 Hello, everyone. I'm James Milan, and this is a one-on-one conversation with candidate Patty Brennan-Sautel. She's a candidate for Town Clerk. Patty, thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me. Thank you very much. I want to follow up on a couple of things that came out in the Town Clerk's debate, and specifically the fact that, or start with at least, the fact that you present your technical and your management experiences, you know, clear strengths of yours. And also, you referred several times to your ability to change, or having had to change, the culture of a place before. So, let me ask you, as far as you are concerned, does the culture of the Clerk's office need to be changed? Absolutely. I think there are great staff there who are hungry for a change in technology. You know, we're in 2020. I don't think we should be using typewriters. So, there are so many opportunities for technology, and I guess I look at technology in kind of two buckets. One is the part that you see, and that's the social media, the online transactions. So, you know, for folks that, by the time they get home, the Town Hall is closed. They don't have an opportunity. So, having online transactions in a way to communicate is great for them. Now, that's an added tool. It never takes away the human interaction, you know, once we're done with COVID, and we can have people in the Town Hall. So, yes. So, we absolutely need to look at our processes. So, that's the part that people see. Now, the other part that's sort of behind the scenes is that when you have so many paper-based manual processes, everything just takes so much effort and time, and that takes away from the real focus, which is the customer. It's the resident. So, I would much rather see us fix those processes, make them much more efficient, look for opportunities to streamline processes, and then put our focus on the resident and engaging with the resident. And if I might ask, like, how do you plan to do that? And by that, what I mean is it's hard to change the culture of an institution of any sort, and usually takes time. So, I know you're talking about introducing more efficient technology and processes. Is that in and of itself the change in culture you're talking about? Yeah, so I think it's a great question, and I talked a little bit about this in that candidate profile. It's not just technology because there are people involved, right? So, you have to be able to have leadership skills, you have to be able to implement change. I have done that for a number of years now in changing systems, some that were paper based, now we use technology, some we just changed and made the process more efficient. And it's interesting because we find that so many times when you say, why do you do this this way, the answer is because that's the way we've always done it. So, having experience in beyond my time, the 11 years with the town of Arlington, I have 15 years of doing the same sort of thing in another industry. It's really working collaboratively with people and engaging the employees so that they understand like, okay, here's the big picture, here's why we're doing this, here are the benefits of it. And I've been very successful in making multiple changes at the town. And again, in new technologies and making processes more efficient. You were saying that you're very mindful of the fact that the employees, you have to be interacting with them, leading them, managing them in a way that is both effective and works well within the dynamic of the place. How, just tell us a little bit more about what your approach is to managing people and managing an office and managing a project. So, I don't know that I have one style and every project is a little bit different with what it is that you're changing, but I will say in general terms, I am definitely very approachable, I listen. So, one of the first things I have on my action plan is to talk and listen to the staff. What are the pain points? Right? Because they live them every day. So, it's that two-way communication and it's making sure that you involve all of the parties. So, even if it's something just for the town clerk, does it affect the treasurer? Right? Does it affect the controller? So, understanding the bigger picture and making sure all the parties are at the table. And again, everybody has a say, everybody understands every step of the process, what the ultimate goal is. So, you know, clearly introducing and adapting to both within the office and within the larger community, new technology and new processes, absolutely key to what you have in mind. What about people who just aren't comfortable with that? Either they just, yeah, they're just not comfortable and those people, again, might be out in the community or they might be in the office. Yeah. So, and I answered this, I think, a little bit when we talk about customers. So, I look at technology as adding a tool to our tool belt. Okay? It never replaces that human interaction. It never replaces having, you know, the person who wants to come in. I spent seven years in health and human services. I'm very mindful of particularly, like, take seniors or people who this is a way to socialize because otherwise there's that element of isolation. And, you know, we don't want that. So, there will be people who want to come in because that gives them some human contact. So, technology is always a tool. Now, in terms of employees, and again, I have worked with a spectrum of people from people that are just, yes, bring it on to, this makes me anxious and I'm fearful of this change. And it's really, as I said, it's guiding people and making sure that they understand the process and that they're in, involved in the process. And as they see it unfold, it becomes a little less scary. Mm-hmm. What do you think is the biggest challenge to doing what it is that you want to do? Or want to, I mean, you don't have to pick a single biggest one, but what is a challenge that you can anticipate in terms of what it is that you want to do? What you've just been describing that you want to do within the office and as the office faces out into the community? Wanting to do it all on day one. I think that's really my biggest challenge is, you know, I am just so ready to go. And I know, again, because I'm an employee of the town, I know the staff and honestly, they're hungry