 Okay, you're all set. That's okay. How's that? Would be greatly appreciated. And I'd like to offer special welcome to the Village Trustees joining us here tonight. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you. Yeah, this is just another, another joy meeting in a series of several that we've lined up and have had. So some good, some good work together. Pat, is there any additions and changes that we need to consider? We have one, and it's the Fire Service Background Highlights of Peter Moloska. It's agenda item 5A. Okay, is there anything else? That's it for additions? That's it. Yes, sir. Okay, then I would ask for a motion to include this Fire Service Background Highlights for item 5A. Thank you. Thank you, Ari. Any further discussion on that? This is the same thing for the trustee. Should we include this agenda item? So moved. All those in favor? Seeing the five, saying aye. Aye. Opposed? The motion passes for zero. Second. Who moved? Who moved it? I moved. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. Okay, moving right along. On the next item is public to be heard. That's time for the public or anyone to speak to the select board and trustees tonight on any item that's not on the agenda. Is there someone here tonight wishing to speak? I see a hand. I wonder if you could just state your name for the record, please. It just seems very static and I was hoping that someone could look into it and make it more vibrant. Like, you know, you can't find anything about what's going on about their management recruitment. It's not on the front page. I don't know. You have to read web messages. There's hardly a minute. There's nothing about any traffic or anything that's going on in town. A lot of the links, like I wanted to check the budget again. I put the link to the budget. It doesn't work. So I sometimes have to make public records because of Doug. Oh, sorry. Great. I'll look at it. For things that I think should also be on there, that would just make things easier and better communication to the residents. Okay, so you see an issue with the website? Is there? I think we can, you know, take a look at it. That's Shannon, who is our web mistress and also the IT department. And I need to be here for you more direct. Just add them to that same sort of thing. You could say your name, John. John Shepherd. Thank you. Today I was looking to get caught up on this meeting. And I was able to find the town and website and stuff. But after that I really got lost. It couldn't, for the life of me, I couldn't find where this meeting was posted. I'm sure it is, you know. Everyone tells me it is, but I couldn't find it. And it's not like I'm clumsy with the computer. I mean, no more than anyone else, I guess. It's difficult to use the website to find out what's going on. Okay. Thank you, John. Got the message. Thank you. Anybody else wishing to speak during public to be heard? I used to call the resident who lives in a non-shooting zone over the weekend. And I guess the hunters are out because we have a lack of signage. We've been dominating where people are and are not. It's supposed to be discharging firearms. People felt endangered. People felt panicked because they were hearing shots all day long. Because we're going to have that conversation soon. I just wanted to pass along the feedback that I got. Okay. Is it said to the chief of police? Okay. See about, I'm not sure what signage is. I don't know. Out there. So you talked to the chief? Okay. I will. I'm looking a little confused, but that's okay. It's part of my new look. I will find out. Okay. I'm ready now. I'll talk to you in a while. Okay. Anybody else? No. Okay. Then we're going to move on to our business section. First item of business then on item 5A is a discussion regarding the alignment of fire departments. And tonight we have Pat. We'll introduce it. We have Chief Cole, Chief Chris Gaborio, and Peter Malaska. Who is an honorary chief and a former chief of the town? So really we have three chiefs. I'm honored to have you here tonight. They're in the past several months. And in the spirit of consolidation of service delivery systems. I have been talking with chiefs regarding alignment. That's alignment of the basic functions and structure of the department. A little bit of history back in 2006 when two chiefs were called for a merger task force. They talked about what they were doing as far as aligning the department in the primary areas of what they did. Budgeting capital purchases and training and education. And the people who were at that meeting sat back after the presentation and said, Gee, the alignment is perfect. And it's been that way for a while. But as things change, things come apart a little bit. And so one of the key people helped set that up in his early days as chief of the Essex fire department was Peter Malaska. So I contacted Peter to see if he still had his notes from next year. Of course he does. And speaking with both chiefs, I thought that perhaps we might start edging down that path once again. And the reason why it's on the agenda now is because the first thing we're going to look at aligning that you all will be involved with is the budgets. The two fire department budgets. So nomenclature of charter of accounts. Structure of pay for the various officers. And those things will come before you when both of you, when a subjunction fire chief presents the budget and the Essex fire chief presents the budget. Moreover, Peter with his vast experience in the fire service would be like a facilitator in part. We will have a better name for that role in the very near future. But I would like to introduce Peter to you by way of sharing some of the highlights. And that was the addition that you got. Yes. Peter began his service in the late 60s as a member of the South Kensington Connecticut fire department. He was one of the founding members of St. Mike's fire and rescue. He's a longtime member of the Essex Junction fire department, attaining first assistant chief rank. He's Essex fire department chief. He's a program organizer, faculty member and first department chair for the BTC fire science program. A faculty member for the fire science program at Southern Maine Community College. He worked for the Maine Fire Training Institute during the early 2000s. And he's been involved in various other fire science and fire service activities in this region. Great background. He's also a nice guy. And he's generally well respected throughout the fire community and works well with the chiefs and the departments. So I want to take advantage of that opportunity. And also by saying this to you now, providing you with an opportunity to say anything, that you may want to offer. Just because I'm leaving doesn't mean I'm stopping working. And this is the next thing on the list. And I want to get that started before I go because the three gentlemen in the back will be carrying the ball. And they are evidently capable. They're thoroughly familiar with the fire science service and each other. And are the president experts. So this is not to be confused with consolidation. This is really alignment here. I choose the word alignment because that's the historic and the folklore word that has made most sense in what we're doing. How it differs from what's been done in the past is we're starting with aligning the areas that will generate the efficiencies first. There have been two words that have been tossed around and they're two different words but being effective and being efficient. Being effective and most of the work that we've been talking about before is putting two departments together. Going from duplicated to single, going from two to one. The two fire departments are going to be the two fire departments and so the alignment is going to be in areas of the major functions. The memo that came your way, November 3rd, talks about the alignment of current departments. Chief officers, no change. Line officers, no change. Responsibilities, no change. Organizational structure, no change. But policy procedures and operations and training are going to be the areas of alignment and the first thing we're talking about within that is the budget. And I don't know anybody who's here and I don't mean to take over the discussion if anybody else wants to chime in. Fine, but this is really for you guys to mull over a little bit right now and I'm not looking for permission to continue. I have that authority, I have that authorization from you all. I'm just giving you a heads up that during the budget discussions that are right around the corner in January, village in December, all day work session. This would be a time if you wanted to add to that work list or are you comfortable with what is coming your way? Can I chime in? Please. First of all, Peter had his talk discussed this with a little bit already and we sincerely appreciate the effort you put in your time in here. So thank you very much on that. I agree with you. I guess the question that I'd ask here is probably from the two chiefs, look just a general sense in terms of looking at alignment consistency for best practices and implementation. Are we looking at something that is, anticipate something that is a real sea change in the way things that are going on now or you're pretty close to the goal line already. Do you have a general sense of that? Is this going to be, would this be disruptive at all or