 Okay, so seeing the presence of the quorum, I'm calling this meeting of outreach communications and appointments to order at 933 am. This meeting is being video and audio recorded on zoom. This is our first attempt to do a zoom meeting of the council, OCA is sort of the guinea pig this morning before tonight's meeting. So a couple of things I just wanted to throw out there for those committee members who are here. I think the best way the simplest way to go about doing this is to have everyone on mute until you're ready to talk so that we don't have background noise. So if you are not currently speaking, I'm going to ask you to be muted. If at any point in time you want to say something. I'm going to ask you to raise your hand and then I can call on you. I think that's the easiest way to keep this organized and simple, especially for the video and audio recording. So if you have something to say, if you want to make a comment, if you have a question, please click the raise hand button. I will see that and then I can call on you and unmute you. Otherwise, I'm going to ask you to, if you are not, if I'm not calling, I'm going to ask you to be muted. Darcy, I have two things for you. What's happening here? Darcy? Okay, we'll figure that out later. So with that, we will start with our agenda. So the first thing is announcements. I have two announcements to make. The first is with regard to our minutes. So as we noted, or as I noted in our last meeting, we were dreadfully behind in minutes. And so I, as I said, I would spent spring break going through all of our minutes for the past nine months or so and updating them and making sure that they were ready to be posted. And so having done that, I sent all of the minutes to Athena, who in all of the many, many, many things that she's been having to do was able to get them up on our website. And so our minutes are now current through our February 24th meeting. And so all of the minutes are up on the OCA website, and they are all up to date in our SharePoint. And so if at any point you need to see the minutes, they are now all there. At our last meeting, we also agreed that we would switch how we were going to do minutes. And so instead of me approving them, we said that we would approve them by consensus as part of the committee so we can do that later, but I did have them up in the packet, but we are all caught up on minutes. The second announcement I want to make is that the last time that we all met on March 9, we declared that the pool of applicants for the Zoning Board of Appeals is sufficient to proceed to interviews. I then sent out a poll to the applicants to figure out what would be the best time to hold these interviews. So there are two announcements associated with this. One is that in response to reaching out and trying to schedule a time, two of the applicants have withdrawn. And so our pool is the same as last time minus two. They did not give particular reasons. They both just said that having thought about it, they were reconsidering at this time. And so our pool is too smaller than it was when we last met. The second thing is I am still waiting on one applicant to confirm a date for the interviews. However, at this point it is very likely to be April 16. That was the soonest I could do it, that was a time that all applicants who responded to the poll could meet. And that also would give that 14-day notification period. Remember that we needed to give interviewees per our process 14 days notice before the interviews. And so I have not scheduled interviews yet, but it is very likely that the interviews will be April 16. I am just waiting on one other person to confirm that that time works for them. Are there any questions about either minutes or about the ZBA interview scheduling? Okay. So seeing none, I will move on to agenda item three, which is development of ZBA interview questions and protocol. And so in order to get these set up, we are going to look at two different documents. And so the first document is on the first document is, sorry, in our packet. It is the OCO report to time council 127. This OCO report was the one that accompanied our planning board interviews. And Darcy, did you have a question? I didn't see a hand. I think you're muted still. I can't hear you. Are you muted? I don't hear Darcy. Darcy, it sounds like your audio is off. Can you check your speaker? Evan, we might want to just pause real quick and just do a quick check that all the committee members can hear and be heard. Darcy, you might want to exit the meeting and rejoin to see if that will restore your audio connection. Athena, do we want to pause the recording for the testing? Do you want to keep it going? I think we're still recording. George, can you confirm that you can hear us and we can hear you? George, Alyssa. I thought we were just testing Darcy. Yes, I was fine. I just wanted to make sure that it works for everyone. George. Oh, geez. I forgot to unmute myself. I'm here. Okay, great. All right. So we're just waiting to make sure that it works for Darcy. Thank you, Athena, for pointing out she had a question. I've been looking at the panelists by didn't see a hand. I just added Darcy as a panelist Darcy. Can you hear us? Can you hear me? All right. Thank you, but go ahead. Anyway, I just wanted to bring up that we decided at the last meeting that we're going to approve minutes. So we need to approve the minutes from the last meeting. So I addressed that in the beginning of the meeting, I said that we agreed at the last minute meeting that we would going forward to minutes by consensus and I said we would do that at the end of the meeting. Okay, so back to interview questions, which is the main purpose for a meeting today to develop the interview questions for the ZBA interviews. In your packet, you have two relevant documents, many relevant documents, but two in particular. So one is the 127 OCA report to the town council. This was the one that detailed our planning board decision. And on page 12 of that document are the interview questions for planning board. Page 10 is the selection guidance for planning board. And then you also have a document titled questions submitted by counselors for ZBA interview questions. As you recall, we solicit questions from the rest of the council to see if they have suggestions. We had replies from a couple of counselors and so their recommendations are in that document. So what I think we'll do is the same thing that we did for the planning board interview questions, which is, we'll start with the original adopted questions the ones that we used for the planning board and go through those first to see if we want to keep any of those discard any of those and then we will go through the questions that are submitted by counselors. And so if you could have in front of you are I guess I can also share my screen so it's up on the screen for everyone. Okay, so we have the questions for the planning board interview. And so the first thing I want to do is make sure is go through these and just see if we like these. If there's any others that we want to add if there's any that we want to remove. So the first question that we had for the planning board was why are you interested in serving on the planning board. So do we want an opening question that is why are you interested in serving on the ZBA. And it looks like as I'm sharing my screen. I am not able to. Okay, so opening it up. Raise your hand if you want to speak. Do we want to have an initial question that's just why are you interested in serving on the ZBA. I'm not saying anything. So why don't we do it this way. If you are, if you want this question changed or removed. Please raise your hand and speak otherwise I will assume that we are going to keep a question that says why are you interested in serving on the ZBA. Okay, so seeing no hands that I am going, we're going to maintain question one. Why are you interested in serving on the ZBA. So question two is, what is your relevant expertise and their experience. So do we feel like this is a relevant question to maintain, unless it has our hand up so I'm going to unmute us and ask her to speak. Also, can you. Yeah, it's funny how much I hate Microsoft yet I found teams much more intuitively obvious than zoom. Okay, um, for question two, I think the input that we got that you share that's in our packet for today. I think item two could be revised to reflect some of that input. It, you know, it's rather detailed because they were the person the people were trying to explain what they meant by the question, but I think that it could be refined to include some of that language. So perhaps what we should do because you're right I think all four submitted questions sort of touched on this relevant expertise experience to some extent. We could, we could acknowledge we'll have some variation of that question but perhaps circle back to that when we hit counselor questions. So why don't we do why don't we put a placeholder on to and come back to see if we want to refine based on what our colleagues on the council said question. So three might be similar. What important perspective do you feel you bring to this body. Does anyone have any thoughts comments on whether or not we want to maintain that question, please raise your hand if you have a comment. Want that question discarded, or went it altered. Okay, Alyssa. So we can throw it out depending on what we do with to because I think it was, it was more important when we were using a more generic question. Okay. Other thoughts on Alyssa's statement that perhaps we can throw it out George, can you unmute yourself. You're still muted. It says I'm muted by the host. I can hear you now so. Thank you I'm sorry. This is awkward but I think we're doing the best. It. I agree with Alyssa that depending what we do with to I don't really see what three would accomplish. The whole idea perspective raises questions as well. I think we're going to focus on some of the questions that have been given to us by counselors. So I think I'd like us to, to wordsmith this if we can do it in a somewhat awkward situation, but I would like to see three the removed or or made more focused. This is perhaps another situation where as we're going through the counselor submitted questions, we might return to this. Okay, seeing no other hand so we're going to be returning to questions to at Alyssa. Go ahead. I'm sorry this is a technical question. Yeah, following up on my whining earlier. Can you share a screen, which looks fantastic at my end, which is great. I can't seem to figure out how to get to any of my other stuff anymore like how to shrink it down a little bit so that I can go look at the document that's in our packet. So if someone from IT could answer that because I know how to do it from my role, but I don't have the host view might be separate. Well, let's say you should be able to hover over your main screen and then up in the upper right hand corner. If there's a button that says exit full screen or you can press alt and F, and it should take you out of full screen mode and then you can access other documents while you're zooming. Nope. I, I