Loading...
CC03-14-2018Min_SMLONGWOOD CITY COMMISSION Longwood City Commission Chambers 175 West Warren Avenue Longwood, Florida SPECIAL MEETING MINUTES March 14, 2018 5:30 P.M. Present: Mayor Ben Paris Deputy Mayor Richard Drummond Commissioner Abby Shoemaker Commissioner Matt Morgan Commissioner Brian D. Sackett Dan Langley, City Attorney David P. Dowda, Acting City Manager Michelle Longo, City Clerk Lee Ricci, Human Resources Director Magdala Ridore, Human Resources Generalist 1. CALL TO ORDER. Mayor Paris called the meeting to order at 5:30 p.m. 2. BUSINESS. Commissioner Sackett moved to suspend the rules. Seconded by Commissioner Morgan and carried by a unanimous voice vote. A. Review the Listing of the Top Candidates that were submitted by the Senior Advisors with the Florida City and County Management Association, and select the applicants the Commission would like to interview for the City Manager position. Ms. Ricci reviewed the Charter and the process they will go through for this recruitment. She said she placed packets on the dais for everybody. She said ICMA has already vetted a round of candidates and per the Charter "the committee will be appointed for that purpose and such committee will be responsible to recommend candidates for such appointment. If no satisfactory candidate is selected by the City Commission, then the committee shall select new candidates for the Commission's review. In the event no appointment has been made within ninety (90) days a new CC 03-14-18/1 committee will be formed." She went over backgrounds and social media since some questions were brought up to HR. She said, I want to assure everybody that ICMA did their vetting the way they were instructed to do based on the resumes and applications. We are going to whittle down the candidates list with the Commission today. She said when we get it down to a reasonable number, HR will be happy to do background and social media checks. I am not going to do any social media checks without legal advisement. Going down this social media slope can be rather slippery and delicate. She said I want to be cautious about doing that. There is a lot of great information out there for us to have and we should be looking. I am not going to be naive about it but we want to be delicate and careful about it and wanted to assure you that is part of our process. Commissioner Morgan asked if the third parry that we used to dwindle down this list did not do background checks, this is solely based on resumes and their instincts. Ms. Ricci replied in the affirmative. Ms. Ricci went over a document the Commission can use as a resource. She said these are general profile elements that any candidate for city manager should have. This is just for you to look at not to turn in, it is something that when you are reviewing our finalist, you might want to go back and reference. She said there are things like, Commission Relations Experience, Communication Skills, Governmental Budget and Finance these are overview headers of things you might want to keep in mind. Commissioner Sackett asked, no weight was given to any of these, so if it is listed first it's not a priority thing. Ms. Ricci said it could be. She said what you could do is go through and say for me, experience is most important, for me innovations and major achievement is the most important, it is just something for you to help you to make your vetting process easier. She said it is just a tool. Commissioner Sackett asked, there is no ranking applied Education on top and Communication last. Ms. Ricci stated, no sir. Commissioner Sackett asked where was this taken from, ICMA or HR. CC 03-14-18/2 Ms. Ricci said either ICMA or FLOC I am not positive, but I did pull it from a profile of City Managers. She said I can go back and find the resource for you. Commissioner Sackett stated, no that is fine. Ms. Ricci said the next document was written in 2009. It is a document that is specific to City Manager recruitment and its all about competencies. She said I think it's a great value document. Granted it was 2009, when you think about social media and the changes since then you are going to want to factor that in but I think it's a great starting point. She said what it does is it breaks up competencies into four main categories and 12 sub -categories and if you read it, it even ranks the level of the importance of these different criteria or different competencies so when you read it in depth you'll see rankings that will help guide you as well. She said, again I want this to be just a reference for you when you are reviewing the resumes and especially when we get into the interview process, for you to be thinking about these things. The four main competency areas are Foundational Traits and Skills, which include things like integrity, resolving ethical dilemmas, inter -personal communications one on one, dealing with the news media. Under Human Relations, there is building trust, listening skills, and persuasion. Under Personal Traits and Abilities, and all of this is still under that main heading of Foundational Traits and Skills. It is things like decision