 So, Alyssa is coming. She's gonna be a little bit late, so I'm proposing that we approve minutes right now, and George did the minutes, and I took a look at them, and I felt that they were okay. I thought they were ready for approval. I'm wondering if anybody else has any. George, did you like to list off the ones that we're doing just so that we have? Well, I wanted to say something about the most recent ones. I have been taking names of members of the public off of the list just out of courtesy, but if they speak in public comment, then their name would be mentioned, but otherwise the only names would be those who are present from the manager. The manager was here, and obviously the RCA members were here, but members of the public, I think we agreed we're just going to, they don't need to be identified by name. Now let's say speak. Other than that, it was fine, and I just made one or two minor spelling, editing things and numbering. I think it's all in order. Thank you, Phyllis. So we should probably make a motion. Let me just pull up what we have for minutes that we are approving, which should be in draft form in our folder, which doesn't seem to wanna come up for me right now. Thank you for this, but that's not what I wanted. Sorry. And while the chair is looking, are we caught up or are we way behind? I just don't know. For minutes. For minutes? I see a lot of drafts here. Yeah. Well, that's what we should have been doing. So that's, yeah. Which means that we would have minutes from, wow. So we have draft minutes from February 20th, the 25th for March 3rd, for March 18th, for April 1st, for April 8th, for April 22nd, for May 6th. And some of these, I'm noticing, I'm just gonna make sure that when we go through and do these that it looks like sometimes we have two draft documents. I'm just gonna make sure that we have one. So did I stop at May 13th, May 20th, May 22nd, June 3rd, June 10th. So I've read through those. And I think that's how we agreed to do this last time. I'm pretty sure that we discussed this during the meeting that George is going to write them that I would look at them and approve them. And then we just have any input, anybody else have any input before I say yes, I've approved them and I will approve them and change them over. Just for the record, actually, we have a note taker, Phyllis Lair actually takes the minutes and then I just review the format. Right, so that's what I was, I'm so sorry. It's all right. I probably, maybe I didn't say that clearly. It's just that George was gonna look through the minutes that we had, there were a draft and then he would go through and take a look and say, yeah, like we do it, but instead of we decided that this committee would have George look at them and then the chair say, okay, and approve them and do it that way instead of doing it with everybody voting. So that's the only difference, but yes, absolutely Phyllis is doing minutes. Yeah, okay, so, all right. Just wanted to make that clear in case it was not clear. Okay, so I will. Every week. Well, Phyllis, I know. Yeah, yeah. And I did not send you a clear pretty one this week. So I will make sure that I get one out to you, Phyllis, so that, all right. So, yeah, go ahead, George. Sarah, will you, I can do this or you will do it? You'll go back and change draft to approve. Yes, I will. I will go back and change draft to approve. Yep. Will be caught up? Yep, that's good. Alrighty, let me put that. And I am, for everyone out in the audience and for everybody else, I definitely am slow today. So thank you for putting up with me. Let's go back to documents, open up meeting packets. Okay, I do not want to disconnect. Okay, so I don't know why this wants to do this this way. Other members can correct me if I'm wrong. And I probably am, but I see five, is that right, five committees? Yeah. That we have in front of us. One of them is a committee that we are the appointed authority, but the other four are the town manager. Yes. And I'm just gonna throw this out here. I would hope, I've had a chance to look through all of this. So I'm just speaking for myself. Yep. But I'm certainly ready to go through these five and move them along. I guess that, let me just pull this up a little bit. So maybe the first, do you, so we could go through the town manager's appointments first. And you want to do that and then we'll wait for finance committee and hopefully the rest of us will have been here by now, yep. All right, so should we start with historical commission appointments? Okay, so everybody's had a chance to take a look at, and the town manager is out of town today. So he's not here to speak to the names that he has chosen, but things happen. So I can make, does someone want to make a motion? Do you want me to make the motion? Do you want to have discussion? Should we have discussion on the names first? I think a motion would be in order, yeah. Yeah, so I so move that the outreach communications and appointments committee recommend to the town council, the town manager's appointments for the historic commission. Is that where I am right now? Yep. Historical. Historical commission. All right. I second that. Okay, discussion. So the town manager updated them as per our request of the last meeting, which was nice. We see a fair number of reappointments. I don't know if that is something that concerns anyone. It didn't concern me, but I don't know if that reflects the size of the pool or whether that's simply a recognition that, which seems to be understanding of that if people have served for three years or they serve their term, that they would be given some preference for reappointment until they reach the mythical term limits. They're not mythical. I'm sure that they will be based in a reality soon. Yeah, so I mean, there's some of the things that we had talked about the last time that's also in my report. And so we do have a charge for this. We do see a lot of reappointments. Again, there's not much of a profile for us or information on people who were being reappointed. So those issues are still there. I think we brought that up with the town manager. I'm not sure if we'll be seeing, I mean, there's still the issue that he doesn't feel that he needs to interview everyone and that he felt like it was sort of a waste of time to interview people who had already served. And that he would, he said that he would try to give us more information. So I guess this is the idea. Do we, knowing that we've brought up these concerns and that we were told we would get the charge, but there wouldn't be the interviews of every people who were being reappointed. And I don't know that we necessarily had a firm commitment from the town manager that he would actually, that he felt that he needed to sort of give a more solid profile on people who were being reappointed. So there is that issue. I just noted. I don't think it's one that would cause me to reject any of these candidates, but something, I guess we're gonna continue to have a discussion with the town manager on. Melissa, I'm sorry to ask you if this is like catching up because I was late. It's okay. So the town manager gave us new versions of these. And so are we, is the conversation that I'm coming into saying it's still not enough? That's what we're just asking. We're just saying about regarding reappointments. Like what do we, what are we thinking? Do we think, you know, we did get. I mean, we got more. We did get more. I'm looking for specifics as to what we think we're missing given that we got nothing before. I think it was right. No, no, no, that's what I'm saying is that I definitely think that we have more. I mean, that's, we definitely have more. I feel that we were, we were hurt. There's some things that, you know, we suggested that have not changed. And there's some things that we suggested that we definitely got more on. So that was just, Evan. So I appreciate that the town manager did. Yeah. He didn't have to. Right. Right. I guess my thought is now that we got more, my thought is, well, what were we actually looking for? Right? Right. So if I'm looking, if we're looking historical commission, Robin Fordham says, Robin has been a member of the historical commission since August 13th, 2018 appointed by the town manager and confirmed by the select board. So that is definitely more than was there before as far as words, but not more as far as actual information, right? Whereas for Jane Wald, right? It is useful. I mean, I think most of it probably already knew this information, right? But it, for people who might not, for the public, it's useful to say, makes sense. She's on the historical commission because she's the executive director of the Emily Dickinson Museum, right? So to me, that was useful information. Ted is a realtor. I mean, the thing is, we know Ted Parker, right? But Ted is a realtor and president of coal construction. Yeah. Cool, right? Right. I guess the thought process was, when we said more, right? My thought is always, what is their relationship to the subject matter of the committee, right? So we know we wanna appoint people to committees that have either an important perspective or skills or qualifications, right? And so a realtor and president of coal construction, I guess makes sense from the construction, but I kinda have to like force that connection, right? And so what I'm realizing is when I said more, my thought was, what are the qualifications or important perspectives? Like, what does this person bring to the committee, not just what's their profession? Cause those two, for Jane Wall, that's the same thing. For Ted, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I mean, certainly construction, realtor, there's a lot there, but for Robin Ford and we have no additional information. And so now that we have more, I'm feeling not necessarily more satisfied because what I'm realizing, it wasn't just about having more information. It was about looking for something specific, looking for why, you know, if someone does not know Robin Ford or Ted Parker, why are they on this commission, right? Like, what did they bring to the commission? Why were they even originally appointed, right? And I think that's the information I was really looking for. I would agree. I would agree. Especially since we don't have information about, you know, anyone else, how big the pool was, you know, what was the diversity of the pool? We don't have that information. So I would, yeah, Evan? Like with Jane Scheffler, right? This thing that she has a graduate degree in public administration. So your first thought is, okay, why is that important? And then he says, strong research experience, which the commission could use as it seeks to revive the demolition by-law. So it's connecting her experience to the work of the committee, right? And so you see, oh, this is why that person was selected. Knowing that Ted is a realtor doesn't necessarily give you that. And so I think that when I read that sentence, I thought, yes, this is sort of what I'm looking for. But then it didn't continue. I agree. Yeah, because we sort of already know if they were reappointment that they've been on the committee and that they were appointed, you know, by the town manager. And since we're brand new, we would have to have been confirmed by the select board. So I agree. I mean, I think that what we were asking was sort of what we, is why this person, like you said, does, and it's not necessarily like qualifications, but it could be special skills, or even if it was something that was, you know, a hobby, George. I agree if all of the recommended appointees were like this, but also in the summary of process, he just points out that he's interviewing people who have expressed an interest in serving on these bodies. And so I think that's the first thing. I'm just going to assume that that's a given for all these people that doesn't answer Evan's question about background skills and so forth. But there might be a place on a committee like this for people who don't have any particular expertise to bring to bear, but have some expressed passion or interest in what the committee does. So if everyone were like that, I would be very concerned. But I'm willing to cut a little slack in the case of maybe one or two if the sense is assumed that they have expressed an interest and they have been interviewed. They've been through the process. I think still we could ask the town manager to try and provide some sense of something more than just, you know, that they have served. But I also feel like giving a little benefit of the doubt to the process and to the understanding that everyone who's interviewed has taken the step of saying I'm interested in this. So just a thought. Darcy? I had actually agreed that we should ask the town manager for a little bit more of a connection between the person's experience or expertise and why it would be useful on this committee. Just a sentence or two would be nice. Evan? I don't know why. I just couldn't think of your name. Yep, go ahead. It's okay. I think with this there's also sort of a level of consistency across profiles that we're looking for, right? And so the interesting thing is I'm just browsing over Public Art Commission and Human Rights Commission where the reappointments have full paragraphs, right? And actually if you just look at Public Art and you don't look at the top and you just look at the profiles, you wouldn't know who's a reappointment and who's not based on the profiles because all of them are like a paragraph in length whereas you would from Historical Commission. So what I think I was originally envisioning seeing on these, I am seeing for Public Art and I'm seeing for Human Rights. I'm just not seeing on this Historical Commission one. So I think one of the things that we've been talking about is consistency and having the reports that we fill out be consistent. And you're right. I mean, I think it's hard for us as someone who's gonna recommend as a body that's going to recommend these names. Again, it's one of the reasons why we wanted that additional information is that if we haven't been around for a long time, we don't know the person who's being reappointed. We probably don't know anything about them and there is that deference to the fact that they've served before but then I think that that's sort of for OCA. It's kind of, it goes against what our principles are. So I mean, I think it's important for us to say that we feel like everyone should be interviewed and