got an I know the theory. It's just not working. But that's fine that as long as that's what I was supposed to be doing I get it. I guess it's that dark, Darcy's having some technical issues to can. Okay. Darcy, can you unmute yourself and just let us know what what's happening on your end. I see I see you're unmuted, but I can't hear anything. Hi, can you hear me now. Yep. Um, have never been able to get the picture of the meeting. And I don't have any access to my microphone or anything. So, I've been on a ton of zoom meetings over the past couple of weeks, but this is the only zoom meeting that I have not been able to figure out. So what can you see. I see my, my desktop. So you can't see my screen you can't see the interview questions. No, but we can hear you at least so that's one thing. Right, but I can't like raise my hand or answer, you know, do you have a zoom window open but you can't there's no ability to do anything. You know, I've gone to the start menu to try to go to zoom and start zoom and that doesn't do anything. So I started out with the link that was in the agenda. And I did have have the picture of the meeting for a little while. And then I lost it in my attempt to try to figure out how to get my microphone working. I lost it when I left the meeting because I was asked to leave the meeting and I left the meeting and now I haven't been able to get back in. So Darcy, when you, when you were in the meeting before there were two different participants that were labeled Darcy Dumont. Yeah, so one of them is still there. Yeah, so what was what was the difference between the two because in the other one you were able to see what we couldn't hear you and this one we can hear you but you can't see. I know the answers to that I would fix it. Sorry, I just keep going back to try to start zoom and it asked me to join a meeting and sign in. Do any of the members from IT have any recommendations about what might be happening with Darcy. Darcy this is this is Serge from IT. What I can do is we can connect. I can, apart from this meeting I can connect to your machine using built in Windows tool and take a look at that if that's okay. Right now. If it's a good time if it should only take a few minutes I just want to see what you're seeing and go from there. That's fine. Okay, do you mind just putting your contact number in the chat so I can give you a call that way. Chat is not listed here. Oh, wait a minute. Yes, it is never mind. Perfect. Why don't I just email it to you. If you yeah if you don't mind if once you email it to me I'll just I'll I'll give you a call right away. And this is Sean. This is Serge. Serge. Okay. All right. I'll probably send it to Sean so you can get it to because I don't that's fine. We'll we'll we'll connect. Thank you. Okay, thanks. Okay, so Darcy you can at least hear us correct. Yes, I can. Okay, so you just can't see us. We can either pause the meeting if they're going to do that now or we can continue because Darcy, you can hear us and you can just let us know when you have a question. Okay, just then leave my mic on. Thanks. And Darcy, because you can't see the screen right now we are on the in the packet on the OCO 127 report which includes when we're on page 12, which is the planning board interview questions. So we are on question for we've agreed that we're going to return to question two and three after we go through the council or comments. And we had we agree that we would keep question one. So question four is tell us tell us about an experience you have had collaborating with a group. Does anyone have any interest in modifying or removing this question. I just want to know what I noted in my email to you which is that I would like to keep the question three, which I know we already talked about but I wasn't part of that conversation. So we're going to go back to question three after we go through the council or comments. So I see no opposition to retaining question for which is an experience you had collaborating in a group. So then I will maintain that. So question five is not relevant to the ZBA. And so that one is, unless someone has another opinion. We will be discarding question five, since it is particularly about the planning board. Okay. Hello. I'm going to mute while you're on the phone. Okay. Questions six and seven. Now, these two questions. When it came to the actual interview. I have no opinion about these two questions because they both were able to be answered as yes or no questions. I know some people on the committee and in the council felt like it was actually useful to see if someone just gave a yes or no some people thought that it was a good thing if someone just said yes or no it showed that they were able to be concise other people felt as though it was a, or fuller answers. So I think the question before us with section six and seven is, do we feel like they're important questions to ask. If so, are we okay maintaining them as questions that theory could just be answered as yes or no questions. And three, if we are going to maintain them and we don't want them to be yes or no questions, is there a way to modify them in some fashion. So I see a hand from Alyssa. So let's say if you could go ahead and unmute yourself. So, I believe that we could alter it to say something like this is rough but describe why you are comfortable working under open meeting law, where all blah blah blah, and then a possible answer is, because I'm very familiar with the requirements of open meeting law and I think they're important or I don't understand them at all but I'm going willing to learn or something is what I was looking for as an answer. So maybe describe as what we're looking for. Okay, I also see George's hand up to George if you could unmute and give your comment. I definitely, I'm sorry, I think seven should go. I don't really, I think it's just a waste of our time. I'm wondering if we can wordsmith some of the suggestions from the counselors. Whether we can also get rid of it as well. I really don't feel it tells me much as it stands even with Alyssa suggestion which is a good one. Maybe she's I think she's looking for something important but I just, I don't know I felt like these did not really give us any insight I'd rather. I was going to keep the number short and I'd like towards. So, I would be happy getting rid of six and seven unless we can come up with something really good for six. Okay. So let's, let's, Alyssa, how do you can I ask directly, how do you feel about question seven. I think seven can go because we're giving them the handout which of course is actually a separate conversation because it hasn't been updated to indicate that we have in fact, updated the zoning by law to, since we wrote that a year ago, but at any rate, since it's on the handout, and they're all we know they all have the handout it's not like we were just checking to see if they went and found it themselves. You know they should be taking themselves out of the running. Hopefully it's something you also touched on when you spoke with them if they said you know is it really on Thursdays or, you know, whatever. I think that the handout covers it. Right. So, can I get so we have two committee members are supportive of striking questions seven can I ask if I'm asking me a question. Question seven can I ask it. Alyssa and George support discarding question seven can I ask your opinion. Could you read me the question. Question seven is, are you comfortable with the time commitment and committing meeting schedule on the provided handout. And those Alyssa and George want to discard it. Yes, with the feeling that it's on the handout that if they're not comfortable they should have already pulled themselves out. Yeah, that's fine. Okay. So it sounds like thank you Darcy. Why don't you mute me again. Okay. It sounds like we have consensus to discard question seven. So then that was an easier one so let's go back to six and George is supportive of discarding six Alyssa you want to maintain it but modify it correct. Correct. Okay. And can you just talk about, can you just give a reason why you think this is important question versus seven. So, I know that in theory everybody's supposed to understand open meeting law but it was clear when I came on to the council that many of my fellow counselors were unfamiliar with the basics of open meeting law before they got put on to the council. I'm trying to get people to do a little homework to understand that. And I know of an apocrymic and give an apocryphal stories about people who've served both on committees and as chairs who thought they understood open meeting law who alleged they understood open meeting law, but then thought it was totally fine to do various things that were in conflict with open meeting law because they just thought they were ridiculous and inefficient like not being able to decide things over email before you got to a meeting. So, I'm just trying to get at the fact that since particularly because this like planning board is such an incredibly important legal decision that people are making that they understand they can't get together outside of the meeting to work all this through that stuff they do outside the meeting. And the handout touches on this I think is with staff, as opposed to with each other, because it's it's a it's complicated work they're being expected to do it's the kind of thing human nature would ask you to talk to your colleagues about, but you shouldn't do that outside of a posted meeting. Okay, and so George you were supportive of removing this question can I just ask if you could explain your rationale a little bit more. And I'm going to turn it over to Darcy. Okay, I agree with the list of this is really important. It just seems that in the context of an interview. While it might give us some might give us some insight into somebody's knowledge or lack of knowledge. It just seems like a very difficult it just seems like not the appropriate setting to try and because we can't do it back and forth we can't say well wait a minute, you know, that's not right. And people could simply make mistakes I mean they understand someone not really understanding this, as Alyssa pointed out many of us, when we entered this position, really didn't understand it. I don't think that should be disqualifying for us, but it did mean we had to learn and we are still learning I think to some degree so I just feel like it's an important issue, but it has to be dealt with through education and also I think some of the other questions will give us a sense of somebody's maturity and ability to to listen and so forth. This one. I just feel like even if we just don't have the it's not we're in a situation where we can just, you know, continue to pursue the question we just all we can do is ask it. So, I feel like there are other ways to get at what makes a good candidate in some of the questions submitted by counselors and some of the things that we have up above. I just feel this is it's important but I don't see how an interview is a situation where you can really get at it. Given all the subtleties and complexities, somebody could be completely