business as usual and you can absorb some of the changes as you go along? Any input on that and any thoughts about that? I know you haven't really gotten into it yet but maybe you don't have a good answer but if you, anything you could add would be appreciated. Any thoughts? Well, thank you. I would say that it would not be really upside down disruptive. The both departments currently share an automatic mutual aid agreement so we both rely on one another for our calls for service. We're also bound by state regulations as well as NFPA guidelines for how we operate. So any policies or guidelines that we put pen to paper on would just be alignment so that our people are doing the same thing as close to possible but they are still within the overall framework of NFPA guidelines. So there won't be anything really crazy about, you know, fire trucks going to leave with only two firefighters on it instead of all the seats filled or anything like that. It's not going to be that drastic. In terms of, for training or organization, that's not, nothing in there is substantively not a change or, you know, anticipate anything like that. Correct again. That's all covered under the umbrella what you're talking about. That's correct. The training that we do now, both departments, we have a training curriculum that aligns so that at the end of a year's cycle each firefighter would have enough points or research credits to maintain their level of certification. Whereas some differences are the village has a ladder truck so they do more aerial operation with that than we do, but we have a tanker truck so we do more rural drafting operations. So there's some differences, but again, they're not super different or foreign to either department. Thank you. Everybody else says you could go back? Yeah, I'm pretty much the same. I mean, as Charlie stated, really with the fire service, we operate very similar. So it's a matter of really just refining what we do to make sure that what we're doing in Essex, what we're doing in Essex Junction aligns. So we're starting at the very top level just before budget time to take a look at just basic administrative things. Once we move off that page, then we'll get into some of the operational details. Okay, thank you. And purely selfishly as manager or whoever sits here being able to look at two different budgets and make comparisons with all the nomenclature being the same makes it much easier from managing financial resources. So that would be a simple change that will take place. That's still a lot of work. And don't forget, we're paying on-call fire departments. Yeah, it just makes sense to look at best practices and then apply those across. So at budget time, we're going to see a new format for the village and the town finance of fire budgets or village one become whose budget line items are changing, the villages or the towns. Both of them will be changing together or definitions will be changed. I can't answer that question right now. You will not have any difficulty with your review of the budget as a result of what we're doing. Would it be possible to see what we can compare to the prior years for the board? It'll be good. Other comments or questions? Either more? As soon as we're done with the board discussions, then we're going to put it up. So we've had conversations about how the different fire departments are paid different rates for different activities. Is that one of the type of things that you expect to be looked into? Yes. And I heard you say that the two departments will be the two departments. So this is not on a consolidation track. I just want to deal with the elephant in the room because if you read the Essence Report last week, we're full steam ahead on consolidation and I did not get that impression at the last joint meeting we had. So I just want to make sure that I walk out of this meeting and that Colin does understanding that the two departments will be the two departments or the two departments will be the two departments until you or someone else says they won't. I said at the beginning that this is not about consolidation, this is about alignment. It's not consolidating limits into the town budget. Let me jump in. I think that it can get confusing and I think it's important to keep in mind that if we look at the Essex Junction Fire Department, the total property being it's owned by the village of Essex Junction. The property is owned, the buildings are owned, millions of dollars of equipment. We can't, even if we really wanted to and we don't right now, we can't just sign that off and send it over to someone else. The village voters would have to put it out to a vote that have to. So no real material financial consolidation of that nature can happen without a pretty big event. We'll all know about it. I think we'll be able to vote. So I don't think that would happen. It should be perfectly clear. This is not a proposal in any way to merge two departments. That's the one. If that happens, that's on you. You will be determining the government structure, you. Not this administrative effort to have a well-run, well-managed department. So we're not, we're not way up here. And I'm sorry, Colin, if I didn't read the article, I don't know what was in it. But you understand the difference between aligning a budget with rebuilding the department. Peter, you look like you're ready to say something. Michael, this is for you to make a comment. Please do. I think an easy way to look at this is a very limited scope of operation at this point in time. It's taking what each department is currently doing and what we've done in the past and taking a critical look at it now and to say, are there ways to make some minor changes in our operational procedures to improve on what we're doing? And so that there's more consistency in areas that need more consistency between the departments to make a seamless operation more efficient and in some cases more safe. It really doesn't go beyond that. And it isn't to increase any expectations of anything than I think the term alignment. You know, alignment to best practices of each department to work a little bit closer together. Thank you. And it's a great opportunity having you here to help with that, with your background and experience. I think you're quite fortunate to have your help. Questions or comments from the boards? Everyone good? Mary? So just a response to Pat's comment that it's on us to make the decision to make this holiday. I would just like to suggest that it should also be a decision of the volunteers who actually show up two in the morning to fight a fire. I would want to make sure that they want to consolidate before anyone top down tells them they are consolidating. Two different teams that I am aware have a lot of a screen decor within those teams and I would not want to be the person to tell them they are merging. I would want it to be something that comes from within and I would want it to be not just the chief saying it, not just the captain saying it, I would want to hear it from every person who's part of those fire services, but that's also what they want. Otherwise, it to me may not be the right direction to go in. So I don't want it to be up to just the select board of trustees. If I heard you correctly, it's up to us to make that final decision. How we get there, we'll figure that out in time. It's your governance question. It's ours. Anybody else? I hear you, I mean, I understand what you're saying. This is the staff. I think we would all agree with you. I don't think anyone's disagreeing. I just want to make sure it's... I don't think that's... I think we're far away from that kind of a scenario. I think we're really... The way I look at this is that in anticipation of further talks about governance, as that's happening, should we get to the point that the two fire departments would be ready to be consolidated, but even in that scenario, I would anticipate that they would pretty much continue along the paths they're on already. I don't think there would be... You'd need a fire department in the sense pretty much where it is right now in the village and pretty much where they are in the town. I don't think there would be, even in a consolidated environment, there would really be a big sea change in how things are done. That would be my anticipation. Other comments, questions from the boards before we open it up? One more. I got confused, Pat, when you said consolidating budget, everything else makes sense to you. You're just more or less really talking about a more uniform chart of accounts type of thing and uniform personnels, pay scales, and not really budget-aligned. If I said consolidating, that's on the speed. You said alignment, but when you said budget, I got confused. It's not dollars. Yeah, I think it's alignment. I think of a new manager coming into town who sees two fire departments and is responsible for hiring the two chiefs and then looking at the budgets with the chief. You want to be able to have some sense made of it yourself, bring a little bit of that managerial review to it. And money is hard to come by, so we want to be sure that it's spent. But also, we're looking at salary structures. We don't want to be competing with each other for talent. We want to make sure that each of the departments are pretty much in line with pay for similar ranks. So, I mean, there's some... There will probably