making, problem solving, judgement, self- motivation, team building, crisis management, and time management. Then under Managing Organization, you have competencies such as leadership, how to translate council policies, commission policies, delegation, motivating employees, and direct supervision of subordinates. Under Administration, important are strategic planning, these are things we know we need a City Manager to be able to do. Using budget as a management tool and budget preparation experience. Under Human Resources, there is hiring, discipline, and labor negotiations. She said in this particular packet, it did not put labor negotiations as critical, more like useful. In my opinion with three unions, I am thinking it may have a heavier weight. Under Legislative Institutional Systems, you have general knowledge of national, state and local laws governing municipalities, development of intergovernmental partnerships. Under Technical Skills we have financial analysis of policy options and financial forecasting. Then under Community, which is one of the four major areas, you have leadership, under that would be collaboration, developing consensus on community vision and mission, strengthening the Commission/Mayor/City Manager relationship, political savvy, sizing up community politics, and political sensitivity. Finally the last main section is Service Delivery, effectively implementing programs and services, CC 03-14-18/3 functional/operational knowledge of common municipal services such as police, fire, and public works. She said this packet, from 2009, is comprehensive and it's a great white paper and I think that it really stands up even now. She stated, again just as a resource for you while you are looking at the candidates and especially as you begin interviewing. Ms. Ricci went into the application review and the Commissioners have had time to review them. She said I have gotten the sense that most of you have an idea of maybe your top. She explained there are a number of different ways they can do this. We can just open the floor and chat about it, we can use the form that is in your packet called the Consensus Form or she can make a suggestion. She said, I would suggest you take a minute and mark on the Consensus Form under your name, your top five, just put an "X" or you can rank them if you'd like. Ms. Ridore will collect them, we will do a consensus column and count up everybody's tabs. If I have five all the same then we know we have five the same, if we don't have five of the same we will eliminate the ones that have no check marks by their names and then we will open it up for discussion. Mayor Paris asked the City Attorney if that was okay from a legality point. Mr. Langley said you can do that but keep in mind that is a public record. He said we are going to be discussing what is on the document that has been submitted and it would be available for public inspection upon a request and a reasonable response. The Commission took a few moments to complete their Consensus Forms and Ms. Ridore tallied them. Mayor Paris placed a check -mark for JD Cox, John Klimm, Martin Murphy, James Rooney, and Christopher Vaz. Deputy Mayor Drummond placed a check -mark for Michael Brillhart, Patrick Comiskey, JD Cox, John Klimm, and James Rooney. Commissioner Shoemaker placed a check -mark for Taylor Brown. Commissioner Morgan placed a check -mark for Patrick Comiskey, JD Cox, Glenn Irby, John Klimm, and Martin Murphy. Commissioner Sackett placed a check -mark for Patrick Comiskey, JD Cox, Charles Hammond, Glenn Irby, and Martin Murphy. CC 03-14-18/4 Ms. Ricci said everyone on the list had a check -mark by their name except one and that was William Lawrence. I have two persons on the list with four counts and that is JD Cox and John Klimm. Patrick Comiskey and Martin Murphy have three. James Rooney and Glenn Irby have two. Michael Brillhart, Taylor Brown, Christopher Vaz and Charles Hammond have one. She said what I would propose is we talk about the candidates with at least two or more, unless there is one that has one vote and anyone wants to really speak highly of that candidate. That way we are taking it from eleven down to six, right off the bat. Commissioner Morgan asked if they can do this through two, take off the zero to two. Ms. Ricci said we could, so that would be four, Patrick Comiskey, JD Cox, John Klimm, and Martin Murphy. Discussion ensued and it was decided to have the four come in for an interview. Ms. Ricci reviewed and said Michael Brillhart, Taylor Brown and Charles Hammond had one vote and will not be considered further. Glenn Irby and James Rooney had two and will not be considered further. William Lawrence had zero and Christopher Vaz had one and won't be considered further. Mayor Paris made a motion that the four candidates that were just covered by Ms. Ricci: Patrick Comiskey, JD Cox, John Klimm and Martin Murphy be our final four. Seconded by Commissioner Morgan and carried by a unanimous voice vote call vote. Ms. Ricci asked are we comfortable with all four for the interview process, do we want to cull down anymore, and do you want to