confused about it, and yet be an excellent candidate. They don't need to be enlightened they need to do, they need to learn some things. So, I guess I still feel that we should just drop it. Okay, I see a list has a hand up before before I ask you speak Alyssa, I see Darcy is reconnected and a slightly different format Darcy can I ask you do you have an ability to both speak and see us Darcy are you there. Yes, I am back. Okay, and can you see this my screen now. All right, beautiful. Thank you. Appreciate your patience. So, I'm not sure when you cut out exactly so we're currently discussing question six, which is, are you comfortable working under open meeting law, where all discussions and decisions are done in meetings posted at least 48 hours in advance and open to the public. Alyssa would like to maintain this question alter it to say describe why you are comfortable so that it is not a yes or no question. I would like to discard this feeling as though it's not necessarily an important question to ask during an interview. I'm Alyssa has her hands up but I just want to hear briefly your thoughts on this question since you haven't had an opportunity to speak on it yet. Thank you. I am still on the phone with it. Okay. And the I, my, my feeling would be that it's not necessary that I would also discard it. Just because you know it's important but it's not necessary as an interview question in my mind. Okay, so Alyssa has your hands up so I'm going to ask Alyssa if you can unmute yourself. I think there's just a philosophical difference here that isn't going to be resolved because I have a problem with the way several conversations take place outside of posted meetings that are not within the spirit but perhaps within the letter of open meeting law. So I do come at this from a different perspective. Perhaps what I'm concerned about most is that as we adapt some of the input that we received from counselors that talks about how to get along with people how to interact with people on in a difficult situation and work collaboratively. That could easily sound to people like two of us should get together at the coffee shop and work this through and then a different two people should get together at a coffee shop and work this through. And that's not how you collaborate on these difficult conversations. So maybe it's just a matter of some turn of phrase in the other part about how everybody's going to be working hard on these things together because like some of the other things we can do as assignments you know outside committee work. This is not stuff that they can be working on outside of their ZBA meetings with anybody other than themselves and a staff member. And it's really not okay for two of them to get together and trying to figure out how something works. So if you could just stay unmuted. If are you I'm guessing curious if if achieving your objective could be done through an introductory statement to the applicants versus a question we asked them. What do you feel like they need to be able to articulate something funny that started making spaces instead of unmuting me. It could at least little tricks you learn it could be a preface because you know Amherst rightly we like to have long preceding parts before the question. We were trying really hard to avoid that. But actually if it could be a preceding thing I would be totally comfortable with that and we could also include for example the thing about time commitment. We know you all read the handout right that's part of the speech. We know you all read the handout we know you're comfortable with the time commitment we know you understand that open meeting law is complicated than that you can't work on stuff outside of meetings. Now here are your questions. Okay, so, so it could all of those things that we're discarding couldn't theory be an introduction to the interview questions themselves. Exactly. Okay, George you have your hand up could you unmute yourself. I think this makes sense to me what both of you just suggested. My thought earlier before Alyssa was speaking was that with some of these other questions that we might be wordsmithing that come from the counselors. You could always practice it with given the requirements of what we're meeting law or given the restrictions of open meeting law. That could be something we'd insert just to raise that flag, but may not be needed at all. And putting something upfront is it seems sensible to me. Okay. So with that, I think where we're at is agreement. If we're looking at the list of interview questions from the planning board we have agreement to retain questions one and question for we're going to circle back to questions two and three. Because we are discarding it sounds like five, six and seven, but working some of the content of six and seven into preface to the interviews. Does anyone feel like that that was incorrect. Okay, so with that then I want us to to look at the question submitted by counselors and so again. So going back to questions two and three about expertise experience and perspective is because we felt like they could be wordsmith to incorporate some of the questions that were submitted by our colleagues. So now I want us to turn to those. And so you should see them up on the screen now. So they're all rather lengthy questions. So, and I thought they're a little bit similar and I apologize normally I would have tried to group them but I did not have time. So let's go through them and discuss each one and I think these each do need a discussion because they're not our questions and so the first question is what experience do you have applying rules regulations or other types of guidelines to various situations. Do you determine whether a person or entity has met the requirements of the rules, or if the persons or entities request to not follow the rules should be allowed examples of applying rules could be experiencing HR applying personnel rules or approaching legal classroom rules etc. My goal from this question is to get an idea of how an applicant might begin to assess applications and then decide whether to allow the waivers. So that was a lot. If I could ask if anyone has any comments or thoughts on this question about experience applying guidelines or rules to various situations. Do you have your hand up and you can please unmute. Thank you. Partly it depends on how many questions we end up asking, right. And one of the things that that I, I'm hoping Darcy will take into account is like when we get to question three that that might help address her perspective issue. I can see asking the first sentence of this first question, and then using some variation of the second question as a as another question, I wouldn't consider them substitutes for each other. But the reason I'm willing to have the first one just be the first sentence of the first one is that seems like a broader thing and see where people go with it but then we'll be asking another question. Not related, but rather than trying to ask two parts of the first question I would just ask the first sentence of it and then move on to a variation of the second question item two. Okay, thank you George you have your hand up if you could unmute yourself. Because it's so broad. I'd like to put a hold on it for a moment and see if we can get further with 234 because I think we can get at least two good questions out of 234. It's not even to be needed. So, as it stands, it just seems this time to I just say maybe give them what we're trying to do but just seems to open ended I think. Why don't we go on I would suggest going on to 234 and see we can focus those into short questions that seem to apply directly to the ZBA experience. And if we can come up with at least one or two of those we agree on, then go back to one and see if we really need it. Before we move on to 234 because I agree I wanted to talk about all these then. But it seems like we have some support for the first sentence to one. Darcy, do you have any thoughts on this first question. Sorry. I guess I would not want to eliminate a person that didn't have experience applying rules regulations or other types of guidelines. So, I would like to get at what purposes of the question. So, I, yeah, I think all of these are related 123 and four. So I think that we have to kind of look at the whole thing to see what were these all provided by one person. Yep. Yeah. I mean, this sort of goes to our criteria, which I don't think we decided on right. Our selection guidance. Election guidance. We adopted it on March 9. Well, we did. Okay, so this is our selection criteria to my knowledge, right. So why would we be asking it. Okay. So I would like to get your hand up in listening to both of those. I would say that we can just skip question one all together and that question to the first very first part of it. I think is the way of addressing both more specific without having a more generic question in favor of perhaps what George was saying, and then in to that first part also makes it clear that everybody in their life has had some situation where you've had to deal with the rule of regulation and so they will be able to come up with something associated with that whereas I can see that one might be a little dissuading to people as it stands. So maybe asking it more specifically as the first part of question two means that we don't need question one at all. Okay, so I think what I'm hearing from all committee members is that given some of the similarities between these questions instead of going through them one by one it might be useful to take them all as a whole and figure out what we want to pull out of this, if anything. So let's just look through all three questions and all three remaining questions briefly and I'll read them just for the sake of the committee and for the public. So question two is, have you ever faced a situation where you disagreed with a rule or regulation that had to apply it slash follow it. Please explain your thought process and reaching your final action in this type of situation. And this question is to ensure that even when a member does not like the bylaw they will still vote in accordance with the bylaw so even if you don't like the inclusion Arizona requirement you will still vote to deny an application that doesn't comply with it. Or even if you don't like the setback requirements you'll still vote to approve an application that complies with them. So three is have you had experience at being the hearing officer or a member of a board or panel conducting an adjudicatory hearing, been a party in such hearing or testified and adjudicatory hearing is so please briefly describe that experience and tell us what you learned that will enable you to serve as an objective member of the ZBA. So one is, what is your understanding of the responsibility of a member of the zoning board of appeals, if an applicant for a special permit is proposing to do something that you don't believe is in the best interest of the town but is consistent with the current zoning bylaw. So why don't we, given that there are a lot of themes that cross over all of these why don't we go through them as a whole. And