be going up, too, not bringing down. So it's going to be a more expensive department. Well, the minimum wage keeps going up. I hope that the pay stack is on the way. Okay. Are we clear? Yeah, yeah, I think so. I think so now, thank you. Irina, we're clear. Okay, I just don't want to leave anybody confused at all. Please, right there. Okay, well thank you. Thank you all. Okay, and thank you again, Peter, for your service to help with that and the chiefs for all, which you do for our community as well. And, Tim, in your departments. So, thank you. Okay, yeah, so we should move on. I have a couple of questions and I'll try to take a little bit of control of this for this item. So, we're onto the manager recruitment update and we constructed a memo that I think is sort of baseline and describes where we are at this point in the major. Thank you guys. Thanks for the tasks that are ahead of us. And there are two items. One has to do with us, a function that we have to anticipate is trying to recruit some folks to be on the citizen panel. There are going to be three panels that will be interviewing the finalists. And one of them will be a panel of professionals. As I understand what Don described to us, they're basically municipal managers from other towns in New Hampshire and Vermont and some other municipal professionals. He's bringing them together. I don't know if they all know each other and have done this before. Maybe some of them have, but some of them are unique just for us. There's going to be a panel of employees. He's reaching out to village and town staff asking people, do you want to be on this panel? Don is going to do the selection of these panels. And then finally there's going to be a citizen panel and the overall approach is Don wants to have about 20 to 30, a pool of 20 to 30 candidates to choose from. And he's basically going to select people on the basis of his experience, what's worked in the past. As he described it to us, he wants to get a kind of a mix of the community, of backgrounds and people, gender, age. How he's going to tell that by their bios, I'm not sure. But somehow or other he'll figure it out. That's why we hired him. He's the pro. But we talked about this and frankly one of the things that we noticed, we had a relatively low turnout for our survey. I think it was up to about 50 people had taken the online survey, even though we had repeatedly advertised it in local media. We just didn't get that giant turnout of public interest in it. Why more people aren't interested in helping us recruit the new manager? I don't know. But we can't figure that out. Maybe it just isn't just a time of year. But anyway, in discussing it, we thought it would be a good idea for all of us to try to recruit people as well. And what we volunteered was perhaps each one of us, each board member could reach out to a person that we know, a neighbor, a friend, someone we know in the community. At least one person, maybe several, and have them send a brief bio, their name and contact information to Dawn at MRI. And Dawn also recommended that if we know people, again, people in the community that might, not necessarily neighbors and friends, but people former elected officials, people who volunteered for committees, people who know the community well and might be interested in this, keep in mind it's an all-day commitment. So whoever we recruit, he recruits has to understand, whoever puts their name, it has to understand they're going to be busy from about 8 o'clock in the morning to 5 o'clock in the afternoon. And it's going to be a pretty long day. It's going to be like jury duty. You're going to be, Dawn is going to facilitate the group. But they're going to be in a room and they're going to be interviewing candidates for another all-day long. I think it'll be fascinating for people to do, people who really want to find out about Essex and Essex Junction and get a sense of other people who are here and get the first look at the potential managers. I think it'll be an interesting piece of work. But it's going to be an all-day commitment. So that's step number one. So MRI is going to choose from that. We're supposed to send names to Dawn, and Dawn is going to, I think somewhere around the third week in November, or second week in November, he's going to, yes, by the 24th. I'm sorry? No, go ahead. There's an e-mail that went out, and then it's in the personal control room. The e-mail that is in there to send to, that's not Dawn's e-mail, is it? It's a staff. I didn't see it. Is that the e-mail that we should have people send to or direct to Dawn? My understanding is there are going to be two separate e-mails. One e-mail is going out to Village and Town staff, and then there's going to be, well, the one posting for staff, and then there's going to be a community posting in front of the porch forum. Is that the one you're talking about? That's already got out, and the e-mail came out, Jen. No, what I'm asking about is the contact at MRI that the bio and whatever should be sent to. Yes, that should, that should, it should go to MRI. It's in the letter, the e-mail addresses. It's whatever's in the letter. It's not Dawn's e-mail. We said we're going to submit e-mails, but we're not for this. There are submitting directions. You're submitting directly to Dawn. You're going to reach out to the people to submit your name and bio to MRI. Should this be different people? No, not necessarily. I think that can be people who've already participated in one of the events already. Some people were called, and were on the interviews, and so I think I don't think it matters. And you said it would be like eight to five or five thirty, and it's on the 12th or December 1st. It's on December 1st. It's going to be all day Friday to September 1st. Yeah. So it's a big commitment. I got a question from the resident. You're wondering if they're being fed lunch. Yes, yes, they're going to be fed a delicious lunch. It's going to be, and it's going to be great accommodations. We're making sure that. We had a little trouble because Dawn wanted four meeting rooms that were close together, and we're racking our brain. The schools are out, and so we can squeeze two here, but not three. We kind of concocted a mix of the senior center, Lincoln Hall, and the Brown Hill Library. So that was the closest we could get them together in one place. We're going to have lunch and probably coffee, and the way it's going to work, Dawn is going to facilitate the Citizen Group, and he is going to have MRI staff facilitate the other two groups, and all of the groups are going to have snacks and comfortable accommodations. And on behalf of the candidates who will be interviewed by Dawn facilitating the Citizens' Movement, I'm going to stress not to do his job by trying to call back in people's homes or do some of your own research. You will have done that. Confidentiality that you really have to hope for because there's only one vacancy and there may be six or seven candidates for it, so the best number are going to go home empty, and so the finalists generally let everybody know that there are finals, but the preliminary rounds are not so much, so he will have his work cut out for him, and so when you're talking to the people that you're recommending, you can't stress confidentiality and not for him. I know in the world of transparency that it doesn't play well, but it's still a recruitment and we have to respect those votes. I think it's absolutely clear to the folks when he convenes the panel in the morning that's correct. People's careers are at stake. They'll have a little training session. Okay, that's good. So that's an assignment and I would urge everyone as soon as possible if you know someone. Yeah, I wasn't at the last meeting, so I don't know how much this was discussed, but you mentioned a couple of times that Donald will facilitate. I talked to somebody about this last night to encourage them to do it and they asked, you know, do I have to come up with questions? No. It's kind of what I thought that it would be somewhat... Good questions. Everybody's going to be asked the same questions, similar questions. He is going to give... they're going to be given questions and the questions that they're going to be given are derived from all the other inputs and information that he's gotten from us already from the survey they're going to be sort of extracted from that and he's going to come up with a list of questions and as he said, he is going to tell people you know, for example when you ask... there might be 8 or 10 questions some people, some candidates may be particularly long-winded and you might not get through the entire list some people may give very brief, accurate answers he is going to tell folks there's nothing you can do about that if you can't make everything you can't make everything equal and you're going to have to just take be a little flexible in how you respond but he is going to... he wants to facilitate that group in particular because the others would be a little less problematic but he can head off any inappropriate questions or anything like that that shouldn't come out in that kind of a session setting. So it's going to be like volleyball and they're going to rotate every half hour or something I think the candidates are going to rotate through the process and then there's going to be there was also we were talking about