that you have substantial information about every single person who you are putting forth even people who are being reappointed. George. I'm going to dissent from the idea that everyone needs to be interviewed. I do respect the manager's point and also the RAC's point that they unanimously felt that re-interviewing people who have already been interviewed and are serving is a waste of their time. But that's a different point than getting some sort of description which I understand and some sort of consistency. But I just personally, I'm going to dissent from the idea that every single appointee must be re-interviewed. I don't see the point of that. I just note that Robin Fordham actually was confirmed by the select board and it very likely the lack of detail is the fact that A, he wasn't interviewed as the time manager said he wasn't going to and B, there probably wasn't anything on his CAF and C, he probably doesn't know Robin Fordham that well. So or maybe all he writes down is what's on the CAF unless he has a direct interview. Anyway. Oh, sorry, George, I need me to cut you off. Robin, is she? Just by the way. But in addition to that, let's bear in mind that and we are certainly able to disagree on the re-interview process for someone who in fact may not have been interviewed originally. There could be, there are people serving right now who've never been interviewed. And so if they get reappointed, they've never been interviewed because that was a more recent process. But so aside from that issue, I think one of the other wrinkles to that whole discussion was because we were filling two entire bodies by doing ZBA and planning board that reflects back to that whole health of the committee thing and how everybody fits together. And so I think that even people who disagree with re-interviewing or interviewing for the first time, a reappointment might be willing to concede that under that circumstance you would go ahead at least and interview potential reappointments but then may feel differently about the one or two reappointment possibilities that are coming up in the next cycle. So I think that's one of the things we have to tease out because hopefully we'll never have to reappoint an entire body again. Doesn't seem likely that would happen but I think that was partly a function of that decision and the fact that this is a new body that is doing a thing that the entire town council has expressed some reservations about our process, right? And so we are trying to give them as much information as possible by having interviews done of all the people. So that's part of the issue. The other thing I wanna make sure is clear is that select board confirmation of town manager appointments was only required under unlimited number of things. So the select board appointed a whole bunch of things that had nothing to do with whether or not the town manager thought it was a good idea although we eventually included him in interviews. The town manager appointed a bunch of things that he could just do with no thought as to what the select board thought about it and then there were just a few things that were town manager with select board confirmation. Town manager with select board confirmation meant rubber stamp, there was literally no discussion except that we all had the CAFs. So therefore we knew what the pool was that he was looking at for confirmation. We now have a charter that says confirmation which we can interpret how we want, right? We can interpret it as rubber stamp. We can interpret it as letting the clock run out unless there's something particularly egregious. The previous interpretation of the select board was rubber stamp. So with the understanding that we had CAFs, we don't have CAFs anymore for town manager appointments which are the vast majority of appointments. And we haven't yet had a conversation about what confirmation might mean beyond what we've been doing here that we have a chance to do confirmation. So that part is new. And the fact that it's a select board confirmed of an appointment three years ago is not really relevant to our discussion except to say that they at least had seen the entire pool of CAFs as they came in. Evan? Right, so I agree. Knowing that the select board, the town manager appointed and select board confirmed doesn't actually tell me anything about this person and doesn't really tell me anything at all because those select board members, who knows what they were doing? But who knows? Who knows? I just told you we didn't. We didn't, we didn't, we didn't. So I think the reason I keep sort of harping on this is not to give the town manager more work or not even to challenge him anyway but I think it boils down to what Alyssa hinted at or is not hinted at explicitly as she does is what is our role? And we haven't just, I was realizing last night as I was sitting reviewing all of these materials that we've had so much work to do that we've not had a whole lot of time to just sit and think about what our role is, what kind of information we need and all of that. And so we keep having to do things because they're getting thrown at us and everything that's thrown at us to date has had a timeline on it that we were like, so we just need to do this. But I was sitting there and thinking, why do I wanna know information about Robin Fordham? And the reason is I can do nothing but rubber stamp Robin Fordham if I don't know who she is and why she's on the committee and if she's a reappointment, like give me like how she'd been successful on the committee. Is there something that she, if I don't know any of that, then I can do nothing but approve and if I can do nothing than approve then why am I even doing this, right? And I think that's the problem I'm coming up with is we've never decided what our role as OCA is with town manager appointments and every, and so if it's just we recommend to the council to approve every single time unless something jumps out at us, then sure. But nothing can jump out at us if we don't have information, right? And so if we're gonna vote on these recommendations today, I will vote yes, I guess, for Robin Fordham even though I know nothing about her, right? And so I could vote nothing but, yeah, or I could vote no because I don't have any information but then that's the whole thing, right? And so there's almost a part of me that wants to take a pause and have a conversation as a committee as what is our role with the town manager? What do we actually expect that we do? What does the council expect that we do? Well, we give a recommendation to approve. What are they, what does that mean to them, right? What are they expecting we did? Because if we say tonight, we recommend you approve these people and they say, why? My answer is looked fine and if they say, well, what do you mean? I don't know, right? And so if we're just literally a stepping stone towards confirmation towards approval and there's really nothing to hang up unless like one of us see something and some big red flag goes up, then I think we need to make sure that's what the council intended for us to be, right? And so I guess this is what I'm struggling with is I will only ever vote yes on these unless something really egregious pops up but I don't even know how to see that because I don't have information. I'll see any other hands. I'm gonna say I completely agree with you. I mean, I think in the very beginning we had this discussion about whether or not we would be a rubber stamp committee or that we would actually look for some information and I would say that I myself would want to be able if someone said to me, oh, you saw these names and you said, oh, town council should definitely appoint these people. Like you said, I would like to be able to say why. They would say, oh, well, what do you know about? Betty Sue, besides she was reappointed and I would have to say nothing and that doesn't feel good. So there is a choice. If we're just rubber stamping it then maybe we just let the clock run out on everything, right? And if not, then what are we looking for? George? I guess if I were asked, I would read the town manager assembled a team to conduct interviews. The interview team was comprised of Jane Wall, chair of the Historical Commission. Jennifer Taub, chair of the Local Historic District Commission Connie Krueger from the Residence Advisory Committee, Brandon Tuppen, staff support for the two commissions and Paul Vachman, town manager. Again, I think we also need to remember there's a process and part of our job is just to ensure it's somewhat dry and technical, but it's important that the process, there is a process and it's being followed. And so if we were to get this from the town manager and had the kind of detail or lack of detail that we see in terms of the biographies and the process simply said these are the people I appointed, that's all it said, then I think we would have a serious problem. But we have a process description and I think that is what I would base my judgment on. I don't think in other words that our job is to second guess the process. It's just to make sure that the process is being followed. If we have questions about the process, we can have the town manager come in and we can talk to him. If he doesn't describe the process or doesn't tell us what the process is, then I guess we really do have a problem, but I am comfortable with what we have here. In one or two cases, I agree, it'd be nice to have a little bit more detail, but what makes me comfortable is that we have a clear description of the process and of the people involved and they all seem quite appropriate and so I don't have a problem with these recommendations and that would be my answer. If someone asked me, well, aren't you just a rumber stamp? I'd say, well, no, actually we're not and that would be how I'd answer it. One way we could have more information about each applicant would be if we had their CAFs and maybe that situation will change in light of the Hampshire Gazette appealing their, the appeal that was just answered in the last week about the Hampshire Gazette's request. So we don't know yet whether the town is going to be asking for further review, but that might change the situation with regard to the town manager CAFs and our ability to look at them. Alyssa? I would just follow up with that with saying beyond the fact that we don't know how long that process, as you indicated, might drag out because one assumes that our attorney will continue to defend our existing position, not simply change their mind in the light of continued requests, is that even if it were determined by the authority that is the final arbiter of that, that our council is wrong and that our practice is wrong and that the existing CAFs need to be released, I would argue that at that moment I would be pushing hard to put an immediate stop to the filing of any additional CAFs until we revise the form in a way that makes sense to an agreed upon majority of the town council as to what that's yet. So if we get a ruling tomorrow that says you town are wrong and there are no further ways of appealing that, I would argue that we're not gonna just suddenly start getting the CAFs for the town manager's appointments that we're just not gonna be doing anything until that gets sorted out because all those people who already filed CAFs expected them to remain private. So there's gonna be some fallout to be dealt with associated with that but it's absolutely true that if that happens which I don't believe will because I believe they will be protected as personnel documents so now I'll go down and history is being wrong, that's fine because that's what I believe is true. If however this particular authority at this particular moment decides that we are wrong then we will need to have as we've been talking about it will be further risk for the mill that we need to have a different form with different fields on it that people do feel as there clearly be people who will never be comfortable with filing one but a way to maximize the amount of people who are willing to file it and yet still not give away people's like specific very personal information that they might have thought they were providing and not expect to become public to make it clear that it's just name and address in demographics or it's just name and address and writing sample or whatever and it would be a public document in which case as you say then all of us it isn't just that the whole council would know what the town manager's doing based on the CAFs the entire world would know because that would be everybody. Evan? Right so I don't think that the CAFs actually would answer our questions necessarily right so we have all now gone through the process of interviewing people and also viewing CAFs and I think we can all recognize that some CAFs are very useful and some are completely useless right and a lot of the important information comes out of the interviews and so I actually I don't need to see the CAFs I don't really care about the CAFs right what I care about is why does it make sense for this person to be on this committee right and is there a way that I can evaluate that and if there isn't I don't know again with respect to George's point about process I don't know what my role is to vote to recommend to approve someone to a committee if I have no way of understanding why that person should be on that committee that information isn't always on the CAF because CAFs can often be very sparse and perhaps the information came out in an interview there's also the possibility that some people who were interviewed didn't submit CAFs right I mean we don't really know who was chosen to be interviewed and so if there was someone without a CAF they would just refer to him or something like that the CAF tells us nothing I don't care about the CAFs and I don't think this public records request matters to some extent for this because we won't have this information until after the 30 day period anyway so these are gonna go into play and we can't rely on public records requests every time we wanna know information all I'm looking for I think from the town manager is the ability to tell me here's what this person brings to the committee and that's why I am recommending that and if they've served on the committee that's fine but that still doesn't help me answer that question and so certainly I would defer to reappointment because they've already served on the committee but if we're just gonna be a committee