George has his hand up, I'm going to ask George to unmute himself and speak. I like to very much, and almost really the way it's worded. I think it is, as Alyssa suggested, it's broad enough everyone's had experience like this in their life. And they can take it any direction they want, but I think it would give us real insight. And if they don't answer it all if they just brush it off or give a cursory answer that would tell us something as well so I like to very much. If somebody has potential. I think it just needs to be a short, a little bit, but, and I don't like for. I just think it's, it's, it's too much. It's looking for something it's obvious it's looking for something and I don't like those kinds of questions. It should have enough space in it to allow someone to, they should feel comfortable answering it they shouldn't feel like they're being put on the spot. I think it should be a question that still gives us something we want to know. So I like to very much at the stands. I think three has a lot of potential. I'd like to get rid of four. And I think we only need to the most. So that's my thoughts. Okay. Any other thoughts. Darcy Darcy, there should be a raise hand feature in the thing just in case I don't always see your screen but I can see you so go ahead. Where is the raise hand feature. If you have the participants tab open, you should see it there. Okay. I think that we could deal with all of this by just maybe having a question that that uses the language in number. Okay. I think we simply do you think you will be able to be a you will be able to serve as an objective member of the zoning board of appeals. Okay. Alyssa, could you please unmute yourself. I thought we were trying to get rid of yes no questions. Obviously the person's just going to say yes and move on. Okay. Okay. So Darcy, explain how you will be able to be an objective member of the zoning board of appeals. That makes that makes sense to me and is really what these questions are trying to get at in just in more detail. So, you know, some way of meeting all of that. Okay, George, can you please unmute yourself. The interviewee. Some freedom to talk about their own experience, but still gets at what we are looking for. And asking somebody, you know, explain to me how you're going to be an objective member of the CBA. I guess it could work, but you know, it's a little uneasy with these kinds of questions which say, tell us, you know, you know, whether you're going to be a good member or not. But anyway. Okay. So if I can add some of my input here. So seeing these four questions is the goal of right finding whether the applicants would be objective members, whether they could look at things and apply regulations and rules. Even if they disagree with them. I tend to agree a little bit more with George I think is if you just ask someone can you explain how you'll be an objective member I think you'll get a lot of sort of abstract information about objectivity. If you say, have you ever faced or tell, you know, I don't actually like to have you ever, I would say, tell us about a situation you face. Because that forces them, instead of talking to the abstract or the hypothetical to actually apply this idea of objectivity to a situation where it would have been difficult and I personally always prefer interview questions that force them to give an example as opposed to talking in the abstract. So we have agreement that we want to have some sort of question that assesses their objectivity. If we go back to the ZBA selection guidance which we adopted. You know, we will note that it that we did adopt selection guidance that had understanding of the judicial function of the body. I think that we do want some question that gets at that part of selection guidance understanding of the judicial function of the body. And so any thoughts on how we might want to word such a question pulled from these that are have been submitted to us. We have a couple options on the table. Okay, so why don't we compare then no one has an opinion for once. George, please unmute yourself. Yeah, this is difficult. I mean I know it's, I think when we're face to face we can see when people are struggling to think something through and when they're just been rolling their eyes. And, you know, we're busy doing something else. So, maybe I should put my face on the screen so you can see it's agonized agonized. Brian is struggling to think this through and but it's just the nature of the beast. So I, yeah, I like. We want to get at whether they understand what this body does so maybe one thing you could simply do is ask them, you know, tell us a little about your understanding what the ZBA does. You know, do you give us give us your sense of what you think the ZBA does and and what its function is, and then just listen to what they say. I mean the other is I like your point Evan that getting at least one question if not all of them getting at somebody's experience so they speak from personal experience which you know that that's comfortable for them. But it also gets what we're interested in. So I like questions that lead to, you know, where they talk about their own experience that give us a concrete example. But there's also, I think a place for them just giving us our hearing from them, what they what they think this body is supposed to do. And so maybe it could be just as straightforward as that, you know, tell us what your understanding of the ZBA is and what its function is. It could be one way of addressing that I would like at least one question where they have to talk from their experience. And that's why I like to very much and I agree with you Evan that phrasing it like tell us about a situation is a much better way than have you ever. I think so that definitely is a very good idea. I guess with three I'm still struggling with the idea. Maybe it's a little bit too pointed. I've had experiences like this but not everybody has where you know you've been party to something or you've attended a meeting, and I certainly could talk about that. But that's focused particularly on an adjudicatory type situation. So maybe you could just go with two. And then the other question would be something like just tell us what you think this body is and how it works, what's your understanding the ZBA and its function. We want to keep this question short, I think we want it for our sake and for their sake. So that's my thoughts and I apologize. I don't know about the rest of you but when I'm around you I can I can see where they're really struggling and where they're just saying let's move on and we don't have that here. So, if you're ready to move on that's fine. But those are my confused thoughts. One thing I'll say is remember that. Thank you George for that. We are talking about this to some extent in the context of might these replace or supplement questions to or three and so I think question two is what is your relevant experience experience expertise and or experience. And I think in this context because the ZBA is a fairly narrow body and because we do want to get at that selection criteria about the judicial nature of the position. Some question that forces them to articulate their experience with some type of judicial decision would be useful. And then three is what important perspective do you feel you bring to the body. To some extent that's about them but it's also about what perspectives they think the body needs and so perhaps Georgia suggestions of a question about what's your understanding of what the ZBA does get set their perspective. Or it could be what it does or what it should do. And then perhaps a question about having to apply a rule and regulation and disagree with gets at this relevant experience so I think we're trying to figure out how to better articulate questions two or three within the context of our selection guidance and within the context of the questions that were submitted by our colleagues on the council. So Georgia sort of proposed two separate questions, one about understanding the nature of the ZBA and one about this basically some variation of question to are there any thoughts on that or otherwise on these questions. Darcy. I guess I don't have any problem with the second question that George post about what what the person's view is of what the ZBA does. I think our, our initial questions what is your experience or expertise is just a super basic question that we need to ask that is relevant to, you know, what is your experience relevant experience and expertise. Why would we not ask that question. That seems so basic. I really don't like the idea that we, we are trying to get some that was preferring people that have experience with adjudicatory hearings. I don't think that's necessary at all. Because there's a world of people out there that could do a good job on the ZBA that, you know, haven't necessarily had that experience. So, yeah, and I also like question three as it is. And why we can't, if we want to add George's question about what, what is your view of what the ZBA does. That's a good question. Okay, I'll see a list of hand up a list of you could unmute yourself. So, following up on yeah this is really really hard to do it this way. I agree with the second part of what Darcy just said but the first part really confused me because Can we can you just articulate what was the second part that you're Oh, the second part about potentially adding a question, not to not to mischaracterize but along the lines of what George said about, you know, tell us how you see the role of the ZBA or how you see your role on it or want some variation of that, which is not exactly written down any place yet but is perhaps getting at some of the things we're trying to get at. But the first part of what she said about, it's a basic question to say, what experience do you have, which exactly conflicts with the earlier comment about how we don't want to keep out people who haven't had direct experience. So, you can't ask the question that way. You have to ask, if you're not trying to screen people out for not having experience so they just say, I don't have any is you have to ask it in such a way that describes something along the lines what we were talking about about you know having to follow rules you don't like but because they're the rules, rather than saying, what's your experience and in this area it's like it doesn't matter with their experiences in that area. As Darcy herself said earlier, so it's what matters is that their experience in dealing with a complex situation that they may or may not agree with, which we don't have to say it as you may or may not agree with, but to just ask the generic question about what is your experience automatically throws people who don't perceive themselves as having had experience in an adjudicatory way as having any relevant experience to the ZBA at all. As we've all experienced when we've tried to recruit people to the ZBA who've said I've never done anything like that before. And then you try and explain it in a more basic way and then they go, oh yeah I kind of get that. But when when they just look at the face of it they're