setting up a tour so that once they're done because it's only then for the rest of the day or for the people who are going in the afternoon they'll get a tour of 81 Main Street and the fire departments I'm not sure what all the highlights of Essex and Essex Junction are The Waste Water Treatment Plan is always the big one so it's award winning so I mean seriously I'm not sure we'll work that out ahead of time I think that they'll probably be to sort of get a sense of for not just for the candidates but for candidates, spouses and significant others what it's going to be like to live here to move here from so they can get a sense of that schedule it says here that I've committed to take the December 1st the vacation day well let's get I'm going to get into the next let me get into the next piece I think are we done with this so the next piece is how this is actually going to transpire and initially the idea was there was going to be the panel interviews on Thursday they were going to select out of six people the top three I mean Thursday November 30th and then the following day they were going to then tell us the three candidates that we were going to interview on December 1st Friday December 1st that was in the original schedule and that's why we had originally said everyone should anticipate taking Friday December 1st off we thought that that might be problematic for a lot of reasons we thought that if we just showed up on Friday morning and we were told yes the panels interviewed six people yesterday and they decided that these are the three that you'll be interviewing some of us might have said we would have liked to have seen all six we probably would like to have known a little bit about we're not completely comfortable that as much as we trust the panels but we might just want to have some input ourselves or some sense of gee the ideal candidate that we thought or someone that looked really interesting that we wanted to put in the mix got rejected so we wanted to have Max and I thought it might be important for us to have some kind of overview of the candidates that are being interviewed on track of the six finalists that are being interviewed by the panels so that we can make sure that we concur with the judgment of the panels. Don assures us that based on his experience we will we will agree with the decision of the panels nevertheless we're different here and so we decided we'd still like to have some kind of put in the door to see who's who and make sure that that one person that we might want to talk to doesn't get bias so what we came up with was a kind of a compromise where the ten of us will sit in on the professional panel on Friday we will not ask questions we will not make comments we will just observe the process. Don thought that would be the best one because those of the folks will be asking some of the more inside baseball kinds of questions about local government that we might think are important but we will not be engaged in that we will just observe it we're just going to the one panel we're just going to that one panel but we will see that panel interview all six people and then when that panels work is done we leave now this would for us we're going to have to convene an executive session because obviously we can't have the public come and watch people who are from other jobs from other states being interviewed here it would not be appropriate it has to be done in executive all of these would be essentially executive session it had to be closed we can't have the public here so we would have to convene this in executive session all executive session we go into it and come out of executive session we leave and then we will go off somewhere at the end of the day on Friday the three panels will convene and from their discussion they will select the three candidates that they believe should be passed on to the select board and the trustees the next day they will tell us so that we will have seen the six candidates and we will see the three that they're selecting we'll know the three that are selecting and make sure that we agree with the decision of the panels is that clear what I'm saying and so the following day is when we will then interview on Saturday the three panels and that will just be the ten of us and Don will be in the room again not so much as a facilitator but just to sort of be a guide and to make sure that again no inappropriate questions are asked by us that we might think is perfectly innocent but no you shouldn't be asking that and so that's how it goes what he anticipates for that day is that if we start at 8.30 in the morning on Saturday and we interview three people we should be wrapped up by 11.30 or noon sometime and then however long it takes to deliberate if we can come to a decision at that point it's kind of open ended no one can predict what will happen that's the obvious it may be completely up the ideal situation is it's completely obvious to all ten of us we make the selection and then we go on to the next phase of negotiating a contract on the other hand if that's not what happens and we can't come to a decision or we want someone to come back we want to see someone else it's kind of open ended at that point but there's ways to deal with that Don has dealt with all the we asked what happens if this happened here's what you do he's kind of as far as I can tell he's dealt with all the different scenarios of what happens when you don't come to a decision at that first juncture so curious will Don be doing background checks of all six prior to the meeting because if you're going to go from six to three I don't know on the front end which one so during the time that the essays are being done now is when Don said he's going to be doing background checks on the people that he's setting the essays on you will have everything you need done prior to that day as I understand it Don will give us questions but I think we can also ask our own questions the only thing we have to try to do is be consistent we can ask those to the others but he'll guide will assist us with the process but he's not telling us exactly what to do the questions not a question but I if we specifically talked about December 1st last time I apologize because I completely missed the busy date assigned to it I don't remember either it was on the schedule that we had it's I remember I was kind of talking more nervously about the process and really specific dates Thursday Friday Monday Tuesday whatever so for me that Friday is totally not going to work so I can make the Saturday I think it's obviously the Saturday we must make the Saturday I think if we don't if you're comfortable that you don't need to go to that because we're not making it's the first Friday after Thanksgiving there's no way out it's going to be tough I know it's tough time here I'm scheduling anything we have a big launch Friday for Thanksgiving so I think that's fine and if one or more of us can't make it there it's fine it was just we wanted that opportunity some of us wanted to observe and I think just a check and balance you have a little bit of concern about is I'm in a similar situation I'm not sure I can make it December 1st the thing that I worry about is those that can make it and sit through the six interviews the day before will have made up their mind already does that marginalize those of us who can't show up or can't be there that's a concern of mine I don't know it's hard for me to predict what people are going to react I mean I when we were talking about this with gone what he kept stressing to us was the three candidates that get passed through by the panels you will agree with our decision I think I don't know if he said did he say it's always happened that way he sort of implied it's always been this way I've been through this a lot and when we when those three panels make their decision the board's inevitably agree I can't I can't be any more accurate or truthful than that that's what he's saying as he's telling us so I don't know if that assuages your concerns or not but one of the reasons that I was in favor of hiring somebody to do this was we wouldn't have to spend a lot of time doing the hiring process ourselves so I'm more inclined to let Don do his job and give us the three candidates and then we all come in fresh that Saturday morning with our preconceived opinions because some of us may have seen them the day before I'm very concerned about that so you would have us, you would say I mean we don't have to it's not a requirement and we were advocating when we did this because we thought that there would be some desire to see the six finalists but if everyone feels very strongly that we don't want to do that then we can renegotiate it I agree with Andy ultimately we're not even going to be able to have a choice in the matter what you're saying Don is going to make the decision on the three finalists and he works for us though right he does but the thing is he's going to make that decision and we're going to do the interviews of those three and like Andy's saying that we watched the interviews on the other three all six that I don't know I hear what he's saying and I tend to agree with him in that sense that when he says that this is the way it's always been and that everyone to all the boards he's been before have always agreed with the three choices or whatever number they picked is he saying that