that just says okay reappoint, reappoint, reappoint then we're the reappointments committee then what are we doing? So like I said I actually think that we as a committee need to have a broader discussion that we really haven't thoroughly had about what our role is and how we envision it and then from that needs to come out of what information do we look for because otherwise we would just keep saying to the town manager no more, no more, no more and eventually he's gonna say no because he didn't have to give us more, right? He has to give us names and address and that's it. This also goes back to my point that I feel uncomfortable today that we're debating four sets of appointments without the town manager being present. I know he cannot be present and he's out of town and I know that we need to do these today, actually we don't need to do these today. We don't need to do these today but again, thinking about what our role is to me it seems like if I can't ask him so can you just tell me a little bit about Robin Fordham? Then I don't wanna vote on that person, right? And I keep calling this one person out and I feel bad just for the camera I have nothing against this one individual it's just this is sort of the example but we've seen this on other ones too, right? And so for me thinking about what I want in this role is I wanna know a little bit more about why this person is being recommended to the committee and I want the town manager present so that I can ask questions, right? Should questions come up? Because if we have questions then there's no one here to field them. If we're just checking off the process then as George recommended, that's fine but I think we need to decide as a committee that that's what our role is. So if I'm being completely honest I actually don't necessarily feel comfortable voting on at least historical commission today because I feel like we're doing so just to do so and we haven't figured out what we're actually doing. So I agree with Evan because I think that just how are we supposed to say like yes I know something about them and I think this is fine if we literally don't know something and I also disagree with the idea that just because and I realize people are volunteering their time but simply because they can be reappointed like I think that that still sort of needs to either be looked at or just give us the information about oh this person this was what they did when the CAF heard this was the information about them why they fit in in the beginning and you know they've done a great job or just to give us the information about why what their special skills were to be on that committee in the first place and like Evan said maybe a little bit about what's happened in the meantime it doesn't have to be big but it should be something and I think that it also comes back to the fact that when we when OKA looks at you know appointing someone and giving information I would think that if we then gave our when we give our names to town council I feel like town council rightly so does take a look at the people that we've said I think you should appoint these people as appointees and takes a look at our reasoning I mean I don't think I would expect the full town council you know when we if we reappoint someone to say oh that's fine like otherwise why would they just why would you if it was a three year term why would it not just be six why would you you know why wouldn't it be the sort of like an automatic renewal I think just having that information is helpful Hi George. I think one reason it's not six years is that some people discover they really don't like this committee and they want to get out and I mean they can anyway no one can stop them but there's one reason to keep it three years just for that. I guess I come from this from a slightly different perspective I understand our role well we're just trying to figure out our role but I guess I have a view that part of our role is to I'm excited when I see this number of people with this set of background including just the background having served on historical commission that I respect have given time as volunteers to serve the town and I would like us to keep that in the back of our minds as well I don't want us to overthink this you know we're not appointing people to the you know the Atomic Energy Commission or something I mean these are folks who are interested in the historical the history of the town and wanting to preserve it they've been interviewed they've gone through the process some of them have served already that to me says a lot and I think that that should be something we should keep in our minds when we're looking at these names I also feel like it's we need to get some of this moved along and we've been talking about the fact that we meet every Monday for the last umpteen Mondays and one of the reasons is that it looks like we're going to maybe kick this down the can or down the road we have a good group they've been interviewed some of have served already I am moved by the fact that they are they do serve or willing to serve and unless something really egregious steps out at me which would in my case would be the process would be would be not described then I have no problem with sending these folks along to the town council Alyssa can I just follow up George so the only thing reason you would give the town council to not confirm an appointment is because you didn't feel that the process that was used by the town manager was adequately described is that accurate because again I'm just trying to figure I'm not I'm trying to figure out our role because there is that in the charter the charter enables us to not confirm for a reason it doesn't explain what those reasons might be so we have to decide what those reasons might be I think for me that the main reason would be that the process is not being followed there might be over time issues of diversity but I think that's going to take some time for us to assemble data and think about it but beyond that I don't see I don't see us as second guessing or going through CAFs or going through each one of these folks and now I'm looking at them in some kind of the fact that they're willing to serve they have served they've been interviewed the process has been followed to me is satisfactory so I guess the answer is yes unless something really egregious stood out if a member of the committee raised an objection or if we learn something about their inability to work with other people but I think that usually comes out on the interview process you have the chairs present in most cases so I guess I'm saying let's trust the process let's trust the people that are doing this and if the process is being followed I am satisfied and I'm excited that this many people are willing to serve the town of their own free time so I guess I would say that while we're I would say that every committee and board actually is very important and actually has all of them wield a certain amount of power so and we don't know how many people like one of the things is is that I would say that one of the goals of OCAS to make sure that there's a lot of people there's a rich pool and a lot of people that apply and for me I would just want some more information just I'm not asking for their life biography but even if people are being reappointed I would like to have some information when we see it I mean I do think it comes down to whether or not we're making a semi-informed decision or we're just saying okay although I think it's an interesting point that George makes about trusting the process and trusting the people who are doing it because I do think that one of the things that OCAS has said is that even though we were only recommending to the full-town council full-town council has to make a decision but I think that we've also made the point that we are trustworthy and we have gone through this and that this is what we think but I do think that that extra information is needed. George. It's interesting that we happen to begin with historical commission which is a body that in fact has what's the technical term pissed me off in the past with some of its decisions which I find completely inexplicable and if I had them maybe just meeting them in the street or at a bar I have a discussion about why they did the things they did so we could have a discussion here and I could rant and rave for an hour about some of the decisions made by the historical commission and wonder how some of these people got appointed but I think that I wanna trust the process and trust the fact that I don't know everything and even though I do not agree with a number of recent decisions by this body and most of them are being reappointed I'm going to trust the process and rather than turn this into an inquisition about their particular views on what they consider to be a historical building I'm going to let them do their job and but we could do that and we could do that with every single body and maybe some of you would like to do that we could have everybody in here and I could ask them about each one of these decisions and have them explain to me how a rational person could make that judgment but I don't wanna do that I'm not going to do that I'm not asking to do that what I'm suggesting is that we have a process it's being followed many individuals are involved I think with Evan I agree the interviews are probably the most important part of it and that's something where we are not actually present and so the fact that there are a number of people present that they're all participating in the interviews and that the appropriate people are present to me is the most important thing CAFs we've seen them as we've said some are informative some are really useless I think really is the interview process is crucial and that means trusting the interviewers and trusting the process if we have a problem with that then we should talk about it I don't have a problem with it it seems to be a very robust and healthy process but if we have a problem with it let's talk about it but it's just to me this body in particular is one that seems appropriate to begin with and I'm saying let's trust the process and let's appoint these people and let them do their job Darcy? It makes me nervous to hear the words trust the process just because I feel like we are as town council we have the authority under the charter to confirm that was a way of providing checks and balances in the charter and I feel like we are ceding our authority if we don't ask for at least a minimum level of information about the applicants and I agree with Evan that we should have more information in a narrative form I think we should also have the actual applications and there's absolutely no reason in the world why we don't have them I think that we should have the number of people who applied so we have an idea who these people were how big the pool was, the names of the other people so we can have an idea what the spread was and why certain people were appointed and not others and I just don't see any reason why if we are being a meaningful body doing confirmation we wouldn't have that basic information so you have all heard this from me before and I'm just saying it again, Alyssa? So we were talking George was saying specifically about a problem with the process and I also heard Darcy talking about how we don't have for example the town manager CAF's like we did when we did on select boards so we knew what the pool was and we've had that conversation with them and he said no and some of us still feel strongly that we still want the CAF's and so we're just kind of at an impasse there and I think that's the kind of thing we need to be able to communicate to the full council in our reports that we're still uneasy or unsatisfied or whatever and that we have mixed feelings about it because not everybody is in agreement on that but that we continue to have these concerns one of the other specific things when you were saying well I trust the process actually I'm uncomfortable with one part at least one part of the process beyond the CAF's which is one part one of the parts I'm uneasy with and that I mentioned to the town manager when he was here last week so it didn't change anything to have him not here today because we had the conversation with him last week is I'm uncomfortable with the fact that chairs who are up for reappointment are the interview designee from the committee I feel that it as I said then is that if you're automatically gonna reappoint people then I guess that makes sense right because you know that person's coming back from the way we approached interviews it was that we didn't know that that person was automatically coming back we were not setting a seat aside for that person so we specifically did not have either the chair of the planning board or the ZBA participate directly in the interviews ask them for input via email and then we talked about that here publicly what exactly what they told us but we did not have them sitting at the interview competing for the same slot as somebody they're interviewing whereas clearly the town manager feels that they are not competing for the same slot because they automatically get reappointed in which case I don't know how many vacancies we are advertising because we should be advertising the number of vacancies that there are and if it's assumed that chairs are gonna get reappointed in particular then that's fewer vacancies than we actually have because it's already been decided and so people should know that they're applying for two slots not for three because the third one has already been set aside as a reappointment and that doesn't seem fair to me especially given we made a point of saying in our announcements there will be vacancies as opposed to there will end the bodies have this many members there is however a document that's published by the town manager's office that says there's this exact number of vacancies and that exact number of vacancies is wrong if we're set we're automatically reappointing people and so that part so the two parts I guess that really is what is a part of the process that makes me uneasy and I'm not saying he's willing to change he made that clear that he wasn't at the last moment but at our last meeting but I think that that's something that the full town council needs to be aware of as they're making their decisions and even if the full town council made a motion and said well I think I want all the CAFs and I think