like, that's a thing I've got nothing to do with so why would I apply for that. Okay, thank you. Yeah, I think that one of the things I think I'm hearing agreement on is the mind discomfort with question three of the questions submitted by counselors. Have you had experience at being the hearing officer or a member of a border panel conducting an adjudicatory hearing that's very, very specific. And then been a party to such a hearing I'm not, you know, quite sure that can mean a lot of different things have you have you been to court. Maybe that doesn't get an answer that we want. And so I think that we aren't, in my opinion. And maybe I'll say not we buy and not necessarily looking for experience with formal adjudicatory hearings. But what I like about questions one and two here is that it just says, have you ever had to apply a rule of regulation so for me if I'm thinking about if I was applying to the ZBA, I've certainly never been involved in any type of adjudicatory hearings prior to my experience of the council. Sure. But having been a professor, I have to, you know, apply classroom rules and regulations I have to follow academic policies. You know, when I worked for state government, I certainly had to apply rules and regulations, which I didn't agree with. So I think, I think getting away from that sort of formalize adjudicatory role and towards a general think about a rule of regulation will apply in the past, broadens it to various professions, various experiences that people have. And I think it still gives us an idea of what they're looking for, which I think is the goal of the question and I think that's the type of experience that really is going to matter for the ZBA. So I actually quite like question to Alyssa, you have your hand up. Following up on that Evan and to make it clear one of the way to ask this question is so that you can get an answer that says, you know, I really wanted to cut a student a break but the academic policy said XYZ and I couldn't do it. So in my soccer league, I wanted to enable such so and so to play, but for this technical reason they weren't allowed to play, or I worked for this government agency and had to apply these very specific rules. I think that the soccer, the classroom, the government agency are all perfectly equivalent in terms of possible ZBA service. And so asking the question in such a way that people will feel like, Oh yeah, I used to run the the referees and we had all kinds of complicated regulations that they would think of that as an answer, as opposed to, because they ever worked in an adjudicatory function in the way they think of adjudicatory function. So would you have your hand up if you can please unmute yourself. It sounds from what I'm hearing from the rest of you that we're agreed that to that's the submitted one from the counselors is, is, oh, and it gets it something important. And we'll tell we hope we will tell us something important, we like it. And where we're, I guess struggling a little bit is at least hearing what Darcy said is question two on our sheet, what is your relevant experience expertise and or experience. And on one hand, I kind of think Darcy, you know that seems like a perfectly appropriate question. On the other hand, I think Alyssa makes a really good point that that if by its nature it can and perhaps probably does scare some people away. And so to the one that is on the counselor sheet allows someone who maybe doesn't have what they think of is this kind of adjudicatory experience doesn't raise that issue at all they just talk from their own experience and it gives us insight. So maybe we could get rid of two from our, our sheet and replace it with two from the counselor suggestion, if we can agree on the wording I think we're pretty close. Three when I'm hearing and from Evan I think and maybe from some of the others but let me just take also from myself. This is a little bit the adjudicatory aspect is just too specific and to to off putting. So, I was going to suggest some like there might be some agreement that we would make that a more general question about letting them just tell us about their understanding what the ZBA is and does, and we can word that but it would be fairly short and sweet, and then we just sit back and listen. If we're at that point. It sounds to me like to on our the planning board interview question number two could be stricken, and we could insert to from the counselor question, and then I would suggest three. And then I think we, we have something. And maybe could still keep for I don't know. That's what I'm hearing. I don't know what others are hearing, maybe I'm missing something. So let me shut up. Okay, yeah, I actually personally like the idea of asking question of what is or what should be the role of the ZBA and I actually think that would be a useful first question before even asking people to articulate why they're interested. So that sets off the tone of what's your understanding of the ZBA and that that contextualizes everything else. Whether others agree, I don't know, but I actually personally like the two questions. What is your understanding of the ZBA or what, what is the role of the ZBA or should be the role of the ZBA. And then also the question about having to apply for a regulation. Other thoughts other comments. Darcy. I just want to mention that I, I don't think that there was actual agreement that we should use that question in number two on the question submitted by counselors. Instead of, well, at all, and or that we should not use the number two on our initial list. As I said before, I, it makes sense to me to ask the question, but just relevant, relevant experience would, would bring up whether or not they had done, you know, been in a similar situation where they could describe it. It needs to be broader, you know, just like open it up. I'm interested in other experience that they have in addition to being in, you know, something with regard to, you know, being in a good judicatory setting. There are lots of other experience that they could have had that would be relevant. In the, in the building trade or if they're whatever, you know, there are a lot of different things that would make their experience relevant to being on the ZBA. Great. Thank you. Alyssa, you have your hand up. You can please unmute yourself. I disagree completely. I don't care if someone's in the building trade. What I care about is if they're in the building trade and they've had to deal with rules and regulations at the local or state level, or they've run the referee association for their kids soccer team, or at one point they worked on a classroom, being in the building trades is irrelevant to the ZBA. What matters is whether or not they have had any experience at all in dealing with rules of any kind in a classroom or anywhere else. If they haven't, then I don't see how this is a good fit for them. So just telling me that they're in the building trades is not relevant. I want to have it as an extra question. You know, that's like, that to me is why I think to be clear, having someone from the building trades would be really interesting if they also have can explain how they dealt with rules or regulations in some area of their life. It's not be useful just because I've been a builder. It's like, well, have you ever had to deal with regs. No, that was always my boss's job and no I can't think of any examples. I don't want them on the ZBA. Okay, but I want to ask the question in a way that they can succeed. And when we say relevant. The average person is going to see what I see as valuable experiences as valuable for ZBA and I don't want them to feel like they have to say, Nope, I don't have any. Okay. And I'm thinking if we ask question two, and I think that of the, if they ask, if we ask question two of questions submitted by counselors, which I think the majority of us here like, and we also remember maintaining question one, which is why are you interested in serving on the ZBA. I'm wondering Darcy, if the combination of those two where they have to talk about why they're interested in serving, and then also give an experience of a time they've applied rules and regulations which is from their personal professional life. So if you feel as though the combination of those two questions would get at what would otherwise be answered in the question, what is your relevant expertise and experience. Can you unmute yourself even muting the wrong mic. It doesn't. Yeah, I, I, the focus on whether or not they've had experience with applying rules and regulations. I think it's a piece of what we should look at but I don't see it as being the important piece. So, but I like George's question and adding that to the first question. Why are you interested in serving on the planning board and are what is your, what is your view of what the planning board does and why are you interested in serving on it. I mean, ZBA, and relevant expertise and experience. I mean, if you wanted to add a phrase after that, including any experience that you have with applying rules to anything. That would be fine. But I think we need to have a broader question than just about what their experience is with applying rules. There may be people that are new that haven't had that much experience doing anything related to applying rules. Do we not want them on the ZBA. Sorry, I didn't realize I was on mute as I was telling you to unmute yourself. Yeah, there was a silence there. I was like, George, unmute yourself. Just a very small point and I apologize that to Darcy's comments that whatever questions we come up with each question should have a single focus we shouldn't have. If you think about X and Y and Z, it should just be even if it's even if it's a long sentence, it should be very specific as to what we're asking. So if we don't want to combine things. I don't think we want to railroad train. We may still want to have so that maybe with Darcy's point we'll have separate questions, but it's just a technical point about questions. Let's, let's not have questions that have multiple parts. You know, each question then would be separate. That's my phone. Okay. Alyssa, I see your hand up. Could you please unmute yourself. I completely object to the concept of the word relevant because that's asking them to tell us to think through why they think their experience is relevant. I think that we should be more directive in terms of asking in a slightly different way, more along the lines of what question to on the submitted items works because we've learned since we wrote these questions sometime ago, and that in answer to the question of if we there's somebody new that hasn't had any experience and applying rules and regulations do we not want them on the ZBA. And there is yes 100% we do not want them on the ZBA. If they can't come up with an example of someplace in their life where they've had to follow rules or apply rules, then no, I don't believe they belong on the ZBA period so I don't want to. I don't want to cut them out for that, but I don't want to cut them out because they don't understand what we mean by relevant. So I'm just asking that we offer them