has he ever had a situation where a board has come before the selection process and sat silently and observed that process as what you're proposing I don't think so I think most boards have gone along with it but he kind of just said it's flexible and as Max said he's working for us and so when he said this he said it's fine we can accommodate you and I would add that the other thing that he is kind of saying that he's passing three along but it might be that just one is so much more of the obvious choice than the others but you're getting two others that are kind of okay but there's no sense in if there are a couple of people that you can just clearly eliminate there's no sense in putting them and putting us through a day long interview process so I think that's why he kind of felt that three was a comfortable number but I would strongly suggest that three be a comfortable number because if one bubbles up to the top there's no guarantee that if you extend an offer it's going to be accepted so you're really going to have to weigh heavily the other two very good point I'm okay with not having the select board or spam writing really that's I'm good with not being that private well so you can't be there yeah I can't be there so it's not my trick but I think part of what we purchased with the service was the process and I really think we should let the process play out as it was defined okay well this is good input I think the other thing that we do is it really shows that we're putting the trust in the process putting the trust in the community members and professionals doing this and that we don't have to control it well I will say it makes it a lot easier if we're not there because we have to go through this awkward process of morning of an executive session going into and out of executive session and explaining all that and yeah it makes it it obviates that whole process so okay well then we were overly cautious the one thing you won't be able to do though is if there were four candidates you'd want to see because you know it was one that got cut because you had to go to three but maybe we'd want to see so we won't have that opportunity but you know that's okay my question is what if the panels have different candidates they like is there a way to not come to three at the end of the time at it sounds like three different panels will come to three that three candidates are their favorites that's how we said that's known as very predictive it's just you know the flower is going to open and the candidates will murder it's very clear there's just not a doubt about it he's very certain about that so it sounds like we'll just do the interviewing on the second Saturday of the three that MRI says are the three that we should see right? I think it's 8 or 8 3 he said 8 3 is that good? it's going to be tough I mean I think I hate to go back and try to set up another date oh it's not a date are the dates good because that's not a response I just don't want to start too early it's a Saturday for all of us whether we're traveling or not yeah the reason we did well we did it first because we thought everyone was going to be coming we thought if people wanted to come to the Friday and take a day off of work then they wouldn't have to so you see what I'm saying it was all for naught do you think you'll need any assistance from the staff and the staff that's really been assigned to you guys is Travis and it is a Saturday so I could give them another day off or something if you think you need them for any reason we might have logistics issues with buildings or something I would say definitely yes I would say maybe Travis and maybe one of the village staff as well who knows their way around Lincoln Hall well it doesn't have to be a senior person it could be Darby I just wanted to get a rise obviously one of the people and one of the folks in the office but I mean someone who knows their way around the offices and the library and everything I would recommend that Travis I think Travis made contact with Darby and Patty already and to set up the meetings the rooms and everything so but I would just say encourage them maybe a couple of them to be there because that would be helpful any other comments from the boards on this I think we're doing good and I know that John has something to say yeah you may have already decided not to do it but I was going to say very strongly I don't think it's a great idea for the boards to be there on Friday you know one you're doing double type of second guessing type of thing and that sounds like well what the hell are the citizens there for anyway you don't need them you're going to do it twice the other thing is some people might feel inhibited with the board sitting around it's like I don't want to be asking this guy really tough questions if you're looking at me Elaine might be very offended because I said you know not with the professional boy the citizen one that's what I'm talking about is people might be inhibited from saying anything with the select board and the trustees at the citizens panel the idea of the citizens panel is having your citizens do that let them do it, don't try to control it even by playing big brother you're not, I know that I understand from what George was saying what the real intent was and it looks like oh yeah that makes perfect sense but it's one of those things where you know really good intentions might not be getting you what you want you know so there was that part about inhibiting the citizens letting them do their part and the other thing is oh wait a minute you're also doing a double type of thing and maybe not even equally because some people can't be there or would be there you know like Andy was saying well just stick with the original design and leave it be yeah that's fine and change the date because I can't be done for any that's just me yeah I don't think we can change the date I know, he's joking he's joking it's from the wrestling 10s to one date is it's tricky this time of year I'm happy that you that I know it's just a professional one too but I'm happy about that too because sometimes it does change the dynamic and they talk differently but this is worst case scenario and I have seen it happen but I have seen it where it gets to the point where the top three in a recruitment are nixed by the final hiring people so you could always get a choice to go to four, five, and six so don't stress too much well that was another thought we had in mind was that if we saw them and we didn't like the top three then we'd say well that kind of revive wasn't too bad but that's let's assume that everything's going to be okay trust the process trust the process so I don't know is that good everybody good with that okay alright so that's all I had for that and that interview meeting will be our next joint meeting as far as I know are we coming up with our own questions no Don is going to have I'll make when I understand Don was saying he was going to have some questions for us and he talked to us I had a time that had some questions but we can overrule him and have our own questions I think we want to have him look at the questions too that if you have an additional one the key piece is just being consistent we'll be informing everybody going into this about what's going on leading up to it so you won't just show up on Saturday morning we'll make sure we understand what's going on but for scheduling if we have three people on Saturday it should be out of there by noon or 12.30 hopefully well with the interview the interview should be done by 11.30 okay then how about we move on to 5C and that's a discussion again about the governance discussion you wrote the memo I wrote this memo because I was one who took the notes as I said in the part of the memo my apologies you all had a lot to say and I just took one little bullet point from each of you and just wrapped it up here so I wanted to I thought what we should do is just make sure first of all that my bullet point is accurate and then maybe elaborate on this and now that we've had time I think when we introduced this there were different thoughts about how we should proceed should we have try to have a joint meeting in March when we talk about governance should we have it in this kind of a setting or should we have it in some kind of a less formal setting on a Saturday so how should we approach this and then the other question is in anticipation of that meeting what what kinds of documents do we need what we'd like to have what would we like any people to be there that can speak to us about consolidation or governance what is a village Andy and I had had a little conversation about exactly what is a village in Vermont what is the difference between a municipal entity that's a village and just something that's considered a village and it's pretty complicated so we want someone like that to come and talk to us about that so I just thought we'd try to flesh it out a little bit more Elaine? I really appreciate that you put these notes together George and I am really looking forward to having a very in-depth conversation with both boards I'd like to recommend that we do have some kind of offsite work session that would be public but not around the U shaped table but rather we are all in a room together having conversations I think it would be smart to have this conversation facilitated by somebody who has expertise