Good to see how people think through that process. The one thing that struck me as maybe something we could swap out, I would like to see a question about how people have approached the task of strategic planning, and in a sense, that could be under number five: What is your long range vision for Johnson County? But I wondered about how people feel about question number four under County government. How would you feel about selecting from the pool of applicants? I mean I know they have to do that and have to go through that. I was thinking about asking that we consider swapping that out for some kind of question on strategic planning and asking people to give an example of how they’ve worked with that task in the past. But I’m open to other suggestions, such as including it in number five or something of that nature.
Slockett: You don’t have a list of the questions?
Kriz: You’re looking at the 1999 questions right? Not the questions that were proposed?
Painter: Yes. Here are the proposed questions.
Parkins: It’s question number 6 under County government and the new question.
Painter: Right, number six. Excuse me, I was looking at the wrong list. So I would propose the possibility of either swapping out number six, not that it isn’t important, but for the sake of getting some commentary from people on strategic planning and how they approach that process. But I could also see adding it under number seven, as your long range vision.
Slockett: I’d say one of the things I like about number six is it gets to the County’s affirmative action policy and what the views are regarding that.
Painter: That's a good point.
Slockett: So I kind of like having that question in, but I think number seven, certainly I would have no problems with asking about strategic planning.
Painter: Okay.
Slockett: Do you want to just propose modifying or a substitute for number seven?
Kriz: I don’t want to substitute for it, but certainly I think the long range vision for Johnson County is the key aspect, but I think that could be augmented or added to that.
Painter: How would you utilize your experience with strategic planning to implement that vision? Anything like that, that gets us in the door, is fine with me. We could put it in another question.
Kriz: But you don’t have any long range planning without strategic work to be done.
Painter: Yes, okay, thanks.
Kriz: It is another question, but it’s all part of long range planning.
Painter: And Tom, in one of our meetings, I may be wrong about this, correct me if I am. You had mentioned the potential to visit with people about their approach to human rights and civil rights. Was that anything you considered adding? I don’t know how we'd phrase it, but I remembered that.
Slockett: Yes, I’m open to it, whether it needs to be a separate question.
Painter: It could be used maybe as a follow-up question.
Slockett: I like the idea. Where could we put it?
Painter: Well, I think it probably needs to go under County government. It wouldn’t be taxes or budget, and it wouldn’t be land use necessarily or environment, so I would say somewhere under County government or even a third question up at the very top.
Slockett: Do we want to make it a third?
Painter: Yes, that’d be fine with me.
Slockett: Okay, and go ahead and phrase the question.
Painter: How do you view the County’s responsibilities with regard to human and civil rights?
Slockett: Excellent.
Painter: And we could ask how that would influence them as they take on the job as County Supervisor, but they probably are going to say.
Kriz: I would think so.
Painter: Just to get an idea for what they have to say about it.
Slockett: I’ve got the first part down. How do you view the County’s responsibilities with regard to human and civil rights? Do you want to add?
Painter: Do you want to follow up on it? We could just leave it open for follow-up, because we know we’ll have follow-up questions.
Slockett: Sure. Well, I’m happy to add to it, if you want. How do you feel? Do you want to add a follow-up to it and then people will see it ahead of time?
Painter: Well, we could just ask how will this influence you as you take on the role of Johnson County Supervisor?
Slockett: Anything more?
Kriz: I think under County Government, number five, I’m a little perplexed by: Do you feel the new Johnson County justice center is needed, and if so, where should it be located and how should funding be handled? I’m not opposed to: Are you in favor of a Justice Center? But there’s been a lot of work done trying to get where it could be and what could be done. I’d rather leave it more open-ended and see where somebody comes from. It could be as much as no, I’m not in favor of it. But I think we’ve dropped little things there to follow on. I think we’ll get a better picture just by posing the question.
Painter: Putting the question, cutting it off at least in part after the work needed? Do you feel a Johnson County justice center is needed? Or how would you want to?
Kriz: I could be happy with that.
Painter: And then ask how should it be funded?