for the tools. They see that many of the systems that they're working with or processes that they're working with are just, it's just, you know, it just takes too much time. It's inefficient. How much of the work of the clerk's office, you know, my sense of it would be that a lot, an awful lot of it is out facing to the public or, you know, welcoming the public in as they need to take care of certain tasks. But that interfacing that you've already been talking about plenty with folks coming into the office and understanding where they might be coming from and how to communicate and service their needs. How much of the of the clerk's office work has to do with other, you know, relations with other departments in town hall and within the town structure? Yeah, a lot. So, you know, there's so much that goes on behind the scenes and, you know, things like we're going to be facing capital budget season pretty quick comes up pretty quick. So that is something where you're working with the Comptroller, you're working with the Capital Planning Committee, then you've got operating budgets, right? And then you've got new election machines, right, that we have not even tested yet. So there's training. So that's going to be training of the election workers and having them understand what the new equipment is. So there's so much that goes on behind the scenes filing of all of the state reports. People don't see that and don't probably care as long as everything is done the way that it should be done. So I think there's so much that's behind the scenes that folks don't see. Okay. And, you know, there's a long held perception, I think, that, you know, from within, I think the clerk's office, that it is a place where there's a lot of work to be done, important work almost all the time and not as many resources perhaps devoted to, to that as possible. How will you tackle that aspect of things if you find that that is indeed the case? So this is super old cliche about work smarter, not harder. And I think that really applies here, you know, and I'll give you a very specific example. So the clerk's office receives on a regular basis the new list of registered voters. The list is all encompassing. So it's, if there were a thousand names on it yesterday, and I added five names, they get a thousand and five names, they're literally going through a thousand and five names to see who the five that were new. That's a quick change. Yes. That's a quick change, right? So there's an opportunity. So yeah, I think there, when you have such inefficient systems, when everything is paper based in its manual, it just takes longer to get work done. And then you feel like you're in this reactive mode where you can't catch up. And that's what I want to eliminate is just be smarter about the way we work. You know, I am happy to spend the final three and a half minutes or so here with a little thought experiment that says, okay, Patty Brennan-Sautel gets elected town clerk. What happens then? What happens the next day? Okay. So it's funny because that's exactly, I feel like June 7th, even though it's a Sunday, it's day one, right? So we need to, because of COVID, which is really throwing, you know, another complication into this, is make sure that, okay, when we open and allow staff back in, what's health and safety precautions are there? Also, when we get ready to have the public in, what are the health and safety precautions that we need to take? We've got town meeting and some form is going to happen. So how do we get ready for that, whether it's going to be held on Pierce Field, whether it's going to be a Zoom call? We have the contract has expired for the clickers during town meeting. So how are we going to address that? How are we going to address community outreach if we are still in masks and we can't go out? So what's the plan there? Low hanging fruit, social media. Let's update the website. Let's get Facebook. Let's get Twitter. That's super easy. We also have, as I mentioned, new election equipment. People need to be trained. We need to get up to speed on that. Let's start looking at online transactions. We've got all these paper records. How are we going to digitize those? And then as I mentioned, we've got the whole financial picture where we've got capital and operating. And then don't forget, we have election in September and November. And then on the heels of that, we're going to be back into dog license season. So there's a lot to be done. Yeah, well, clearly so. And you've obviously thought through the extent of that. But that makes me wonder, won't it require a lot of triaging in a sense on your part when you first get in there and won't the first month or two, obviously, you can't tell exactly how things are going unfold at all. But won't you have to prioritize certain of the things that you've mentioned above others? And who knows where, or you tell us, where does the, where do the changes that you want to start introducing, where do they fall on that list? So I think, again, with COVID, that adds a wrinkle. So that's really number one is, how do I keep staff safe? How do I keep the public safe? Right. So that's going to have to be number one on meeting with the staff, identifying pain points. So even if that's a not something that is going to be fixed right away, but at least we can identify and get a game plan together. And again, town meeting is coming. So like that has to be a priority as well, in terms of making sure that people have the materials and that we're just that it's organized in whatever fashion town meeting is going to take place. And, you know, we are, we are left with a mere 45 seconds. I'm not sure if you want to add anything else in before we sign off, but yeah, really quick, what I want to say is it's funny as I talk to people that, you know, some people look at it as which of the three candidates who are all nice people. Do I reward by voting for I would ask people to look at it as who is the most qualified, who can make the most impact, who can step in right on day one and be ready to make the change that is needed. So my website is patty4townclerk. June 6 is the election and I would greatly appreciate the opportunity to work for the folks of Arlington. Thank you very much. Thanks for your time. Thank you to Patty Brennan Sautel, a candidate for Town Clerk, and thank you for joining us.