I don't want chairs at the interviews and I think I don't want people to automatically get reappointment the town manager could still say that's very interesting and continue to do what he does and we could start rejecting appointments or just accept that that's the way it is because in fact the only thing as he's repeated to us numerous times is not even their name and address it's simply their name and in fact I'm a little uneasy with yeah addresses not in the charter it's a name it's never been named an address in fact we didn't use to publish people's addresses exactly for privacy concerns but now it makes it easier to Google people because now you know which George Smith they're talking about because it's the one that has an address but it's actually only names and so we are doing this negotiation right where we ask for more and that's why we need to be more specific before we leave here today as exactly what we want but I think that some of us still have an easiness with the process so we can't quite say trust the entire process yet Evan? So we've been talking about this for an hour I think we expected this to be much quicker so for me personally despite what I said earlier looking at all three of these sets of appointments public art, local historic district commission and human rights commission I'm 100% comfortable with historical commission it's really just one and a half names that I'm sort of like that's not really the information I was looking for I think I actually again despite what I said earlier would be comfortable moving this set forward but would like us as a committee in the very near future to have a conversation about what exactly we're doing and what our role is and what I mean so George clearly has one opinion of what our role is mine I think is slightly different what is the consensus of the committee or even things like one of the things that George said is he would only vote no if he saw something egregious in the process but I'm not even sure what that would be so there's obviously a lot we all have different ideas and so we're all moving forward but we've never really had a thorough discussion and decision about how we evaluate these appointments and what our role is and so I would be fine moving forward with these given that it really is just two names that I'm just like I wish I had more but recognizing that I think that we need to have a conversation about this because we're getting a whole lot more of these soon George what I'm hearing from the group and you correct me obviously if I'm wrong is that certainly one thing that we would be asking again is that we would like the town manager present when we are doing this yes and secondly in terms of information what we're particularly looking for is what this person brings to this particular body what Evan put it I think what they bring to the table or bring to the body in particular is what we're looking for and while we felt he did a much better job this time there still were one or two at least where we felt the information was not adequate and we'd like him to just make an extra effort to try and address that I think everything else so town manager present and a bit more information particularly related to what they bring to the table are the two things that I picked up from the discussion the rest I think is contentious or potentially contentious but if there's something else that people see that we could add to that these were things we could then communicate to the town manager no matter how we finally vote today let's say we decide to vote them through but we send this message or let's say we don't vote them all through we still could send this message which would have those two points would anyone add anything else to that? So I would one is I'm not sure I'm in agreement about the town manager being present because the reason I say that is because I want what we want what we think we can get what we can negotiate in writing and so if he comes and says it here and it's not in the written report and therefore we have to add it to our written report later or somebody has to watch the tape to see what took place I feel like it ought to be able to all be covered in the written report or an addendum to the written report I'm uneasy about saying oh we'll just come and explain it to us because then we'll have to say well he came and explained it to us so now we're good with it so I'm a little uneasy with that but separately from that I want to have one of us whoever's writing this clarify to the town manager that when we Evan and George and everybody actually expressed something along the lines of that extra effort of what they bring to the table because one of the things I want to make sure we're not overlooking is that I feel that not consistently so not in every case but in many cases the information we're being given I feel is being represented as look at these people's qualifications and degrees okay so I mean if I wanted their resume I would ask for their resume I want to know what they bring and just because they have a master's degree in this or have 12 years of experience at that those things sound impressive on their own but they don't necessarily sound impressive in relation to this particular committee and so I want to be able to show that somebody who doesn't have all those degrees might be bringing a really valuable perspective because of something else they've been doing right but they may not have the right resume words to say that and I worry about the fact that we say we want diversity but then if we're really just comparing every 50 year olds resume to a 30 year olds resume they're not gonna be the same so if that's true then we're just always gonna pick the 70 year old I mean that's not what we wanted to do right we wanted to make sure we had some different perspectives so I'm just asking that we not ask for a litany of every professional position they've had or every amazing advanced degree and the important institution that granted it as opposed to somebody who went GCC for two years but had been doing community organizing around a very specific issue that is really of interest to this particular committee at this particular time because I feel like otherwise they're just they get half a sentence or maybe not considered at all because if you're in the process of writing this report arguably you might be writing the profiles of the people before you make your final decision you might be writing it out ahead of time to kind of test yourself why am I picking these people and if all you're doing is listing off their amazing qualifications from prestigious institutions then you might lose sight of the person who had that really interesting set of experiences and ideas so I just am cautious that I don't want a resume out of that I want more what Evan described in terms of that connection to that committee at this time and why that's valuable so hearing all of this and I understand we do have a timeline and but at the same time I think we've also talked about it when we can slowing down and trying to do things the correct way only if it's just that we have not set a precedent for something and that we've actually asked for what we want in real time in order to feel comfortable with our decisions and also to say that from the beginning that this is what OKA has felt it needs or wants and then we can look at it later and say was that helpful or not I'm thinking right now that I might withdraw my motion and maybe or we can go through and vote on it but what I'm thinking now is maybe at least for this set of appointments we could hold off and then with all due respect I'll let the town manager know that here are just some things that we think would help us make our decision and that we think he did provide some of those things on profiles for other committees or commissions and that we'd like to see consistency and just to say and I don't think this is something that adds too much time or anything to what you're writing a report about I mean obviously if you're picking people if you're picking appointees anybody would be thinking how does this what are the special skills and life experiences that this person has that lends them to be someone who would be effective on a committee so I think that if you've interviewed people that would obviously be one of your criteria and it wouldn't be hard to add in a sentence or two sentences about that George I agree going forward, yes I think also we should keep in mind that this is very unusual circumstance where there's been an enormous backlog of committees town manager has been I think very assiduous in working his way through it with the help of a number of people and I'm a little concerned about it's just an enormous number of committees and he still has more to work his way through and so I would like to give him a little bit of the benefit of the doubt in this circumstance given just the press of committee appointments and the backlog and his previous practice we are also struggling to find out what our role is and communicate that clearly to him I think we've agreed on at least two well maybe we haven't but I felt that it wasn't an either or it's not town manager either is present or he writes a better description I think my thought was it's both that we would like him present it's not a substitute for a accurate description it's in addition to so I still like him present but I also like him to address the issue that Evan and the others have raised in terms of what this person brings to the table but I also think let's just keep in mind that he's dealing with an enormous number of these and I think right now just from a practical point of view he's giving a certain amount of benefit to people who've already served in the future going forward I think he'll be more conscious of this request and we'll address it I think very clearly and directly I hope but to stop the process now and send this back to him because we want one or two more lines on one or two members of this particular body seems to me to be just going a bit too far these are good people that do a good job and if this were a more normal time and a more normal process perhaps it would make sense but at this point I think it seems just too much Oh sorry George I'm so sorry That's all right I just prefer that we have a vote I hope and I would urge us to approve these but I also would agree that we need to be very clear with the town manager what we would want going forward Thank you George sorry about that Evan So I actually would agree with George I think and despite all the fuss I've been making for the last hour do you think I'm okay sending these forward given that I have concerns about a small minority of the profiles but one of the things that I would maybe think about is instead of just consistently sending back until we get what we want which I worry he gave us these last meeting and we said this is what we want we sent them back now it's come back and we said better but yeah and we could send them back and we could play this game until the 30 days is up and then he goes well it doesn't matter anymore because they're there maybe it would be useful so I can easily look at these and say this is exactly what I'm looking for this is not what I'm looking for and so it might be useful to me the Human Rights Commission is exactly what I'm looking for because everyone has information that describes well actually no most people have information that describe what they what they bring even if they're for reappointments like I said you can't tell by just looking at the profiles who's reappointment who's not and I do like that there is at least one name that I think brings a lot to the table that is not explained and it's this defaulting to here's their job but that doesn't necessarily inform me what they bring to the table because this one individual I know brings a whole lot to the table that is not articulated here and so I'm wondering if maybe I again I am actually fine moving ahead with these even if I have a few reservations because I don't think they're significant enough to sort of clog things up but I'm wondering if it would be useful to say to just be clear with him look here are some profiles that you did that are really useful and here are some that are not because I would also hate to just send things back to him and say more more more without letting him know what I'm looking for and more and the problem was last time I didn't really know what I was looking for and it wasn't until I got this set and realized that with some I was still unsatisfied that I realized what I was looking for right if that it does so maybe we might want to have a time where we can meet with Mr. Backelman and then ahead of time we would maybe have already written sort of a report or request or an email or something we could discuss here simply you know just exactly what I haven't said you know and just say in the future you know these are things that would help us and I don't think it's an I don't think we're asking for an enormous amount but certainly then maybe that would be more of a constructive way. Melissa. I think it's important we do that now this week because he's continuing to write these reports probably even as we speak and it did to continue to do these and so it this is more work for him than what was done when for example when he did it for Selectport and so they're more extensive reports and so even though this happens every year that there's always a backlog at this time of year the reality is part of it is that he has more committees now because there isn't a separate body making as many appointments and he's having to write more on each of them so trying to be reasonably cognizant of his workload amongst all the other things he's doing I think it's important we tell him that this week so that as he continues to write these and we just say these are the things we are concerned about if you want to come to our next meeting and talk about more that's fine but otherwise just incorporate them like again I'm not big on this let's have an informal conversation and then maybe it'll happen and maybe it won't and we're trying to get across that we're doing this now and in two weeks if you're ignoring what we're asking about then we might be having a different conversation about confirming but we appreciate all the effort that's been expended so far to get us closer together and we're almost there except for some permanent sticking points that we will have to