Kriz: From need comes where we put it, how much it’s going to cost, and I think, anybody that thinks about it, those are all things that are going to pop up.
Slockett: This is something that’s been in the planning stages for many, many years. It’s also something that there have been some two to two votes on the Board, so it certainly is an important issue.
Painter: Yes.
Kriz: I agree.
Slockett: On the other hand, one of the things we might be looking at is how open the person is. Maybe they have a brilliant solution for that. I have no problem with cutting it off after needed. I’m trying to remember, there was a similar question previously. I guess the previous question was do you feel that, number three, do you feel the County has additional space needs and if so, how would you address them? And then, so, we thought that, if there’s just an obvious question out there, at this point in time for the County. I don’t have a problem with cutting it off after the word needed. Do we pretty much agree on that?
Kriz: Yes, I’d be fine with that, and let it take the people where or how in depth they want to go.
Painter: Tom, if you want to ask a follow-up about how should it be funded?
Kriz: Yes, I think that can come.
Slockett: Okay.
Parkins: Needed question mark and then how should it be funded?
Slockett: No, a question mark and that’s it.
Parkins: Okay.
Kriz: On number eight also, under Land Use, I like the first part of it, all the way along, up to the part of what is your opinion about Newport Road? Once again, I’ll express what I did before. I think that’s an issue that’s over and done. While I agree with you Tom, there may be somebody that we’re interviewing that will want to speak on that. So be it, but I don’t see that as a point right now in this. I think the rest of it’s fine. I think the land use and everything is great and all that.
Painter: Well, if anybody had a desire to utilize that instance as a case study in their answer to part of the question they’d certainly be able to do that and talk about it that way.
Slockett: I guess I just think that’s the obvious question that is underneath the question. There are a lot of people in the County that are intensely interested in the answer to that question. We had an election where that was a central part of the campaign and election. After that election was over, the plan was changed on a three to two vote. The remaining members are two to two on that issue. I don’t know for sure how you know that, but if you put someone on who is in favor and who tipped the balance from two to two to three to two in favor, I’m not so sure those opinions that were voted, after the election, might not be reinvigorated. I think it is a very important question, but we can get to it on follow-up as well. So if you’d like to strike that last part.
Kriz: Well, I just really believe that even when it was two to two, I don’t think anybody was, that I sensed, was real interested in going down that path again in the short term. We may have strongly different feelings on that, as to where that goes.
Slockett: I think there are people who are real concerned about it.
Kriz: There could be. Certainly there could be.
Slockett: So should we strike the last?
Painter: Well, we certainly have the ability to ask a fairly precise follow-up. I think that’s a choice.
Slockett: Okay. So, my feeling is that the consensus is to strike the last sentence. Is there anyone who disagrees?
Kriz: I think up to that point, it’s tremendous. It asks a lot of great questions about what we’re doing, and I think if we wanted to get into that topic or a candidate wants to bring that topic up, it’s good to listen to it. The only other one I marked under taxes and budget was 15: What are your ideas about budgeting? I like the idea, but I think that’s so broad.
Slockett: It is.
Kriz: What did we do about budgeting before?
Slockett: We talked about a particular type of budgeting under discussion.
Kriz: Before we had: Do you have any expertise in putting budgets together? How do you feel about performance based budgeting, which was something at the time. I’m just trying to find a better way to talk about budgeting, because we have a Budget Coordinator that puts all that together with the help of the Auditor’s Office.
Slockett: There’s zero based budgeting, performance based budgeting, and there have been a lot of, for lack of a better word, fads in budgeting. I always remember former Supervisor Carol Thompson’s slant on that, which was: I don’t care what type of budgeting we had, you just tell me what type it is and I’ll propose a budget under those guidelines. So I think there’s something to that, but we have gone through periods of time where local government, State, and Federal government talked extensively about various budgeting techniques. I even googled it and didn’t really find any of that type of discussion being prominent. But how people want to approach budgeting is awfully important. Maybe we’ve gotten to those with the 10% cut.
Painter: I wondered about that.
Kriz: Or could that be part of it? It certainly could be.
Slockett: If we can eliminate a question, there’s nothing wrong with that either.