some more information, whether it's through a variation of question to have the submitted questions or whatever that says, tell us about describe, you know, along those lines, not what is your relevant, what is your relevant is not going to get us the answer. I don't want to hear because I do want to hear about the soccer team. And if they can't come up with an example like a soccer team, then no, I am not going to appoint them. So I guess, first, if I could ask you a question directly to try to try and see what you're getting at. So I mean my, the ZBA is that their role is is narrower than that of the planning board. I guess I'm curious, what additional experience you would be looking for from the question about relevant experience that does not have to do with applying rules and regulations. I guess a person who has a different types of background where they would probably automatically be involved in that, like a lot of people who are in education or who are lawyers or who are already really familiar with all the zoning requirements and but who may not have served on a on an adjudicatory body. But you know they might be able to think of, if you ask what is your relevant expertise or experience in serving on a board like the ZBA or in a context like the ZBA. It's the same thing. Because we're not talking about asking have you served on a board like the ZBA. Well, we're asking if people have expertise or experience that would allow them to serve effectively on the ZBA right. Well that's what we're trying to get at yeah. What's your question of me, what other expertise or experience. I guess if we have question. I'm trying to I'm trying to make sure that we have a question that gets at what you're looking for and so if we have question one which is why are you interested in the serving on the ZBA where they could talk about, you know their interest and their background, and we have a question that specifically about applying rules and regulations which is the primary role of the ZBA. What else do you think the question about what is your relevant experience expertise or experience what do you think that could bring out that would not be answered by the other two questions that would give you it relevant information that you're looking for to make a decision. Um, I guess just what the person has done over the period of their life, what their jobs have been, you know what what, whether their jobs are, or their experience is, or could be interpreted to be relevant to working in this role. So, to me that's relevant, you know, to find out what they've been doing. Um, okay, not be relevant. That's that's what I'm, you know, so. And not all of that will be about, you know, applying rules and regulations and an adjudicatory setting, you know, so. I'm going to listen to your hand as if I'm going to ask you and you and speak and then I'm going to move on to a separate thing. Let me try and rephrase this. The pre printed question back from the planning board days that's on our screen right now what is your relevant expertise and or experience that Darcy and I are fighting about right now. So, the reason I don't want to say relevant I've said a million times is because I don't think most people are going to think of those other examples which I think are in fact extremely relevant so that's why I don't want to ask the question that way. I agree that we want to elicit an answer that both Darcy and I will find useful what I think this question is actually asked this question is on the wrong piece of paper. This question should be on is the soul in some variation of our own personal notes or selection guidance. What is this applicants relevant expertise or experience compared to the other applicants. It's more of a question that we ask ourselves as we're going through the interview and as we're making the decision it's not a question to ask them directly. We want to know what they're relevant and how we interpret what they've said, what's relevant that they have versus what the next person has versus what the next person has asking them directly this way is not the right way to go. This isn't a value to question it's not an interview question, an interview question gets at all the things Darcy George Alyssa Evan are looking for it's just a matter of phrasing to elicit the information we're looking for and then in our heads or on a little grid. We're marking relevant experience zero not well explained incredibly relevant etc. Okay, so I think that we could probably talk around all these questions for the next several hours, but I want to get to a point where actually making a decision. And so here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to put us on a five minute break and stop the recording. I'm going to use that time to take all of the questions that at least someone felt would be useful and put them in a new document and that we can go on and we can make a final decision about the interview questions. Okay. All right, so that I'm going to put us in a five minute break and we will come back closer to 11 a net is 11 I'm starting the recording again, and we will return to our meeting. And so I'm going to put on the screen. What I think are all the questions that there was interest in having from all members. Not all the questions we have consensus on, but all the questions that there was at least interest from one counselor in retaining as I will put that on the screen now. And then we can go through them hopefully to make a decision. Okay, so you should see a Word document of the questions on the screen. Let me just pull a couple of things up. Okay. So, let's go through these decide whether we want them and if they are worded as we want them to be. So question number one is a question, some variation of a question that was recommended by George, which is, what is your understanding of the role of the ZBA. Is anyone interested in modifying or removing this question. If so, please raise your hand. Okay, seeing no hands might I will take that as no one is interested in modifying or removing this question and so we will keep it there. The second question, I'm going to get well. So now that we have a full discussion we had agreed there seem to be consensus to maintain the question. Why are you interested in serving on the ZBA. Given the discussion we've had is there anyone who is interested in moving or modifying this question. Please raise your hand. Okay, seeing no hands, I will assume by consensus who want this question. Question three is a question that has been pulled from. Sorry, Alyssa, please unmute. Sorry, I was preemptively raising my hand with question three. I mean, once you read question three, then I'd like to be recognized. Okay, so question three is, have you ever faced a situation where you disagreed with a rule or regulation that had to apply it slash follow it. Please explain your thought process in reaching your final action in this type of situation. Is there anyone who would like to remove or modify this question Alyssa. I was going to say instead of making this two sentences, I was going to change the first part of it to describe a situation where you disagreed with a rule or regulation but had to apply it or follow it. Describe. Oh, there we go situation where you disagree with a rule or regulation that had to apply it. So is this what you're looking for. Yep. Okay. You can see my changes on the screen right. It's pretty amazing actually. It's actually almost more useful than what we usually do anyways. Darcy. Are the applicants did we decide that the applicants are getting the questions in advance. It's part of our adopted process that the applicants get the questions in advance. Okay, so I, I don't like this question, I would remove it. And I, I think that people are going to give us. Answers, they'll be pre packaged answers that they figured out ahead of time that are not going to be helpful or relevant. That's my, and, and I actually don't, don't think it's a necessary question anyway. Okay. George, can I see your hand or scene please unmute yourself. I just agree here with Darcy. I think this gets right at the heart of what you do on the ZBI without, you know, bringing in a judicatory or all the kind of language that might put people off it simply invites them to think about a situation from their own experience where they had to apply a rule they didn't agree with. And I think that's something we really would like, I would really like to hear from people, what their experience with that has been without. I agree, putting them in a situation where they feel like, you know, well, gee, I've never been on a judicatory body so what can I say about this, but I disagree with it completely I think this is a question that's very important and kind of like with the planning board questions we had one at least where it really got at the heart of what, or at least a very closely to what you do a lot on the planning board at the heart of the ZBA is applying rules and regulations. And sometimes you're going to have to do this, even though you don't agree with it. And I'd like to hear very much what people's experience with this has been and what they just get to see a sense from them. So I disagree with her this is an important question. Okay. So, my sense of this is that we have. And I personally have already voiced that I support this my my sense of this is that we have three members who would like to maintain this question. And we have one member who would like to remove it. So our options. Darcy, you're still interested in removing this question. Okay, so maybe the best way to do this is by for this particular question is to have a vote on it so that I can articulate this in the report to the council. So Darcy, would you like to offer a motion. I move that we omit question three. Darcy has moved to omit question three on the document interview questions from the zoning board of appeals. Is there a second. Okay, so motion fails for lack of a second. Question for what is your relevant expertise and or experience. So I will ask if anyone would like to modify or remove this question to please raise their hand. Alyssa I see your hand raised. Could you please unmute yourself. We all know I hate this question. So if what in looking at what we have left for other questions. It looks like part of what we're trying to get at here and that we kind of lost from our planning board questions is a question about collaboration. I think it's something that's relevant to this particular board and or any board for that matter. So rather than saying what is your relevant expertise and or experience I prefer to modify this into something around working effectively as a member, relevant expertise and or experience in working as a member of a board, you know, where the board's majority is what decides something as opposed to just open ended relevant expertise or experience. And that brings that collaboration piece back in that we kind of lost when we got to this version of the questions. Oh, we will. So question six is about collaboration so you come. Recommending combining questions for in six. In a way, yes, in that it's not just experience collaborating