deal with in a separate conversation about CAFs and having chairs present if they're up for reappointment and that sort of thing but at least this part of it we can now give those exact examples of this is what we were looking for this is pretty but it isn't what we were trying to find out and I think that would be really I mean it would make him happy right to have to write less about the other thing and more about this thing rather than just writing whole pages about people I guess so that just brings up for me would you like me to write something do you want, do you feel that should come from the chair do you want me to, do you guys feel like you would want to have something I mean we all pretty much know what the request is so I could just do something very simple about what we talked about and just send it to him in an email is that I'm trying to think of how you want to do that I think you should ask Evan to write it and give it to you and you can sign off on it if you like it I was kind of thinking the same thing I think that's a really good idea sorry Evan how does Evan feel about that well the problem is is that when you do such a good job Evan and then people I mean it's up to you if you would rather not when do you want this when would, when would be good for you two days from that forty eight hours it's about January twenty twenty we're just trying to get it out to him before he writes anymore right so it doesn't have to be elaborate no I think Sarah's perfectly capable of writing this and you know again I believe that we've pretty much expressed it we'd like him to be more a little bit more clear about what these people bring to the table and maybe that's it listen what you no it's not it okay good there is more and that's why I'm asking Evan to do it of course Sarah's capable of that he's just said it so well I will draft something and send it to Sarah who can make it better thank you and is she, can she CCS or is that violate all laws no so the two of them you're not making up new things this is not your opportunity to write a new memo so you're only talking about things we already discussed here so you're just memorializing that and writing and so that goes to her and once she's finished with it and says this is my signed thing just like when Lynn signed something on behalf of the whole town council if it was something we did in public session then it can be sent back out to us but it wouldn't be sent out to us for each of us to say oh I think you forgot a comma Evan so no right because that would never happen anyway so but she could, she will CCS when she sends it to a town man she may, she will, she could she might you're so not directed George I, I, I will I will I made the motion that we appoint these I think believe that you seconded it I thought it was Evan no it was Darcy, it was Darcy okay sorry Darcy some discussion some discussion all those in favor what was the motion? so we're just doing one yeah we didn't, we didn't lump them alright even though we talked about all of them we could, I mean, well so maybe next time we could I think we did, I think it was made a point that we sort of just did we should probably, we did just have deliberation on all but maybe if people might, if there might be split votes maybe we'd be better off to go ahead and do each each body separately just in case there is a split vote so motion is made and seconded all those in favor aye it's unanimous so that was historic yep it was historic, yes all in all absolutely entire conversation historical so we could make the motion on the next one and maybe we wouldn't feel the need to have a lot of discussion correct and since I'm having yep, does somebody want to make the motion while I try to get this back up for some reason I've I move to recommend the Town Council approve the Town Manager's appointments to the Human Rights Commission discussion oh, I'm sorry discussion hearing none, all those in favor aye we're on a roll so I make the motion that Oka recommend to the Town Council the Town Manager's appointments to the Public Art Commission discussion all those in favor aye sorry, I told you I only need help this time around, we just did public arts yep public arts and then the yeah, I make the motion that Oka recommend to Town Council the Town Manager's appointments of the local historic commission district commission discussion I also appreciated the Town Manager added the part that comes from the law we accepted with local historic district commissions as to who represents what, luckily the people who represent the various agencies and organizations are continuing so we have the necessary coverage from all the necessary parties, this is like having designees, most committees don't have that but this is one that does it's great that he added that in for the discussion all those in favor aye all those with 5-0 after yep but it was good that we did it that way just in case out of respect so I have a question about process so I mean it's not like we I'm a little just giving the caveat we do have a decision tree that says we might not confirm appointments so it's not like we haven't talked about a million times and had a graphic associated with it but we've learned more since then about what we know and about what questions people have so aside from that part moving forward with this we just voted all these we have a Town Council meeting tonight we are not planning because it would not the information hasn't yet gone to the council so there's no reason to do it tonight so we're looking at July 1st I'm assuming we wouldn't be doing this at our Council special meeting on the 24th so that would be crazy so July 1st is when this report needs to be attached to the posting for July 1st and I guess then my question is just we need somebody to write the report which usually falls to you Sarah as chair but it seems like that report would also include that email that Evan's working on that you'll be sending to the Town Manager that way you don't have to like talk about it that much you can just say see the attached email we sent about these questions right so that's less to write in the report itself other than the votes which all happen to turn out unanimously the one thing I would add to that is we do have a decision tree however if you look at the decision tree the questions we can't answer most of them based on the information we have so we know what questions we're asking but we don't have the information answer then so it's essentially useless it was very useful for the Town Council appointments because we had everything right but for this we should be attaching that tree to this report anyway and we should mention that report isn't it a beautiful tree what if all the fruits were ripe on this tree okay so the next thing I think that we should talk about is the non-voting resident appointments to finance committee I need to step out for a minute would you like to just take a very very quick break yeah it was attached to the meeting posting for today the whole world's had it since Thursday can you go to the town website where the meeting posting is yeah if that's the meeting posting you scroll down and it shows the report on right there if that's the actual town website that's not the town website that's an email that's why that's the town website here's the town website see it right there right in front of me we're learning that's new in the past oh from our not our break no I did not record maybe three seconds of our break so we are now going to tackle the non-voting resident appointments to finance committee and for that I think we should start by speaking to Darcy take it away Darcy I think you all have the memo in front of you and have you presumably you've all read it so I interviewed people a couple of weeks ago for this position and ultimately came up with a recommendation of these three that are listed Mary Lou Tylerman Sharon and Robert and they basically it was a much more intense process than I thought it was going to be trying to figure this out but basically I came down to these three based on the fact that they provided a mix of what the finance committee wanted and a mix of expertise and experience so Mary Lou who had served on the former finance committee obviously has a really deep knowledge of municipal finance specifically to Amherst she also has a specific expertise in the area of the schools and the school budget and Sharon had just started on the finance committee and it's just before it dissolved she had been on the finance committee for a year so she had that experience plus she's a downtown business owner she's the treasure of her business and she's the treasure of the bid and so she brings that financial perspective and thirdly a new person who is his application really wowed me as far as his incredible experience both abroad as a researcher and more recently as a senior vice president at a huge disaster relief consulting firm where he managed a $79 million HUD CDBG contract he was involved in hurricane sandy relief and also hurricanes read it oops that was the say Katrina and there somewhere that was a misstatement and he has done the full array of financial management including defining projects developing budgets tracking expenditures against budgets etc and one thing that really interested me about him was that he had developed an innovative tool a dashboard that tracked program performance against program expenditures and that seemed like a very valuable skill to bring to our finance committee he has just started working part time so he has the ability to do this now so I wrote more about him because he's new to town government he hasn't served on any committee before but he seemed highly skilled and of course it's fine to have more men on the finance committee just to run through the process I use the criteria that was provided by the finance committee in addition to just trying to look for a mix but that was basically what they also suggested a mix of expertise the interviews were conducted at the police station and we had previously decided that we were going to have interviews for 20 minutes I stretched that to 25 minutes the town manager had scheduled them for every 15 minutes but that was their own suggestion I felt like I should have been involved in the process of setting up the appointments earlier that I should have been copied on all those emails so that I could get a little bit of a sense of why people were withdrawing or what their responses were what their voices were and I did get that about halfway through the process but it does occur to me that in the future we should just be copied on all the contacts with all the interviewees potential interviewees or applicants so that's about it because what my process was you can see in this what the demographics were two of the people didn't self-identify so there's only one person who did identify as a white male between the ages of 60 and 69 and I listed the interview questions here etc etc the handout that the finance committee provided was provided to each person by email and at the interview as well as the charge Sonia Aldrich was in on the interviews and she and I discussed the applicants in between the interviews and during the process and at the end so that I think basically explains what the process was questions? Elisa? So I actually have several questions one of the things I really liked that you included in this Darcy was the concern about people not finding the time acceptable because that's one thing that was interesting to me about our new council schedule in general and that I've gotten some feedback in the community from is that almost all our meetings are during the day that aren't full-town council which was not the tradition in the past and so in some ways we might be attracting different people to pay attention to what we're doing because we're doing it during the day but then the people who would come to night meetings are not able to either serve on that or to watch that and so finance committee was traditionally at night that's not to say it needs to be at night I'm just saying that it is different right and so depending on people's schedules and we've always had people who said oh it's not a new committee where we can all decide together when we're going to start meeting I'm joining an existing committee and that's when they meet at Mondays at 3 oh I can't do it then and so that is unfortunate but I think it is always worth mentioning that there were people who were interested that might have been a good fit but at this life stage could not do it at the time of the committee meeting so I think that's always important to recognize I would just like when we write our OCA report that covers that serves as the cover to this to clarify a couple of things some of which we talked about last week and some of which may be new which is that the interview questions that you've listed here are not are I believe the questions that we did vote on April 8th they are not the questions we agreed would be the questions for the finance committee because those questions were slightly different when you mentioned using criteria from the finance committee it's my understanding you use criteria from the finance committee that OCA agreed was the criteria from the finance committee because they visited us and we talked about it they gave us their set of questions which for whatever coincidental reason looked a whole lot like our set of questions but was different from the standard interview questions I'm hoping wasn't actually used because that's not the set of questions we agreed was going to be used for the finance committee thing so I don't know if that's just a cut and paste yes that's my mistake of the title I should have said the finance questions that we adopted on some other day but these are the these are the April 8th questions this is not the one that includes the finance committee this is the questions that we decided that would be asked of the finance committee they're a little different not much but a little bit different at our report so I don't mean to go on and on forever but I don't think that's true because I'm not seeing anything about the finance committee in that question so maybe I'm not remembering the very last iteration we did of those questions I also appreciate the part you said about not knowing who might have withdrawn who was having trouble getting scheduled etc because that's something we've talked about at our previous reports while