discuss the candidates anymore. Mayor Paris said I am very comfortable with at least interviewing four, I think if we can quickly come to four, that is a good sign, and I would very much like to physically face-to-face all four of these candidates here in the City of Longwood. B. Determine a schedule for the interviews of the applicants to be conducted for the City Manager position, format for the interviewing process, and establish a tentative schedule of events for the interviewers to participate in and attend. Ms. Ricci talked about the process. She said meeting face-to-face, that means if I have any of these from out of area, I will be CC 03-14-18/5 bringing them in so I am going to have to have some coordinating to do. I need to check with them as well. She said we will work through that process and I am sure that I can do that via email. As far as cost for travel and everything like that, I will figure that out through the Clerk's office as well. Mayor Paris said he would be okay with even meeting them over the weekend. He said if they needed to be here over a weekend time, I don't necessarily need to be here in City Hall to talk to them face-to-face. I can do it at a coffee shop here locally in the City of Longwood. I can do it at AJs Press here in Longwood. I can meet out in the community so they can actually see the community and be out there. Ms. Ricci said, the travel situation we are probably going to have some travel and cost with that, so you are comfortable with that, so that's good. The interview process that was proposed and was presented from last time was that there be individual one-on-one interviews done. She asked the City Attorney if it needs to be publicly noticed. Mr. Langley said as long it's one Commissioner in an interview with one candidate, its fine and there's not another Commissioner or the whole Commission, then no. He said obviously the conversations that the Commissioners are having with the candidates shouldn't be relayed from one Commissioner to another. He said when there's an interview taking place by the full Commission that has to be a noticed public meeting. Ms. Ricci went over the idea of having the one-on-one meetings taking place in the morning, maybe three meetings going on over at the Community Building, the bride and grooms room, the down stairs room, and two meetings taking place here. Then break for lunch, come back in the afternoon, do the publicly noticed public interviews and then at the end of the day, hopefully make a final decision. I don't know that there is a problem meeting outside of that time frame, it makes a little bit of coordinating interesting for me, but we can do that. I think the first step is going to be to get the candidates and ask them, if this is the day I want to do this, whether it is here or at .a coffee shop or if they say I can only come on the weekend, that's going to be problematic for the public meeting. Mayor Paris said since we are kind of just going back and forth in an open discussion, my point is I don't actually think that we need to coordinate all the interviews at the exact same time. I know the idea of having all four sit there and we sit up here and start firing questions at them, I am not sure that is going to get us the best CC 03-14-18/6 candidate because maybe an introvert that is more thoughtful isn't going to give the exact same answer as an extravert on this end. While that doesn't give me a good idea when you sit them side by side, one-on-one I can talk to a person and get a better feeling. He said I am not really super concerned about getting them all here and saying okay we need to find a week or weekday that all four of these candidates can fly in, stay here, we all can figure out a time to come in here. I would be very, very okay with, if one of them can be here in three days, let's get here as soon as possible and interview him. If one needs a week out, then a week out we do the next one, and so on along the line. He said if we want to bring one or two and do a second round of interviews at that point we can worry about that. Ms. Ricci said to make sure I am clear, you would be talking about someone could come in three days, meeting with them maybe on Sunday, and then are they going to have to come back for a publicly noticed meeting. She said they would have to potentially travel twice. I just want to make sure, I mean there is a possibility that they could come on Sunday and meet with you for coffee and then on Monday we would have the publicly noticed meeting. I think I need to get a feel for them as far as availability. Mayor Paris said I am just giving you my opinion there's four other Commissioners. He said I think to expedite this, we need to be flexible on our end and maybe we get through the four interviews one-on-one and we already know this is the one we want. Maybe we go through the four interviews and there are two we need to bring them back. When we bring them back that's where we do both of them sitting down here, and we can basically one-on-one or head -to -head get a feel of what we want from there. He said I am all about flexibility in this