with a group. I mean, I mean it could stand just as six but that's what I'm actually looking for out of four, instead of question for I want someone to explain their experience. Tell us about an experience they have collaborating with a group, as that being the relevant expertise or experience that they have I guess is what I'm trying to say so I guess in all reality I want question for to go away because six covers it. Okay, George I see your hand raised could you please unmute yourself. What unless it just said, I think four needs to go away and six does the job. Okay. Other comments questions on question for Darcy. Just what I said before, I think this is probably the most one of the most important questions, and I think it's crazy not to ask it. I do not understand the least why we would not ask has one relevant expertise or experienced person has for being on this board, you know, so weird to me, but we've already gone through it five times so I would definitely vote to keep this question. I want to hear you have to say about their life experience and why, why anything that they've done is relevant to being on this board. Okay, Alyssa I see your hand raised could you unmute yourself. Move to remove question for. Okay, there's been a motion to remove question for is there a second. Second. Okay, so there has been a motion to remove question for what is your relevant experience expertise and or experience it's been seconded by George. Is there any further comments or discussion. Okay. So, because we are doing this virtually. This needs to be a roll call vote. And so I will call your names and ask you to vote. Okay, so we'll start with Brewer. Yes. You have your hand raised. Is there something else you wanted to say. I missed it. Yes, but that's okay so I'll just vote yes. Okay. Dumont. No. Ross is yes. Ryan. Yes. Okay the vote is three to one the motion prevails. So we'll move on to question five. What important perspective. Do you feel you bring to this body. I see George, you will start with George. I strongly disagree with this. I don't think it has any place here. And I would, I would move to strike it. Can you just elaborate. Why? I just don't understand what perspective means here other than it's, I don't. I don't even understand what we're looking for. So maybe I just need to shut up for a moment and have the rest of you explain to me what you're looking for here and why this is an important question. It seems like it's just, you know, tell us, I don't know, tell us about your political philosophy. Tell us about your, your view of the cosmos. And I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. Or whatever. And so I'll shut up, but I think it should be stricken. Okay. I see your hand up if you could unmute yourself. Thank you. Yes, I think it has elicited this kind of concept has elicited the use of the cosmos that have not been helpful to me in terms of making a decision. So I would like to remove question five as well. I think that's something that I think it's a good idea. To have people talking with a group. I also like the idea of making it clear rather than talking about like opening and closing statements like we are with the school committee vacancy. That we have a closing question that somehow it lists it's like, is there something else about you that you want us to know? You know, That wouldn't have been obvious from the CAF that you felt like perhaps if they do have a unique perspective, right? And they do want to talk about the cosmos, then they can put that as their last answer, the one that we don't have written yet, but some kind of question that gets at some anything else you would like us to know about you. Okay, other thoughts on question five. Darcy? I like Alyssa's idea about a final question. And I would also vote to keep number five in the event that that didn't happen. Yeah, I think that that number five is probably also going to be covered by number two. So if somebody wants to share what their important perspective is, they could probably get it in number two if they wanted to. George, I see your hand up if you could unmute yourself. I'll move to strike number five. Okay, George has moved to strike question five. What is what important perspective do you feel you bring to the body? Alyssa, I see your hand up. Okay, so there has been a motion to strike question five. It's been seconded just to insert my thought here since I haven't weighed in on this particular question. I'm looking at the suite of questions we have. I guess one of my thoughts for every question is what relevant information does this question provide us that is not provided by the others. And I think I agree with what Alyssa and Darcy said, which is that probably the answer of what important perspective do you have would probably come out between questions two and three. And so I'm not 100% sure that it would add anything else, but I do like Alyssa's suggestion of adding a question. And I hope after we get through question six, she will make such a proposal to do so. Are there any other comments on question five? Okay. So with that, I will call the vote on the motion to strike question five again, because we're virtual. This is a roll call vote. So Dumont. Dumont. No. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So we're going to move on to the next question. So we're going to move on to the next question. So we've got Ross is yes. Ryan. Yes. And Brewer. Yes. Okay. The vote is three to one. The motion prevails. So question six. At one point, Alyssa had suggested some rewording of question six. I don't know. I'm not sure what the flow means, but I think it's okay. I mean, the important thing is that it's, they tell us something and describe. About an experience they've had. So I'm okay with it. But if somebody can find a way to make it even better, great. Other thoughts on question six. George, I see your hand up. Can you please unmute yourself? I think it's fine. As it is. I think it's short and gets to the point. I don't think we need to fool with it. Darcy was that a raised hand or a stretch. That was me trying to see if my heat pump was working. While you're muted. Do you have any thoughts on question six? No, I'm fine with it. Okay. So I'm, I'm. I think it's fine. I don't think we need to fool with it. Darcy was that a raised hand or a stretch. That was me trying to see if my heat pump was working. So I'm, I'm caught. I'm hearing consensus on question six. And so we will maintain that. Are there any additional questions that people would like to add to this list? Alyssa, could you please unmute yourself? I didn't write the question. But it's along the lines of. I don't obviously don't want to phrase it this way. This is your last chance, but. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Having, you know, answered all these questions. What else can you tell us? You know what I mean? It's like, you're trying. You're giving people the idea of a closing statement, but these aren't people who've necessarily run for office. So they don't know what a closing statement looks like. So how to elicit the content of a closing statement. By the way, we asked the question given the, the tone and friendliness of the rest of our questions. So we're not going to have to go into the word of word, such a question, or feel like such a question is unnecessary. Darcy. I actually really liked this question. But as we saw with our other interviews. Sometimes. You know, it would be nice if we got everybody to respond to it. Like that. It was a real substantive question. Like. Could you. Or even call it a closing statement. And that could include anything that you, any additional information that you want. The interviewers to know about you. I think there were several people who chose not to say anything at our last set of interviews, right? For what? When we asked them. Is there any other, I think there was a last question when we were interviewing for planning. And there were several. There were a couple of people who said, no, they didn't have anything else to add. So if there is some way that we could make it. Well, I guess if they get, get it ahead of time, that hopefully they'll think of other things too. Yeah, I will say there was no final question for the finding board interview. The last question that we asked was the, are you comfortable with the time commitment and immediate schedule? Oh, we never asked. Do you, would you like to add anything? Nope. Bigly recall people saying no to some. Also our last two questions were about open meeting law and about the time commitment. And most of the interviewers answered either yes or while they all answered yes. George, I saw your hand up if you could unmute yourself. I like Alyssa suggestion. I think this final question should be a question of this nature should be added basically along the lines of, is there anything else? Right. Something phrase like this. Is there anything else that we should know about you or that you would like to tell us about yourself. That you feel makes you a strong candidate, something like that. Yeah. I like to say, I like this idea of giving them a last chance. So is there anything else that, that you would like to add? I mean, we can word Smith this, but only along that spirit. That would give them a chance to say no, or maybe say something further. I like that idea of giving them that final sort of chance. So we did not do this on it with the planning board. I think it would be worth trying it here to see how it goes. Remember, this is all a work in progress. I'm really proud of you guys for what we're doing here. But we, and we also go back and revise. So I think a good suggestion. I think we should do it. Let's, I don't, we can word Smith it now, but Evan's pretty good at this. But essentially along the lines of, you know, a last chance for you to tell us something about yourself that hasn't been mentioned that makes you a good candidate, something to that effect. I like that. I would, I would vote for something like that. Okay. Alyssa, I see your hand up. You can unmute yourself. I think what George just said, but we just started by saying, instead of saying is there, we say, what else would you like us to know? What was the ending part there? George can fill that in. Yeah. George, how'd you end up? Let's see if we can do this in real time. What else would you like us to know about you? That makes you a strong candidate. For the ZBA. That's one person. I'm fine with that. I see Darcy nodding. Alyssa, does this basically get out what you were thinking? Yes. Okay. Great. So at this point, you have on your screen the interview questions for the zoning board of appeals for the interview. That is still to be scheduled, but likely April 16th. Is there any additional questions that people want to add to this? Okay. Seeing none. I am going to move that we adopt the interview questions for the zoning board of appeals as amended. Is there a second? A second. Okay. So I moved. George has seconded. Is there any further discussion? Okay. Then I am going to. Call the question again. This is a roll call vote. So Ross votes. Yes. Ryan. Yes. Alyssa. Yes. And my comment was