in local government maybe it's someone from VLCT or someone from Vermont Institute not sure who that would be someone like Susan Clark or a person who has some expertise in different forms of government and then while I agree that we should our plates are quite full and a meeting like this should probably happen later, not now I wouldn't want to not look into these questions prior to that so I would like to be able to look at these lists of questions and start pulling together some research that we can all start reading and just think about between now and then the closer we get to the date we put together an agenda and some reading materials so that we are all prepared for the conversation we can add line items to this too and there's actually one I'd like to add that's to understand the tax rate impact to the community as a result of a merger outline and plan and mitigate that Is the question here maybe it's under George's comment if we end up with different tax districts we could potentially merge but have two or more tax districts or awards or whatever and how does representation need to be done can you have three budgets, a general budget, a village budget an outside the village budget and different groups vote on different pieces and like that you're really thinking about this you haven't been thinking about this a lot those are great thoughts the other one that could be significantly challenging would be to go to a director on democracy where you have a group like us set policy about everybody vote on it all the time I know there's significant challenges to that making sure that only the right people are voting I don't know that's probably completely impractical well as a first step with everything you just just asked in a very practical sense like the idea of three budgets for example would you want to have ask someone who has some expertise is there a legal way to do that if you have multiple budgets who gets the vote on which ones who sets those budgets would you want to ask a question ahead of time and then they send us the answer when we read it or would you like to have the person there to be able to ask all the conversation the secretary of state's office could probably provide some really strong guidance and possibly facilitation I'm wondering if it's really reading if we could be expected to have just one session to talk about or would we break it up into chunks and say let's have this discussion at this joint meeting on this date and then follow it up with another chunk on another day or something I think we need to have a conversation and then as early as possible the public needs to start talking to us I think once we start going down the road of this conversation the public is going to want to weigh in in a major way and we have the ag group who will definitely want to have a hand in this conversation and I just totally jumped in on Sue's request to speak so I apologize for that I wasn't sure if we were not raising our hands I was just being rude, sorry my comment at the last meeting was the experts in terms of what are the options and I think Annie just threw out some great brainstorm ideas but unless we actually kind of get fed some original expertise knowledge on what can we do it's hard to have a real conversation so what I was thinking was how do we tap into maybe some different perspectives of expertise maybe it is people that have had experience and are in government in some capacity but maybe it's also there's some academic who just has deep knowledge of government and what the options are in Vermont and in the U.S. in general I would think that it would be very valuable to have people in a room that could actually get some questions and get some answers I think we're going to have to schedule these discussions over but what we could do it sounds like it could probably be a couple of people that would satisfy what Andy is talking about and we could probably leading up to this say we can't have everybody we can't have a whole we might want to have one or two people and here's what their background is and their expertise and what does everyone think and start off with having that person and then we can fire questions does that sound like it? Irene? I'm already dealing with Billia Clark and she let us through TGIA and since that's kind of stalled out maybe she could help us get to the next level of what do we do with the TGIA report and how do we see her in the area until it's for month and same thing with the rec district I know there's been talk of the arts district in the village is that something that needs to be talked about and explored and worked out with someone who understands what an arts district can be is there a way to incorporate the library and the arts district that's what I've heard said again the identity of the village and some residents I want to make sure that that's preserved and who can come talk to us who understands that and can help get us past the certain roadblocks that I think we've got at the moment in some areas Can't feel a special tax industry for recreation is that what I'm hearing? I'm just repeating what I've heard over the time that the village wants to keep its identity they don't necessarily want to have or I don't think there's all kinds of constraints on the library last year so there are things that need to be explored and I want to get off the starting block and talk to them about interesting to go back to after Don got finished looking at the survey interviewing people and everything he said one of the things he was saying to us casually he's saying wow one of the things you guys have to really think about identity of the town outside the village and the town inside the village while you continue to consolidate it's going to be a tricky thing to explore so it's done yeah that's it I guess that's something that is obvious there's ways to do it yeah guys any thoughts? you weren't there Andrew so I didn't get your thoughts that's all good like the concept of having experts come in and speak with us about the options I know I'm full of preconceived notions I'm full of assumptions and having somebody come in and blow those up and or confirm that I would greatly appreciate the opportunity oh I agree with the idea of bringing in some experts as I've said that meeting their consultant the LCT or the lawyers whoever just to get before we jump into this what, excuse me, what can we do what can't we do we may make a decision on something that really doesn't comply with state regulations or with what hasn't yeah sort of ground us these are the rules this is what the parameters we have for what we can do and options and bring somebody in to facilitate the meeting what are what are the thoughts about trying to do this and just to get a general timeline and it may not be possible other things come up that we don't know trying to do this in March in March after after town meeting sort of begin this begin this, yeah I don't anticipate that we're going to come out of this one morning maybe that would be incredible but I don't think that's going to really a year long conversation I don't think any of us think that it's going to be like two meetings don't work on it is March too soon to start this and try to get the ball rolling part of the thinking I think we were talked about was that we're assuming we're going to have a new manager coming on Pat may still be around his contract is up in April so it might be it might be an opportunity to have outgoing and incoming be part of this big conversation and also sort of see where we all are and get them thinking about this stuff after town meeting after town meeting before village meeting village meeting is of course the baseball and we think about doing this on a Saturday probably I just thought that doing it in this kind of I mean after at the end of the day I mean I can I can think cogently for about an hour and a half maybe two hours you know I mean this it seems like we want to maybe do it in a different setting in a different time of day it seems for these kinds of questions and to have a more robust and casual conversation well we're going to get public involvement in anything Saturday's work best we struggle to get people to come to meetings as it is and as you're saying these meetings they go late in the night for hours on end people get tired and it's hard like you said to think I think it's ideal if we could get one of the schools being a Saturday maybe an auditorium or something like that that you can get people in I don't know whatever or even the cafeteria we've done that other functions yeah talks about that for library meetings I think we can figure that out if we agree that it would be Saturday different environments we would be in war meetings so public could and we need to find a way to get their voice in their audience understanding that we're talking about the line item here was governance it touches everything like tax how do we mitigate the tax change how are we going to vote it touches a lot of things so it's a long conversation that we're embarking on I hope that all of us have the attention span and the political will to have this conversation it's a difficult conversation but look it's going to have a lot to say it's going to be very varied so I just want everyone to be prepared there's some folks in our community who have really been waiting a long time myself included to have this