Kriz: You could, I go back to what we used: Do you have any experience putting together budgets and tie it together with 16 or something or putting together a budget. I don’t care whether it’s zero based or whatever, but just what experience is there in budgeting. Then I think it could be somehow tied in with 16 because budgeting is a very key item and will be a key item.
Slockett: What is your experience with budgeting or budgets?
Painter: That’s a good starter question. Do you think?
Kriz: Yes, I was going back to what we had used in '99. Do you have any experience putting together budgets?
Slockett: So should we go back to that?
Painter: Sure.
Slockett: Do you have any experience…
Kriz: …putting together budgets? And then: How would you balance spending requests versus increases? And then I think we could take it right from that.
Slockett: That sounds good. So we eliminate 16, substitute the language: Do you have any experience in putting together budgets?- for 15, and then append, instead of having a separate 16, append it onto 15.
Kriz: Right. How that follows.
Slockett: That sounds good.
Lyness: I’m sorry. Are you keeping that part about the 10% reduction?
Kriz: Yes.
Painter: Yes.
Slockett: Yes. We were.
Kriz: To do all those, we’ll easily need 45 minutes to an hour.
Painter: Yes. It is a lot of questions.
Slockett: We could tell people they don’t have to take the whole hour, if they don’t want to. My guess is it will just depend on the individual.
Kriz: I think it can all be accomplished as long as we adhere to the couple minute opening and couple minute closing.
Painter: Yes.
Kriz: I think that’s a key issue there.
Slockett: Then it should be a pretty interesting process as well. These are good questions, and we’ve got some really competent, qualified, and interesting people who we’ll be talking with.
Kriz: Have we talked about then, am I right to assume then, what we discussed earlier, that these will be given to everyone prior to?
Slockett: If we agree, I would suggest that we just put it right on the web and tell people about it.
Kriz: As long as everybody’s on the same playing field, I’m fine with that.
Painter: Yes.
Slockett: And that’s what we did in 1999 as well.
Kriz: Good questions.
Slockett: Alright. So does someone want to move that we adopt the questions as amended, the proposed questions as amended?
Painter: So moved.
Kriz: Second.
Slockett: All in favor say aye.
Painter: Aye.
Kriz: Aye.
Slockett: Aye. All opposed same sign.
Slockett: Are we down to the next meeting schedule?
Painter: I think so.
Slockett: So I guess one question is what order do we want to interview?
Parkins: I've got their availability. Should I just schedule them?
Slockett: Try to schedule them as close to alphabetically as possible.
Parkins: Okay.
Kriz: Janet, do these interviews have to be in open session? I know HR has the form that they use for candidates.
Slockett: I don’t think you can do that.
Lyness: Right. I think you can say we’re going to interview everybody in the open, and that’s what you should do.
Kriz: Just so we know ahead of time in case that arises.
Slockett: The standard process is that if the applicant requests that it be in closed session, specifically they have to state it’s because it will harm their reputation to do it in open session, then the Board is allowed to have a closed meeting. But I don’t think that applies to the elected position.
Kriz: Okay.
Lyness: I think they should all be open.
Parkins: The law changed on that, where now you can’t even put the interviewees. They’re all closed. You can’t even put the interviewee’s name on the agenda for those positions, according to Pat White and Andy Chappell.
Lyness: Right, when you're doing…
Parkins: The Board ones. The law changed a couple of years ago.
Lyness: Right.
Painter: Okay.
Kriz: I just want to be clear in case that came up.
Slockett: Yes, and people should realize that it's an elected position.
Lyness: This is different because it's an elected position.
Kriz: With other employment applications, your name isn’t already out there where your current employer would know or something like that where it creates a hardship.
Slockett: Well, what do we want to do? We've got most of the agenda covered. There's an item here, discussion on the appointment process or special election. That's just because a petition could get turned in at any time and we would need to discuss setting an election. I think we've covered everything on the agenda.
Parkins: Is everybody okay with something similar to my tentative agenda for Thursday and Friday? It's on the back of the applicants' availability chart. I might change item number three, which would be interview of candidates for the vacant Supervisor's position, if I can't get candidates names.