and I know we are all busy and have day jobs, this isn't our full-time careers so it's going to be a difficult thing but we need to make sure we do this right. Ms. Ricci said I think the scheduling will be interesting. I think the first step is going to be for me to contact them and find out their availability. To be honest with you, these eleven candidates, unless they have been following this, don't know they are in the finalist group. She said, these four, my first touch with them will either be this evening or tomorrow morning. When I get with them, I can find out how soon they can make themselves available and I will target some dates. I don't know if you guys have preferences, but we will target something in the next two weeks. Commissioner Morgan said we will do our best to work around their schedules. This is a really big decision here guys, we have CC 03-14-18n nine to five jobs, but we have to put this where it belongs, priority wise. Commissioner Sackett said I am not really in favor of that sort of plan. I know when we interviewed, my wife interviewed to come here it was you be here on Tuesday, this is your interview. He said we flew in from New York to Orlando. I would have no problem if I was one of these four gentlemen if they had to be here March 29'', that we would take that whole day and do it right. The suggested plan that you said round robin them a couple of rooms here and couple of rooms there, and mainly, because we want to get this done correctly, I don't want to see Mr. A on Monday, Mr. B on a Thursday. He said I would rather put it all together while the frame of compare and contrast is closer in my mind. I would rather do it first thing in the day, afternoon show them around town and then if they really want to stay part of this process, then vet them in the public meeting. We have Georgia, Oklahoma, New York and North Carolina, let's get them all here just within a period of time. Commissioner Morgan asked Commissioner Sackett, you are saying you would do a public meeting right after we do the one -on - one's with them here. Commissioner Sackett stated, later on in the afternoon, yes. Ms. Ricci said the way it was done before, Candidate A met with one Commissioner here and then they moved to the next Commissioner and all the Commissioners got to meet each candidate one-on-one. She said then there was a break, the candidates were brought over to the Chambers and brought in one at a time to be interviewed by the group, publicly and then after that public meeting or interview a meeting was held to determine your final selection. Commissioner Morgan said this is what is tough about this decision is I like both sides of this. I like what Commissioner Sackett is saying but in the same token I want them to be comfortable. He said because to get to know someone properly you want them in a comfortable environment. Some people are not good test takers, some are not good being in that position, and one could argue then they aren't right for City Manager. He said I prefer for them to be in a comfortable environment so I can get to know them the best. What's tough about this in the same token is if four or five days go by and I start to forget how it went with this past person. CC 03-14-18/8 Commissioner Sackett said these people are all professional administrators/managers, they are all public speakers and I would hope that introvert becomes extroverted in a conversation with a one-on-one. I would expect it to since that is what they have been doing for their career. Commissioner Morgan said I want to knock through their veneer, this is a tough decision to make and I don't want any BS artist to come in here and fool us because that's what they have done for a living. He said I want to knock through the veneer and to knock through the veneer, you have to get them with their guard down, and you have to make them comfortable. Ms. Ricci said you are so right on. She said you know that's the beauty of interviewing. I love interviewing because I want to get to know them, pass the canned answer that you have given me, what's the truth. I think the traditional recruiting would say do it in a structure environment and consider the level of candidates they are likely to say, I will be there when you tell me to be there. If I have somebody that has a problem, I will come back to the Commission and we will figure out the flexibility side of this. Mayor Paris said since this is an open forum, maybe we can come up with the blends of both. Commissioner Sackett said I think that would work. He said say one of them can meet on Tuesday when the other three can't, but they can on Thursday, then you call us back together. Mayor Paris said or we just set up a three day period. He said we are going to be here anyways. We bring them down for three days and that way I can spend as much time as I want. Not like the Bachelor, where I am hopping from person to person to person. I don't want it like speed dating, I am picking a City Manager so I may need a three hour meeting with one of these applicants. Ms. Ricci said I want to caution you also, there is that perception and