conversation so it's great that we're going down this road I'm really grateful to everybody at the table for being willing to start this conversation we'll see what comes with it any other thoughts about this good I'll try to do a little bit better a little bit more and get it out to you all and then again we won't probably won't discuss this again until we're actually doing it okay I don't anticipate well we might just give updates about who we have lined up maybe that's what you were just saying my question was going to be do we have any actions between now and that training well I think what I could probably do is just try to maybe if we have a joint maybe it'll get to the point where we'll really need some decision making what we can do what Max and I could do with your permission is that we can try to get some names and you know people like Delia and look into some state people people at the LCT and possible facilitators and try to put slowly put a list together and send it around but if it gets to the point where we have to talk about it and make hard decisions then we'll probably have to bring it up in a joint meeting sometime between now and then we're going to plan a joint meetings anyway yeah and this should probably be a standard line on there are we on the path to get there maybe we'll get more organized and then we'll get back to you make sure we're on the glide path the glide path that's right the glide path is that like the lean turn so we don't crash into the river okay so are we good with that yep all right so then we go into 5D and that's the the manager evaluation format so we've been kicking the can down a little bit yeah Ben do you all have a copy of the information with you tonight or is there anything available to go back to where we were before not a question do I have a shear moment to give oh yes I do so just by way of the historic folkloric back in 2015 Brendan Kelleher did a research effort quite a substantial one and an excellent one on various evaluation forms for manager evaluation exactly like some of the expectations that people have who are citizens as well as some of the expectations that people have who are elected by citizens and evaluating a manager there were a couple of formats that bubbled up to the top one of which is the one that you have and the one that you have comports quite nicely with the ICMA university now making a galactic leap here assuming that you will be continuing your membership with the international city and county management association I highly recommend that you do it's a wonderful source for information they have put together annual conferences that focus on eight pillars of excellence eight areas of concern I mean they market it along the eight pillars of excellence but essentially there are groups of skill sets that from time to time are important and they're not always the same and they're not always at the same time however there's an annual opportunity that managers have and even those who aren't in ICMA they pay a little bit more to go to one self-assess each year in where areas that you feel that you would like to learn more about and particularly if it's something that's going on in the jurisdiction and then you have an opportunity to go and learn about what's going on moreover and for me far more importantly if you bump into people that have already done what you're embarking on and you know having a cup of coffee at one of the breaks in the sessions you get more information sometimes from that because you get an email address where you can access documents and other things to bring back to the municipality so I'm being long-winded here but the various groups that are identified in this ICMA university is probably relevant in some way shape or form now to make the form that you use to evaluate useful you would want to be able to say if you said GPAC you know you suffer from a lack of ability to text and to stay current with the technology why don't you figure out a way to get caught up here a little bit because we want access to you that way as well and although I would probably cringe a bit I would say well the next ICMA conference I'll see what they have and attend it or if there's something locally at Champlain College for example I would do that so that would be the kind of constructive area focused skill set development that would take place that you could see some measurable return thereafter and then if I still wasn't responding to the text then you could have a more important conversation with me as it relates to my future employment with the town or what have you areas that are generic I think you will discover them through the interview process but there are things that you should carry on anyhow such as management style I'm sure one of the questions that you're going to be getting to ask the finalist please describe your management style and then you could decide for yourselves whether that person's management style and you hope that it's going to be accurately portrayed fits in with what your expectations are going in now I have a certain management style and it has worked for me you may not like it or not but it's dead all these years and if I were interviewing it I would tell you what my management style has always been and if you didn't like that don't hire me because those kind of things don't change they're part and parcel of the whole individual there are opportunities to learn new and different styles that are perhaps more effective with the different generation of employees so there are opportunities to go to again the ICMA conference and learn about different generations in the same work environment that you are supervising and if you're not from one of those generations you do need to understand the expectations that other people have in the workplace in order to be an effective manager budgeting well that's something that you don't need to annually evaluate because you're going to see it every single meeting you're going to see it during the development of the budget and then you're going to see it at times when staff has to come to you for spending the money going out for grants and other kinds of things and then you're going to see budgeting skills financial management skills along the way and that will be easy to evaluate irrespective of the form organizational roles as you all know I have an onboarding slash meet the council manager from a government two and a half hours torture that I put you all through when you first get elected and I put all my new employees through when they're first hired like roles and expectations it also focuses on things like charters we all have roles it's the charters of law and so we're expected to sort of pay attention to that standpoint but it's good to remind everybody and particularly newly elected people because they may not have the working knowledge that I would assume so it's good to have something like that on going so you have an opportunity in annual evaluation if your manager might be exceeding their role maybe getting a little too close to I don't know telling the police chief what to do which you don't do trying to tell the village president what to do which will probably get you out gone to see it but in a more serious area sometimes roles change sometimes laws change and expectations change in the folks in Montpelier so we evaluate those kind of things media relations is the manager out there hogging all the headlines that's not what managers do in fact when I first met Colin I said we're going to get along real well if you do not write my name in there I'm not the reference but we have two capable leaders who are the spokespersons for the community you want to talk about administration come see me but then he said good Colin is thinking never tell a journalist what to do they have rules too I know please forgive me Colin so and then leadership once again you're going to have a golden opportunity when you go through your interview process to ask what is your leadership style you know if a guy says hey man I'm a great supporter of Teddy Roosevelt and I just follow me the promised land was going to charge up San Juan Hill I don't think that's going to work and so you'd be able to say that and you'd be able to see that and you'd be able to say ok well you know what or if the person changes and says ok now we're going to go charging up San Juan Hill you have an opportunity annually to say wait a minute now no you can't just do stuff without coming to OX nobody elected you so understand that those are extreme positions but nevertheless it gives you an opportunity to have those discussions and goals and objectives you've heard me say this more than one occasion in the first six months I strongly recommend that you have a consultant and you put together goals and objectives for the manager and the elected people and then the manager and the department heads and you make a list of those and you assign who's responsible for those things and you monitor them quarterly everybody is on the same page heading in the same direction or there's an opportunity to discuss it along the way so that at an annual evaluation you go this guy does that but they didn't pay attention to the goals and objectives no you have an opportunity along the way to say hey listen something better came up we want to do that and the manager has an opportunity to say yeah well so which one of these