the whole town council has gotten all the CAFs we don't know that in fact some of those people might have already withdrawn before the interview process might have withdrawn during the interview process might have withdrawn a week after the interview process and if you don't even know that as the designee much less the entire council knowing and so I was just upstriking with Angela on a related topic and mentioned that that was something we would definitely want to talk more about in terms of what our expectation was because I think RAC may have a different expectation and that's fine, that's what they do but that we need to figure out how that works and does all of OKA get it does the whole town council get it and at what point? and that chart that she provided this morning only provides what she knew up to the point of the interviews because other things happen during the course of the interviews with more people withdrawing I just had a couple more one is that the demographic we've gone around so many circles about demographics and what to list and what not and the town managers we've talked about so many variations of this but I don't remember a variation where we only list the demographics of the three people being offered appointment and so that was a strange I don't remember any of our examples doing it that way and so I'm somewhat uncomfortable with that when I thought the point was to show not who these people were because after all we're giving these people names was either to include them in some future aggregate or to address it more obliquely as we did with our other reports but our other reports didn't only give the demographics for the people whose names we were listing is that true? the rest of them show up for the entire pool which gives it people an idea of what the rest of the pool looked like oh that's what all our other reports say my mistake because I think the point is do the people who are being appointed seem generally representative of the pool so if it was a pool of women and three men and you appointed only the three men we'd go huh that's weird right so we need to know the pool yeah so you're saying that we can convey the total number of people in the pool in our report that's two different things one is the total number of people who applied you can arguably we've argued over whether or not to say 20 people applied for five slots a separate issue is five people self-identified is this four people self-identified is that one person self-identified is that that doesn't necessarily add up to end like that doesn't necessarily add up to the full because we haven't in fact said in any of our previous reports as OKA that this was how many we had total and so we're not trying to get to that end number what we're trying to do is do that reflection which is piecemeal and difficult because people only report what they report but I would argue that certainly none of our reports only gave the demographics that this body has done so far only gave the demographics for the people being appointed it was to give a sense of the pool and it didn't say of these 21 as necessarily it just would say we could leave that number off because we've argued about whether or not to include that number of total but it could say five people of the people who were interviewed five people identified as this three people identified as that one person identified as that and those things could all actually be the same three people where they could be different people who answered different questions right because we saw that not everybody answers every question but a number of people who were interviewed because you saw it on the chart you got this morning that only about half of the people who applied were interviewed and that's the other question right associated with that we've done it different ways each time the one way we hadn't yet done it was the way you did it which was to only report on those people I'm not sure that that gives us anything I'm not sure that any of our solutions have given us what we wanted so for planning board zoning board of appeals and rank choice voting commission we used the applicant pool not necessarily those who were interviewed that being said it was the applicant pool that we knew of and so there perhaps was a broader pool and we only got the assumption was for those three committees the applicant pool was being interviewed that might not necessarily be the case we don't have that information which is a whole other discussion topic that we need to have at some point but what we did for those three bodies were the graphs that allowed you to see the demographic information of the pool without knowing the exact numbers so that it wouldn't be revealing but would still give you a sense of the demographics so we never I don't think that to date we've released the exact number of people in the pool but we have given the demographics of the pool if I'm remembering the only difference is participatory budgeting commission which I believe was a narrative description of the pool so you want me to amend this or do something about it we should follow one of the standards we previously established not just make up a new one yes if you could and then if you look at the other reports you can decide how you want to do it whether you want to make it representative of the entire pool as you knew it in the very beginning these aren't going to be voted on tonight right so I can just do it by the next meeting right it'll have to be attached to well yes and no we need to write a cover to it and if we're not ready to write a cover to it because we don't feel like it's quite done yet then we need to have enough time to write the cover get the cover and your revised memo linked to the actual posting of the 7-1 meeting and so yes there's definitely time but there's not like kind of unlimited time because we have to talk about Oakland needs to talk about what our report's going to say before we're able to to add that even though we don't have a practice of finalizing every single report at this meeting we need to have somebody able to write a cover letter based on revised content alright so that means yes if you could have something in just I guess it's me again if you could revise it and then send it to me and then I guess I'm writing a cover letter so she would revise it and send it back to OCA for our next meeting arguably if it's like not name changes necessary I mean I don't know I mean at this point is it an expression of opinion like it was this first time right names were clearly an expression of opinion if this is just tweaking I'm not 100% certain it has to be attached to the next OCA meeting posting but it has to be clear that we've all seen it and we understand why whatever's being written in the cover letter is being written in the cover letter because the cover letter can fill in gaps too arguably the cover letter could in fact instead be written by Darcy and say I'm actually changing these things based on the initial report let me give you some more information about traditionally the cover letter has been written by the person the cover letter has been written by the person who's the designee who says what have okay I gave this to OCA OCA voted here's what OCA voted here are the concerns OCA so rather than feeling like you have to revise the original report it's more that you're now writing the cover to that report which can clarify the date on the questions it can clarify the part about the demographics I listed it this way but we actually are following this model of doing it so there are I have more things but I would rather wait for more people to talk so with regard to the questions they are so similar but just slightly different than the ones that we adopted the interview questions that was your point right are these so I have in front of those are the interview I don't know which ones those are they're not so I have in front of me our interview question protocol voted for 819 modified 513 voted 520 and they are remarkably similar but not exact so I don't know what these questions are but there's so for instance one one example of the differences question one two three four five what do you think is the role of a non-voting member of the committee the question we adopted is what do you envision as the role of non-voting members of the finance committee so I mean it's really almost the same question but just slightly different so I don't quite know where that mishap happened and I don't know how significant that is what do you think is the role and what do envision of the role is probably the same thing right but could also be interpreted differently so I don't know what we want to do about that these are not technically the questions we voted on but they're damn close so that's the other thing I'm confused about just go right ahead I know we voted a set of questions on April 8th and we've been using those and all the other reports because those were standard so the ones that you've just pulled out because you are so good at this were the finance committee ones because we had no reason to modify the original ones so these were the ones from 520 are the ones that I think that was the last date you gave are the ones that we agreed to use for the finance committee only not for anything else so those are the exact questions that should be listed in the report unless they weren't actually the questions that were used in the interview in which case it's kind of pointless to list questions that weren't actually used so I guess the question is which I'm guessing these questions were the ones that were asked because otherwise like where would Darcy have gotten them from I'll solve this mystery I you know I just cut and paste the standard interview questions in and I looked at them and saw that they were not the questions that I asked because I asked the finance committee questions so I just change them from memory to what because I had, I remembered I had already asked them many many times so I knew what they were and I did not get every single word correct but the questions you actually asked were the ones that we adopted okay so that's just a copy and paste thing but again you don't have to like revise your original report you just add that on the cover letter like I know it said that but what I actually used was this it was just cut and paste thing big deal you know with that part Evan keep going yeah there you go so out of this is two questions about the interviews themselves the town manager was not present I assume since he's not named was he asked to be part of the interviews no is there I mean the town manager has been present for every other set of interviews is there a particular reason that he wasn't asked that was my discretion right as the designee I believe it was I think that's in our process it says at the discretion of the designee my question is why did you choose to use that discretion in this instance to not ask the town manager considering it's been sort of standard for the other four bodies that we've appointed because I felt that Sonya Sonya's presence would be adequate and I did have an exchange with the town manager who said that he thought she would be adequate to so it's a town council appointment I you know I guess I felt that to have a town council appointment interview in the town manager's office with the town manager presence really he has a you know he has a lot of weight when he is in the room and I just felt like the interviewees should understand that it's a different kind of appointment and I actually started each interview by talking about that to each interviewee kind of explaining why who I was and why I was the person interviewing them because they don't know me they why are you doing the interview and so I explained that this was you know an appointment by the town council and that's why I was doing the interview and that Sonya was present to give expertise and that seemed to go fine so the second part was just generally can you talk about how Sonya was utilized in the interviews or afterwards she was there in case there were any questions about the charge about the handout I don't think she was called upon to respond to much I asked her we had the opportunity to talk at the end and actually between some of the interviews generally about the finance committee and her impressions of the applicants so I actually found that to be extremely helpful so Darcy I totally admit that it says in the process that is our adopted process from March 18th and I wonder if we're talking about the same process where it says after consultation with relevant actors town manager committee chair under staff liaison sends recommended appointees to full OCA OCA designate schedules an interview with every applicant and may at their discretion invite the town manager committee chair under staff liaison and so I think it was just that it was confusing to us that we had been constantly doing that and there wasn't not any discussion of why to do it differently just as there was absolutely no discussion of extending the interview of time even though we didn't make I don't remember us saying it's optional to have a longer interview time and so we're just this is something we all need to learn moving forward is what discretion are we fully offering the OCA designate so that you don't get second guests like this and what is out of bounds and needs to be agreed upon by OCA as part of our process so I'm also going to take partial responsibility for this because I was contacted by the town manager who said that he had spoken to Darcy and that Darcy would rather not have him at the interviews but was going to have Sharon and I had read that the way Darcy read it and although I felt like it deviated from what we had talked about I will take the responsibility of saying that I did say that it was okay without talking to the rest of the committee so that is partially on me so that's probably something that we should discuss more and say going into the interviews OCA should probably know should the interview designate then before they start interviews make it very clear to the rest of OCA I think there's some things we need to nail down because I was surprised by the 25 minutes because I felt that we had agreed to you know 15 so okay so they ended up being like 15 but you're right they may have been scheduled for 20 yeah mine were 15 so but I will take responsibility I did not know about the interview time but I did I was contacted by