the City Attorney can weigh in on this. He has spent five hours with this guy and only two hours with this guy you have to be careful about how that works out. Mayor Paris said even if it just here, I think there is obviously extremes. The point is, I am not sure I would feel entirely comfortable on a deadline hopping from the bride suite to the Commission Chambers to our room and literally these guys are just getting hammered one after the other, answering the same questions rehearsed. I would much rather take my time with a candidate and speak to them and take as much time as I need. CC 03-14-18/9 Ms. Ricci liked the idea of showing them the City and maybe that can be part of the one-on-one outside the office. I don't know if that's a good or bad idea, but it's a little bit more creative Mayor Paris said we could wrap it all up on one day when we bring them all in here for the public meeting. Ms. Ricci said you do your one-on-one interview from the seat of a vehicle or maybe walking around outside. Mayor Paris said that would be good for me because I want to be able to have the interview and then process what I heard from that particular person. He said give them due diligence of this is the person I need to think about, this person give them their time and this person some time, but I love that forum, it's a very good step we made but if the rest of the Commission wants to do the jumping around, all four of them in one room and we bounce around, I will go with it. It's been tried and true. I understand that I don't need to reinvent the wheel, just speaking from a personal perspective I prefer to bring them in over the same weekend, all at the same time, tell them this is the weekend you need to be here or these are the three days during the middle of the week and we knock out one-on-one interviews, tour of the city and public meeting all in three day period. Commissioner Shoemaker said I am not for one-on-one timed interviews as he is talking about because we know I can talk and I don't want to have it, I didn't ask this. She said what Mayor Paris is saying for the one-on-one, if we don't have to do it in a 30 minute time period per candidate, I would like what Mayor Paris is talking about more, if it is doable. Ms. Ricci said the only thing, again I would recommend some consistency, and no one has more than a two hour trip around the City, and this one gets five hours and this one gets two hours. Mayor Paris said we should definitely put a cap on it. Ms. Ricci said some guidelines on it and then I am comfortable with that if the Commission is, it's creative. Commissioner Shoemaker said a half hour is not enough for me. Commissioner Sackett said I am not in favor of that only because they can get a feel for the City. If I flew in I would fly in a little early so I could drive around, maybe you could show them around or a Director could show them around. He said in the past, a CC 03-14-18/10 couple of times, in all the interviews I have had, a one hour interview is extremely long, it's taxing on you as well as the other person. Since we have to frame those questions appropriately so it gets through the veneer of the person. You should be able to feel that in 45 minutes. He said I think that compare and contrast is what you have to keep fresh in your mind if you stretch it out too far, you may forget. I would say, 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. let them spend a day looking around the City with our Directors and then we come back together at 5:00 p.m. Ms. Ricci asked if this is your decision. Commissioner Sackett said my gut feeling is with these four people it's not going to be hard. What's going to be hard is there's going to be one or two in here that are going to be, yeah this is the pick. He said the difficult part is to get the feel of that person, if that person also wants to be here in Longwood, looking around at what do we have, where are we going, and where are we growing. He suggested some other coordinated event besides them, like business people speaking to them, so they have a feel about Longwood. Mayor Paris said I am not actually married to any idea 100%. He said let's just see what the rest of the Commissioners would like to do and we can roll with that. I am okay with any decision. Mr. Langley said I am not suggesting this, just throwing this out, I know the idea of one-on-one meetings then the public meeting, and there is nothing that says you can't do the opposite. He said maybe the public meeting first and then ask similar questions of everybody and then the next day one -on -ones but whatever works, whatever you guys want to do I'm saying don't think you are tied to that order. Mayor Paris said I'm okay with that, I am actually more okay with that in the long run because my last time talking to them speaking on a one-on-one situation, which I would prefer. Commissioner Sackett asked if that would be a night meeting or in a day meeting Mayor Paris asked if 5:30 p.m. would be good, and the next day to the one-on-one interviews. Commissioner Sackett said he can see positives to that. He said I really want to show people the