Painter: Right.
Slockett: If you have candidate's names, if you get them this afternoon you'll be able to put them on there.
Painter: Yes, that looks good.
Kriz: I think it's important that if we state 9:00, 10:00, and 11:00 we stay on time. So if it's 10:15 we'll have to keep that in mind.
Painter: Yes, I agree as well.
Parkins: Do you want the times left on, even if I don't have the names?
Painter: I think it's good to say 9:00, 10:00, 11:00.
Kriz: We're going to give them a time slot to be here.
Parkins: Yes, we are.
Slockett: What if we have two people but not the third, should it say to be announced? And then the same for Friday, with the morning we could have: to be determined. And then as soon as we find out, we can put it on the web.
Kriz: That will be posted on the Auditor's site and the Board's site, just like we have other times?
Slockett: It's on the Auditor's site and then you can get to the Auditor's site from the Board's site. There's not very much posted on the Board's site. I think Andy did have the notice posted on the Board's site, but there's a link to the Auditor's site from the Board's site.
Kriz: I know people go to that, because it's a Board position, so just so it's a simple transaction to get there.
Parkins: If you go to minutes it lists all of the different committees that have minutes, and if you choose Board of Supervisors minutes, it takes you to our website.
Slockett: We could also ask Andy if he would want to put a link to our website.
Kriz: I would like to see that. I'll be happy to ask Andy to do that. That will be a direct link.
Slockett: IT would have to do it, but Andy could make the request.
Lyness: It could also be listed on the County home page under press releases.
Parkins: And then the agendas are also physically posted outside of the meeting room and outside of the normal Board meeting room upstairs in the Administration Building.
Painter: How will we go about the process of notifying and making those applicants who we did not select today? How do we do that? We've often interviewed all of the people.
Kriz: We did all of them last time.
Slockett: Well, we have addresses and emails. Normally I just send out a letter through the mail.
Kriz: I would prefer to send a letter rather than an email.
Painter: I agree.
Slockett: Do we all want to sign it?
Kriz: We probably should.
Painter: I think we should.
Lyness: You could potentially send an email before the interviews.
Kriz: I think generally we wait until after the interviews, but the word is going to get around.
Slockett: Yes, it's so highly public. We could put something in the letter that says that we've decided not to interview you at this time. Chris could do the letter. It just seems like it would be a nice courtesy to let people know rather than waiting, because it's going to be a long waiting period.
Kriz: I'm not worried with the applicants we've chosen.
Slockett: That's something I didn't prepare a sample for this meeting, but how about I work with Chris Edwards in my office to come up with what we think is an appropriate letter with all of our signatures on it. If it's not acceptable, Chris could talk to each of you and come up with a plan to do that process. I think we'll get a good letter.
Painter: I think so, too.
Slockett: Is there any problem with the open meetings law doing that Janet?
Lyness: There shouldn't be, but you could put an agenda item on the Friday agenda.
Slockett: I just hate to wait. How about this? I work with Chris to come up with the letter and if anybody doesn't want to sign the first one, don't sign it and then we'll talk about it on Thursday. Because I just feel if we do it, it would be a good courtesy.
Painter: Yes, and we could get it signed and sent.
Kriz: I am fine with giving input to Chris.
Slockett: Anything else? I'm glad you thought about that.
Parkins: Do you want an item for the letter on Thursday's agenda, just in case?
Painter: Sure, just to have it there. If it isn't necessary, we could skip it.
Lyness: You could also discuss that after you've interviewed the first people.
Slockett: Anything else?
Kriz: There is public comment on the agenda.
Slockett: Discussion from the public? Is there any discussion from the public about the appointment process or a special election, if it's required? Shall we adjourn? Thank you everybody for coming.
Painter: Thank you.
Kriz: Thank you.
Adjourned at 3:07 p.m.
______________________________________________________________________
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By:
On the _______ day of _____________________, 2009
By Casie Parkins, Recording Secretary
Sent to the Committee on October 26, 2009 at 8:45 a.m.