Paul so I will say that if this is I will take responsibility for saying yes without talking to the rest of the committee because it was it wasn't in between time of when we were meeting and so we might want to say today that before interviews start there are certain things that the rest of the committee needs to know before the designate goes into interviews do we want to say that let's have some discussion on that so like time now we're finding a time of you know because we felt that the amount of time was sort of stationary that we had agreed on that I guess I and I didn't I read the the I read the same way that you did saying that would be up to the interview designate is discretion which I don't think anybody's arguing with but I think that people are now saying they would be much more comfortable knowing who was going to be in the room before the interview start correct Evan right so there's a balance here between literal text and expectations right and so to some extent our process gave the interview designate a level of discretion right and yet this was the fifth committee that we were doing this fifth and final for the time being committee that we were doing this process for and so given that everyone else had the town manager present or at least requested his presence and given that we had all done 15 minute interviews I think there was an expectation that that would be carried across and so if the question is did the designate make an error given our process I think the literal answer is no right but it but it comes as a surprise to the rest of the committee because one of the things that we talked about was that given this very and to some extent I don't want to beat a dead horse because I think after we put these finance our process is literally a dead horse right but at the same time one of the things that we really stressed and that we were we were challenged on a little bit at the last council meeting was so the standard interview questions right we were asked why were the interview designate for pbc and rcv not allowed to deviate from standard interview questions and the response was look we instilled a great deal of power in this one interview designate and to compensate for that we tried to put a lot of controls on what they could and could not do so that even though they were the one person who was sort of making the recommendation the rest of the committee felt comfortable that they were only going to act within certain parameters established by the committee and not deviate from them and not essentially try to grab some additional power right and so I think the discomfort here comes from the fact that the three people who have done them to date did them fairly similarly and then for this committee they were decisions that were made that while within their power went beyond the reasonable expectations of the committee and were done without first consulting the committee and so I think that's where we're getting hung up is there was an ability to do so but an expectation that such decisions wouldn't be done without first consulting their colleagues right I'd just like to say that the at the discretion of the designee came from if you recall the discussion we had about open meeting law that we couldn't make we couldn't make the list of people that were present at the at the interviews firm and official they had to be looser and so that we put in that language at the discretion of the designee so either it's firm or it's not I think that it's not but I think what's being said and I should have paid closer attention at that time is that while you know things could be sort of mixed up a little bit or changed somewhat when the designee goes into the interviews you're really trying to take as much as you can everybody else from Oka in with you which is why I think people are saying it would have been helpful to the rest of us to know and I did know for one thing going into it who was going to be there even if you had changed it up I think you know I don't know that you would have gotten like a fight from anybody else going into interviews it would have been helpful I guess for everyone to know that and also because we all had done 15 minute interviews to discuss whether or not everyone felt comfortable with going that much longer again I don't know that you would have necessarily run up against opposition but I think it would have been good to be able to have something that was discussed simply because we did have rules so that we all felt like well we knew what was going to go on in the interviews do you know what I mean? I think that it surprised me when I found out that the town managers interviews were 15 minutes because we had decided 20 minutes and 15 minutes is really short but I can understand why the town manager if the town manager is present at every single one of these interviews why they would be every 15 minutes because he doesn't have much time and so since he wasn't involved that gave these interviews a little bit more flexibility but I understand that if you want to set a precedent and you don't want people comparing well this person gave me 25 minutes and this other person only gave me 15 minutes then that's a problem so we could compromise and just make it 20 minutes and we decided in the first place even though I don't think 20 minutes is long enough so I'll just say as an interview designee I felt comfortable with the amount of time that I had and I would argue the fact that they were that length simply because of the town manager's time I think that's something that Oka had decided on and I felt that I had definitely enough time to do adequate interviews so I actually do think that there's two issues inclusion of the town manager and the length of the interview so the inclusion of the town manager is written verbatim at the discretion of the Oka designee so certainly there was nothing wrong done by not including him I think again it was my point earlier of there was an expectation and so I think I had to note ahead of time here's who couldn't be there and I decided not to instead of knowing after the fact actually I would argue that the interview scheduling we did vote, Darcy's right we voted to adopt a limit to 20 minutes and so that one actually struck me as a little more interesting because the committee had voted a top limit of 20 minutes for interviews and so there was a decision made to increase that but without ever consulting the committee it was a minor thing on some level it feels sort of like who cares on the other level it's the committee voted a protocol the protocol said limit 20 minutes and then the designee went outside of that protocol without running it by the committee or notifying the committee until after the interviews had been conducted for something minor like that it feels sort of like but there is some concern of when we set a protocol there is an expectation that protocol would be followed right? so the protocol isn't being followed if we're doing 15 minutes why is that any different? well it's a limit to 20 minutes I don't think that's what we said I think we said we'd have 20 minutes it says what? it says limit interviews to 20 minutes schedule 3 per hour okay so I'm assuming that means that we want them to be 20 minute interviews but we're actually not wanting to have 15 minute interviews any further discussion? I think we're all learning by doing and I don't I understand Darcy's frustration I also understand Evan's desire that we follow the protocols once we've established them what makes us even more I don't know what adjective to use irritating whatever is that we probably won't follow this procedure ever again so I think we should just acknowledge that we're all struggling to do what we think is best and protocols do matter and I say this for myself as much as for anyone else that when we do establish them we should try to follow them we should follow them not just try we should somehow find a way to clear that with the committee beforehand but I think this is going forward I think the decision by Darcy to substitute Sonia for Paul makes sense to me given the nature of this particular committee going over five minutes I can also have some sympathy with given doing something like this for the first time in this particular committee so I hear what Evan is saying and I respect it and I think going forward we will all take these protocols very seriously but I guess I'm not as upset about or concerned about what happened because this is a one time deal and I think the decisions that Darcy made I can understand why she made them it's also under time pressure to get this done so it would have been difficult to I don't know how she would have done it other than simply canceling everything and waiting until the next meeting to discuss the changes that she wanted to make maybe that's what we'll have to do in the future but anyway Alyssa we could argue about that but we don't need to but every one of these things is a learning experience so we're realizing as you said as we write the new protocols remember how we had this confusion point around interview time do we want to address that or not do we want to give an upper limit and that will be part of that new process because the new process will probably include some kind of interview by somebody that will all be informative to that so we won't forget any of these wonderful conversations one of the things that I think has not been in our protocol and Evan will correct me if I'm wrong on this one is that we have not formally although we have been following a pattern based on what each of you has already done prior to this there's been kind of a standard without it being in our actual voter process there's been a standard practice associated with the kind of email that the person gets not the beginning of the process which we have that wonderful handout for and everything but at the end of the process where it's yes you've been selected but you know it still has to go through a couple of hoops versus no you haven't been selected at this time but bear in mind things might change in the future and we welcome your appointment to something else I don't think we we wrote that into our process I think that our practice again practice and process I think our practice has been to tell all those people the answer to whether or not they're being appointed prior to the information being made public I was advised by one applicant that that didn't happen in this case that they didn't find out until 21 hours after it had been posted that the email was dated the next day I think that's true I think I sent them out that yeah that was yeah I think I sent them out the next day so yes my mistake again well it's taught us that we need to write that down somewhere so that it's clear to everybody what happens I don't think we have a standard letter of to tell people that they were not chosen so I had to make that up well you all used one at some point right so so I definitely did and I don't know if I had included both in my report but I did have one and I definitely I wouldn't want to read somewhere so I think that's definitely something we need to write down is a definite script for a yes and yes you're accepted no you're not email as well I also called people on the phone so maybe then a written script for a phone call I did both because I feel like one of the big things that people are saying is that in the past they just haven't heard anything they don't know whether somebody got it they don't know who got appointed they don't know if they did or didn't get appointed or didn't get appointed obviously but it's just common courtesy to let people know even if they weren't appointed that they weren't but thank you so much and please keep applying there's a lot of different reasons why you wouldn't be appointed to this but you're very valuable so I think then we've learned that both of those scripts need to be written down and agreed on by Oka and then the timeline needs to be established and so now that we are at the two minutes to 12 mark which is well past where we intended to be now I need to throw a wrench into the works okay so this has nothing to do with Darcy's report which is going to be lovely when she does the cover on top of it and it's all going to make sense to everybody and it's going to be great and it doesn't have to be done until that you know that time that she's able to get it attached to the July one so you can even go on vacation at some point in time to do that except here's our problem so as you know as I have complained about every chance I get including right now town staff took it upon themselves to change the CAF to include multiple choices of committees on each CAF so there is no longer if you want to apply for finance committee and design review board and council on aging you have to fill out three separate applications who we save people ten minutes we just made our lives a lot more complicated in terms of tracking because now every one of these CAF's as it turns out is not automatically imported into a database there's a whole lot of transfer of information that's happening from one set of data to another set of data we were told in the report that everyone well actually the word say offered every resident applicant an interview which I don't know if that means that there were non-residents who applied who didn't get offered an interview or if it really just meant everybody who filed a CAF it had been my understanding that everyone who filed a CAF which the town council has been provided all copies of the entire town council as well as the original interview schedule which like you said didn't get updated it was at a moment in time and to my attention looking through some past materials that there was someone who applied for multiple committees including finance committee that we didn't get the CAF for and is not listed on the interview schedule so not listed as having even been offered right so they're not on that because that interview schedule that we see includes things like I called them three times they changed their phone I can't their email doesn't work and you know and then or it includes somebody being called said oh I got appointed to something else I don't want to do that anymore or I'm about to move to North Dakota I don't want to do that anymore I mean that interview list says all those things that interview list did not include this individual's name and did not include that and CAF file that we were given as town