City. CC 03-14-18/11 Mayor Paris said it would work out nicely if during the day, a couple of the Directors take them around the City. Then in the evening we can do the group public interview, and then the next day we can find out time schedules to meet with each individual Commissioner one-on-one even if it has to go to the day after that. He said if it has to be over two days, we can do that. Deputy Mayor Drummond said it is almost going to have to be two days for the individual. He said you figure four people each have to meet with five Commissioners two hours a piece, that's ten hours. Ms. Ricci said if you are doing the one -on -ones in the offices it would be 45 minutes to an hour, so you would be able to get done in four hours each of you. She said we would keep them rotating through. Deputy Mayor Drummond asked are we talking about showing them around the City individually. Ms. Ricci said I think we are having Directors give the tour of the City. Then that evening or late afternoon do the group interviews. She said you will get to know who they are, in that group setting, then the next morning we set up one-on-one interviews that would be anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour each. HR will rotate them through so you will see somebody for 45 minutes get a 15 minute break, then another candidate for 45 minutes and you would be done theoretically in four hours. She said then we come back together maybe, for lunch or late afternoon to make a decision or the next day if needed. Mayor Paris asked if that is acceptable with everyone. Commissioner Sackett said it is different, there is some part of me that says I would like to see them one-on-one before they do the group, but I think that it could work. Mayor Paris said I am okay with it, I like that forum. He said it actually it gives time, from the group setting to think it over through the night, think about what I want to talk to them about in a one-on-one interview. Mr. Langley said it is whatever the Commission wants to do on the order of it. He said another advantage of the group one first would be, because you are probably going to have a canned list of questions, you ask everybody, you are going to get the benefit of those answers before going one-on-one with them, so you're going to learn a lot and not waste extra time asking those core questions CC 03-14-18/12 you ask every person in an interview so you can just go right to the specifics Mayor Paris said that is what he was thinking. Mr. Langley said if you get an answer from someone you are not sure about and the next morning you can ask them what they meant by that. Ms. Ricci said exactly, that is when you break through the veneer and drill a little deeper there. Commissioner Sackett asked if they make a commitment with our staff to show the candidates the highlights of our City. Ms. Ricci said they are happy to do that. Commission Sackett made a motion to support the routine where we bring candidates in, we have a general public meeting to interview as a group, then we spend the next session after the tour of individually interviewing the candidates, and then come together to make a decision from that point as where to go. Seconded by Mayor Paris and carried by a unanimous voice vote. C. Discuss profile of successful candidate and review consensus rating form. Ms. Ricci said in your packet is a little cheat sheet of questions you should ask in an interview and how not ask them. She said we want to make sure we are doing the right thing. It is just a guidance and then I put in the interview questions that were used in the previous recruitment for this at the group meeting interviews. She said Commissioners ask two of these questions and the first one is somewhat outdated. It needs to be revised to be a little more current. I would like your feedback on that and whether you want to use these questions or whether you want to use others all together. Commissioner Sackett said get rid of one and two and I don't have replacements yet but I will fmd them. Mayor Paris said you are a specialist and you are well regarded all over the County and if you could gather some more updated questions that you deem to be fit and also our Acting City Manager if you would like to have some input on what you think is important since you are currently doing this job, I would very much like your input on what you would be looking for as well. CC 03-14-18/13 Ms. Ricci said Mr. Kelton had promised to make me a list of questions. I will get his feedback and we can cull it down to ten questions and call it -a day. Mr. Langley asked for clarification, for that public meeting, the interview, you wanted one candidate in the room at a time. Ms. Ricci replied in the affirmative. Mr. Langley said you would ask them to respect those wishes and allow each candidate to be in the room alone. He said it is a public meeting but they should respect that since they are trying to obtain a position here. Ms. Ricci said she would discuss that when we set up the interviews. 3. ADJOURN. Mayor Paris adjourned the meeting at 6:17 p.m. Ben Paris, Mayor City Clerk 1 CC 03-14-18/14