things are we going to rank to the lower priority because they can't do all of it or we can't do all of it and again you have that opportunity to do it publicly quarterly and together so you build a sense of togetherness you have a common vision and let's not forget the heart and soul one of the many things they wanted us to pay pay attention to closely with that common vision that allows for all of the things underneath it to work your point about preserving identities in the town and the village and you have a chance to evaluate it so in a form like this can be very useful in some of the areas particularly if there's something that's very current and not so useful in other areas I mean recruitment, has the manager recruited excellent personnel I do believe that I recruit excellent personnel but I also believe that I've made mistakes in my career and sometimes great interviewers get the job and then perhaps they're not great employees long term it happens sometimes and so there are other things that the manager has to do to gain your confidence and are we hiring good people maybe the follow-up question is are we retaining good people employee retention is also a way to evaluate what's going on but it's a self-evaluation of you guys as well because we all have an impact on how an organization is going to work and what the morale is and what the budgetary decisions that are made during the budget are going to have for impacts I think that for each different role that we enjoy statutorily we also conform a commonality of purpose and direction and vision that allows for various and sundry different conversations along the way but we keep moving in a general direction of making the place a little bit better having been here collectively and I think that's the benefit of something like this as a format the questions here are you could change them any way you want and some people are going to be harder rakers or raiders than others but I think the point is not so much that they'll slap somebody but is to understand and develop a level of understanding of what the job is and if you think it's changed don't keep it a secret I would like us to repurpose our management team in a different direction we have that opportunity to evaluate that at the end of the year I told you several times when I first came here my evaluation was tied into the contract and it was I never had a face to face evaluation they talked about performance and personal skills and we kind of evolved into the manager and the chair had frequent chats about the managers or the staff performance at a meeting and as I became a little bit longer tenure and a little braver I offered some suggestions on the gavel and what I thought it should have come down or if it came down too quick or if something happened that I heard about from the staff when they were there talking before the board and so it was kind of an ongoing discussion and I still do that today I have always done that for everywhere I work with chairs and it's not because the tail is wagging the dog it's because we are on the same team, we just have different jobs it's like quickly football team and we all know what Bill Belichick says do your job the center is not going to go out for a pass because he's not going to be able to block for the quarterback but Tom I'm open, I'm open, give me the ball Tom's flattened out because the guy he should have been blocking got through so I tell my staff do your job you tell me do your job and we all try to do our job as best we can and this is a golden opportunity to say when somebody is doing their job from your standpoint and you don't do it at a public meeting you come to me and you say hey we would like to see more of this XYZ going on or how come we're not picking up the Christmas trees are you know just ask a question and you'll get an answer it's real easy communication well that's part of it and you know I was blessed by having great assistants along the way who are much better communicators than I am particularly internally and I actually learned how to be a better communicator from assistants and guess who I have now former described it is important I try to communicate with the ten of you and I don't know how successful I am sometimes I do my best you know I'm passionate about my job you know I love this place so sometimes I may come on a little louder than normal or a little stronger but passion is something else you ought to try to evaluate don't hire someone that doesn't have the passion for the job it's a hard job but people who choose to do it have passion for it and they're going to love you and you're going to love that so back to the evaluation format you don't know everything I do you don't see me you're not expected to you're not but you do have some expectations and a good place to communicate those are at an interview I don't think you should save up all the bad news for annual time if you don't like it don't keep it a secret and good news please continue saying good things to the employees public employees and I think Ramona will testify we do a lot of hard work and we do it in the vineyards of local government and most people don't see it until they don't like it but you see it better than all the people who have elected you and that on the back goes a long way and it goes around and it makes those long evenings a little bit easier so anyhow that's all I have on this topic I mean it was presented to you if you want to go through it you know individually or you could have some things the danger here is that you might wind up evaluating me or somebody I work for publicly so that's not the intent I know it's not the intent you know so I had some suggestions on the tool on the format I'm a big fan of Huberx and I think Huberx helped with really setting what the expectations are so that everybody's on the same page and I also think that having a scale like this was unacceptable to outstanding is very subjective and I think a Huberx helps with taking some of that subjectivity out I think it would be a good vehicle to help especially a new manager to have something where it says what should I be focusing on if I do want to be very good or outstanding in this that would be my thoughts if you have something written down it would be more than happy to take it back I did not build the Rupert I just have it just like the same little time I didn't tackle that one I just think rather than having a few these kind of you know this more kind of so be sure to have a grid that shows these are the areas that this is what excellent means this is what the expectations are and to the point I don't think feedback should wait for an evaluation I think feedback should be given at all times and it's both good and bad feedback it's ensuring that if somebody's doing something good that you're reinforcing that and they're going to continue to do that and if they're doing something that isn't helpful they know that's something to change it shouldn't really be any need for surprises at least if you have that communication on is there if we have an editor too or an addition should we just send it to you or Travis? yeah send it to Travis and we'll mark it up and you know as we pay done we're going to be paying $17,000 maybe that's got something that he has found successful in as many visits throughout New England and maybe he's been asked by other clients what is the best way to evaluate a new manager there may be some ideas there that doesn't cost much to ask that's a good idea to me I just reading the text of the headings it sort of stimulates my thinking in terms of interview questions that I'll be asking about the candidates so I appreciate that part again it will be a conversation if we succeed in all hiring the municipal manager if we pull this off it is going to be interesting how we're going to go about evaluating that individual that will have to be a big conversation is there going to be a village or a town evaluation there's going to be one standard for doing it that's a good guide people would like to mark it up and send things back to Travis that would be very helpful if you're happy with it would you also let me know I can tell you right now I like it a lot well it's not something that we're going to be locked into for the duration of that so I'm not really so concerned I agree with Sue and as you said when you started the process was far different it's come 180 so probably this is great to start and come together and have an agreement of how to evaluate the manager but then as years go on I'm sure the evaluation process will change as well just whatever works like you're saying the things that exist today that didn't exist before Andy brought it up earlier without computers or cell phones somebody was talking about it who knows what will exist as far as management and government process it's great what you said about the IMCA or whatever it's great something like that keep everybody up to speed it's good and there's nothing other than consent there's no consent items for executive session I don't see it we have we have a motion from Maria second for Sue to adjourn what was the favor of a journey Sue can I say hi I'm going to wait for you I'll say hi motion from Dan seconded by Andrew speak into the microphone all in favor hi by the way your son he's creeping up he's going to pass you with no time at all I saw that he just turned around you're gone