councillors did not include so it matched you know there wasn't a discrepancy there was no CAF in the file and the person wasn't listed it was an error so where does that leave us the person applied yep and specifically applied for this position yes on their CAF and we didn't get that CAF and they're not listed on the interview list and has the town managers office acknowledged that they got one they got the CAF so yeah so new problem or for all we know it's been a problem all along and we just haven't caught it before but it's how big of a problem is this for us is the question because on the one hand this is a lot like our conversation at town council right is are these good applicants yes these are good applicants these are good applicants we're very happy with these applicants were was the process followed to the end that we've written it down I mean aside from discretionary things which we may write down in future we said we get all CAFs we don't care if somebody moved to Florida we still get the CAF and then it says on the list they moved to Florida and that didn't happen in this case that's why I was upstairs asking Angelo about this so I don't know how we feel about that at this point like I said there are a lot of applicants for the slots so this brings up a number of questions that are bigger than this finance committee right so the first question is when we are provided CAFs and told this is the applicant pool the question is is it actually right because we know of at least one individual who applied to finance committee whose CAF does not appear in this applicant pool and was not offered an interview what that means is that I don't know why staff decided not to offer that person an interview can I make a clarification statement about what I said and I realize you might want to say a different thing for a different reason but what I actually thought I said was we got an interview list that did not include that person on it I didn't say why or why not and so I think this is gone an additional step when you mention that particular thing and I think there is a point of disagreement associated with that which I was not bringing up yet at this point so this is all new and this is very confusing but the interview what my initial concern was was that the CAF and the person was not listed there's an additional point of confusion as to whether or not because the person should show up on there or disinterested or not we missed the boat on that one so we don't have a complete pool absolutely then the second issue is if that person was indeed offered an interview and there is a difference of opinion I just confirmed with Angela on that question so we have a technical glitch and a difference of opinion so the point I was going to say is that we literally don't know right so I know it doesn't go in there I stopped short all I was saying is we one don't have the CAF and two don't know if that person was offered an interview so the question before us then is this one isolated case for one individual for this one committee or does this sort of trickle through because the problem here and the problem that I have is that with regard to RCV and PBC these are town council appointments and yet there are decisions that are being made for us by staff as to who the applicant pool is and who is being offered an interview and I have an issue with that and it didn't become clear that that was an issue until I realized that there was a name missing from this list well that's a big one because then that makes me feel like then we have to have some kind of a safeguard on what we get because that's on us that's on us if someone says that right because then what people are saying can absolutely be true I don't even know if you got it I don't know why you know so and this individual is going to potentially watch finance committee members be appointed and say wait what so I don't know how to address this right now I would say absolutely it has to be addressed that town council knows without any bit of doubt that we have I mean that goes without saying that we have every single CAF that was there so I don't know how we find that out but yes and then I realize that we're in a time crunch for this but then part of me ethically really feels uncomfortable with going ahead appointing people without having someone very if wow like you would have to have an interview with that person and have it be thoughtful and not a foregone conclusion that the people you already brought forward were there we've already offered them we've already made offers that they've accepted but you have said that it could change and this is a big deal to have somebody George and I want to let George because I just wanted to clarify because it's not even that we need to have that interview but we at least need to know that people I caught this it was like a catch because I was doing something else and that shouldn't be how we discover the full applicant pool and we need to know that when we say as I said in the report that every resident applicant is offered an interview that line is factually inaccurate to no fault of Darcy's but it's inaccurate so when we're saying that we have to know that it's true so I don't necessarily know what this means for this and I don't know maybe that person would withdraw the moment they were offered an interview but if we're saying we're offering interviews to everyone who applies we need to actually do so and I'm sorry George this is a real issue it seems to me and I don't see how we can go forward no matter what we may or may not have done at this point if we find out that the very basic elements of the process for reasons we don't quite understand yet seem to have not been followed I don't see how we can vote on this or move it moving forward until we get some answers to these questions and what answers did you get Alyssa? Angela said she would be willing to come and talk to us if we wanted her to and I just saw her walk by so did you say you had a hard stop at noon I thought I do I have to be somewhere at 12 30 should we table this discussion until our next meeting I would say yes and see if Angela is willing to come to us in our next meeting yes which means we'll be meeting next Monday and you can talk to her about just I mean I did talk to her I do feel very confident about what she explained to me but so that we can all she did offer to come and explain it to us I just said I didn't know how long we'd be so I'll ask her if she would please come to our next meeting so I'm struggling with trying to figure out what the alternatives would be if we have this straggling applicant I could conceivably she could have an interview I don't know what the process would be after that if well I don't know I guess I could just come report to the committee and I just don't know exactly how it would work with having already offered to three people one thing I would like to say is that I wish the finance committee hadn't changed from four to three resident non-voting members because throughout the whole process I kept on thinking jeez I wish that there were four instead of three so I just say quickly I mean I hear exactly what we're saying and we want to make sure that we are being sensitive to all of this I think this is it's an error and it's an error between transposing information from one very user friendly system to another user friendly system it's not a surprise it's a problem but it's not a surprise it's not like somebody didn't do their job it's just complicated to move data from one place to another and do we know if this is the only one well I guess we don't know that given that these people have been offered appointments it isn't like we were like well I guess we'll give you the appointment right these were people that we were positively and I get that we can't compare but we can't we can't unwind this clock we can't go back and add that person or persons if we find more to the mix and say that I mean it's literally things bad things happen sometimes and so I can't see that there's any additional information I mean if Bill Gates applied to our finance committee no matter how we might fill Bill Gates I mean would we say oh well all bets are off we're going to fire one of the three people we just agreed to appoint I mean like we can't do that now and so I mean well we could arguably but what's right so arguably it's is there one or more other people out there let's hope it's just one that would still be interested because we don't we're not that's not entirely clear as a fact yet at this point and if that's true how does that change all of this because I guess what I'm just saying is for Monday right we're in a hurry now we gotta get out of here Monday we're gonna have another meeting we'll have Angela so that we can understand what happened but what does that matter at this point with the reality is are we going to proceed with these folks or are we going to say we need to go ahead and you know do a double check of the records like ask somebody to scan them again to make sure there's only one and then to schedule additional interviews or not I mean I feel like we can make that decision without knowing which access or Excel spreadsheet is messed up I mean like that's not really our problem our problem is not having all the information and obviously now that it's been brought to their attention they're obviously going to deal with it but what are we going to do with what we can do and I think we can decide that now if you if you want to take a vote on it we can I will just say that I think that is I mean you could say that it was a simple mistake but I think for me it speaks to a confirmation of a lot of people saying that they never heard or they never got an interview or they for years never knew what happened to their CAF so I mean if you're saying that you would like to make a motion then I would say then feel free to make a motion Evan. So I hear what Alyssa is saying and so I think the conversation we need to have with Angela really speaks to what we do going forward and might not be able to influence this because I'm also worried I'm sitting here now saying were there people who applied for RCB who I never but if we found out yes there were we're not going to go back and say sorry appointed RCB we're going to rescind your appointment and start over and that's sort of we caught this before this had gone through but if this had gone through then we wouldn't go back on it. So what does that mean going forward? If this keeps happening going forward then we just go up well again I'm a statement. So I think it speaks to really needing to revise the staff on these and I think we've seen that and I think we need to have a broader discussion about I keep saying this today we need to have broader discussion but we do about our relationship with staff with this how decisions are made when they're made because this is related to a whole bunch of other questions we have about when do we set up interviews when do we determine that a pool is sufficient right and it also relates back to the CAF I mean Alyssa pointed out there is a real problem with people being able to apply it's convenient for the public but it blurs lines of authority when it comes to the CAF and that's a conversation I think we should be prepared to have with Angela. All of that said regarding I have additional questions about the finance committee appointments and given your time frame I would prefer that we wait until next week to finish this discussion I'm not ready to take a vote. So even before I brought that up you weren't there. I can't take a vote at this point until we get some answer some understanding of what has gone wrong since whether we do now know that something has gone wrong and the process is still in works and we could if we decide stop it and do something all over again if we so decide but let's get at least an answer to the immediate question of what went wrong which like I said Angela was more than happy to try to us but I didn't want to feel like I was like throwing her to the wolves here and so once we figured out what we were going to do next and so you'll have a conversation with her I think in the meantime we need since no one's watching this video but it is potentially being reported by the press we need to contact these people immediately and tell them we're really sorry that you happen to be the three people whose names were brought up when we found this error in our system and like you said I can't you might decide and it sounds like people had some questions they weren't ready to vote which surprised me because I thought we were already talking about Darcy writing the report but I didn't see that we hadn't voted yet in theory and so we had other questions about finance committee appointments it sounds like beyond just the content of the interviews etc and so this is a more about the actual people so we haven't had that conversation and so to let them know that we're just still working on it I mean we probably don't need to get into all the grizzly details we can just tell them just as you said probably at the end of your email you know it still has to go through some more steps before it's a done deal to let them know that it's not going to be addressed until the July 1st town council meeting and that Oak will be talking about it next week if they want to come or send somebody to come and watch us I'm not ready to read about it in the press but we just had this conversation it's potential they're going to read it in the press and that would be unfortunate for them and also just your emails to them on Monday June 17th they'll be considered potentially vote and it might be I know that when I had our CV even though we voted I didn't immediately email the people and say just to let you know you got through this step and then within the week they all emailed me and said what's going on you said Oka was going to vote on this and so just I think as a courtesy to say hey I know it said vote on June 17th that vote is now probably June 24th otherwise they're just wondering what's happening okay so that being said in the fact that I had a firm stop almost 20 minutes ago I'm going to make the emotion that we adjourn oh oh art I'm so sorry public comment you can hold it till next week okay thank you so much Evan thank you Evan okay so that being done my head being scrambled but I would make the motion to adjourn yeah is there a second George seconds all those in favor I will adjourn at 1216