simply going to be, even though you're not supposed to do this during a roll call vote is to say that with the understanding that you were going to, when you start ask, before you start asking the questions, do the prefatory remarks along the lines of open meeting, law meeting commitment, blah, blah, blah, just so that the council knows why those aren't in here anymore. Okay. Yes. And do you want. I guess I have to vote no, because I voted against these things. So no. Okay. So the vote is three to one. And the motion prevails. And so we have our interview questions. So the next thing we have to do, uh, following on. What we did. So if you looked at the. Let me pull back the, uh, the broader documents on the stock share. And then I'm going to share screen. So coming back to our agenda, notice us a development of ZBA interview questions and protocol. And that's because there are two more votes we have to take to establish this interview. Um, one is, uh, last time we had a vote on, uh, whether we were going to put a time limit on how long, um, each, uh, an interview is answer could be, uh, last time it was three minutes. So I'd like us to vote on how long, uh, we want. Uh, the applicant answers to be. Now, um, which I guess the first question I have for you, hopefully the short question is, do you feel like three minutes was sufficient too long too short? And what do you think should be the time? I see George has his hand up. So I'll go to him first, George. If you could please unmute yourself. I think three minutes is fine. I thought it worked well. Um, I thought the interviews went, uh, well, um, I think it worked well. I think it worked well. Decently. And I didn't feel a problem with time. So three minutes seems sufficient. Okay. Other thoughts. No other thoughts. Uh, Alyssa. Yes. When you're running for office, you are often given time limits as sort of a test. I don't think we need to do that here. I think we could clarify that it's up to three minutes. So people don't feel like they have to use it all up unless we're encouraging them to use it all up, but I think three is great. Okay. Darcy, do you feel like three minutes was an appropriate amount of time? Yep. Okay. So by consensus, then I'm not, I'm going to call, we have, we have consensus on this. It is a three minute. Maximum. Per answer. Now the second thing we have to do is remember that our process. Um, our process allows us, um, gave us the flexibility to determine, uh, who asked the question. So we just had OCA ask the questions to allow the possibility that it could be all members of OCA. It could be the chair. It could be just one person who is not the chair. Um, and so for the planning board interviews, we had a vote to designate the chair to ask all interview questions. So we have to decide whether we want, uh, to repeat that with the chair asking all questions or with the full committee asking all questions or with just one person who's not the chair. Um, I think that's a personal thought on this and then I will hand it over to George who has his hand up is, uh, that having just one person asked the questions worked well. Um, but I especially think given these interviews will, uh, will almost certainly occur via zoom. Um, I think that whether or not it's the chair, it would likely be useful to have just a single person ask questions. Uh, George, can you do please unmute yourself? I agree. I thought it went well. I think it should be a single person and given the fact that it will be done virtually. I think given the Evans experience at doing this, um, we really, um, we know how this can be challenging. And I think he's shown that, that he's been able to handle it very well. So I think it should be one person and I'm very comfortable with having the chair do it, especially under these circumstances. Okay. Uh, Darcy, I see your hand up. Can you please unmute yourself? I, I think that this is a situation where it is a good opportunity to, um, rotate and share with the rest of the council or the rest of the committee. Um, just going around each one of us, ask a question, not a big deal. It's not that hard to do. Um, zoom really allows you to do stuff like that. So, um, I personally think that this is just one of those situations where, where the council can power share. You know. Okay. Um, Alyssa, do you have thoughts on this? Please unmute yourself. Normally I don't have a problem with us empowering one person, typically the chair, although not always, right? When we did our previous interviews, we had different people assigned to different things. Um, given the technical difficulties that we had at our last council meeting, even though we'd previously had a seamless meeting. Um, we had terrible technical difficulties at the beginning of that meeting. We had difficult technical difficulties during this meeting. And that didn't include any of these folks who haven't been practicing, although some of them are surely practicing zoom and other parts of their life. So given how difficult it is simply for Darcy to hit raise hand versus Darcy raising her hand on her camera versus Alyssa having her screen off versus whatever the other people are going to be doing. It is really hard to manage this meeting. And so the only thing I would be willing to do is one, have the chair simply because he's effective at managing the meeting. Unless he wants somebody else to manage the meeting while he asks the questions, but I do not think this is the time to take turns. And the reason for that beyond all the technical difficulties I do is that when you're sitting there in person, it's very easy to look at the person and go, okay, that clearly that person's done talking now. Now you can ask your question. That's very difficult to do via zoom. And it's very difficult to see people's body language and to see when they've finished talking and to not have long pauses, et cetera, in between things. I think technically we're just asking for trouble, although I could see having one person kind of managed the meeting and one person asked the questions. Okay. So we have a little bit of a division of opinion. I will again, restate that I think given the technological situation and given again, yeah, some of the issues we had even at the beginning of this meeting, we should have just one person, whether that person is the chair or we designate someone else. I actually don't care. I'm perfectly comfortable. I think asking the questions and managing the meeting because it's a fairly simple meeting. But I'm also perfectly fine if we want to give it to someone else. So yes, George has his hand up if you can please unmute yourself. We'd like to make a motion that we nominate the chair to ask the questions in at this, at this interview. Okay. So George has moved that they, we nominate the chair to ask all interview questions during the interview. Alyssa. Okay. So there's been a motion made and seconded to nominate the chair. Ask all interview questions. Is there any further discussion? Okay. With that, I will call the question and we will start with Ryan. Yes. Okay. Brewer. Yes. Humon. No. And Ross is yes. Okay. So the vote is three to one. The motion prevails. Okay. So that's all we need to do for the ZBA interviews. I will let you all know when we have an official interview date scheduled and some more information about the format at this time. Yes, Alyssa. We're saying April 16th right now and what time are we thinking? Wait. No, it's not April 16th. It should be April 16th. Okay. That's the night of our second council meeting about the school committee candidates because I believed that the chair decided that we were not going to be voting the same night as the interviews. Okay. Let me look into that because to be honest on the, the poll was sent out to the applicants before our town council president made that decision and I hadn't necessarily realized that. So let me double check that date. I believe that was the date that was most available for all of our interviewees. And again, this was before all of the school committee stuff. But let me double check that then. But thank you for bringing that to my attention. So I will, I will be in touch with everyone about that. I want to briefly ask if there is any public comment. And so if there are members of the public who are currently watching, you can either if you are participating from a computer, you can raise your hand. Otherwise. You can. Is it star nine? Correct Athena. Yes. Star nine on a phone. Okay. So if you are on a phone, please hit star nine. If you're on a computer, you can raise your hand. Okay, seeing no comments from the public. I want to go to minutes. We agreed last time that we would look on minutes and see if we could approve them by consensus. So I have put the March 9th meeting minutes in there. Is there any. Modifications that people. Or amendments to the minutes. That people want to make. Darcy. I think I just want to add. Oh, damn. I just want to add. Where it talks about the minutes. Which I can't get to. That. We decided. To start with. Approving our minutes at each meeting. Because that's not in the minutes. Okay. So you want to add that. Yes. To. I don't know. So that's not what I remember being in here. Right. Oh, here it is. It says. Do not. Comment. The committee minutes are out of date. Ross explained. We decided. To start. Approving our minutes at each meeting. Because that's not in the minutes. That's not in the minutes. Okay. So we can do that. Other modifications to the minutes. Okay. Seeing none. We will adopt these minutes by consensus. As amended. As amended. So. I don't know where it is. Ross explained that he will work on approving minutes over spring break. So it would just go right after that. Okay. So we can do that. Other modifications to the minutes. Okay. Seeing none, we will adopt these minutes by consensus. As amended. As amended. Yes. Um, okay. So. That is everything. Uh, from the agenda today. Uh, Darcy was nice enough to submit. Um, a document to us. Um, I did not put, uh, discussion of CAFs on the agenda for today. Cause I wanted to make sure we got to the interviews. And so, uh, those will be on the agenda. For our next meeting. Uh, which I believe. Is the 27th. Are there any questions before we adjourn? Okay. Uh, yes, Alyssa. Was still practicing it, flipping between screens and different parts of the screen to find the part that says raise hand. Um, Okay. You said that our next OCA meeting you expect at this point to be Monday. April 27th. 30. Our next scheduled. Regular. Oh no, wait, we have one for April 13th. What's it? Oh, right. So my apologies. I thought that today was a different. This is what happens when you've been in quarantine by yourself for several weeks. So, um, April 13th is March 30th. So no, our next regularly scheduled OCA meeting is April 13th. At 9 30 AM. Um, and then we should expect a special meeting for the interview sometime in April. So it's April 13th. And then April. 27. And did you see the, the, um, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe she doesn't think that the 16th will be needed for the school committee vote. Oh, I did not. Thank you. So I will, I will work with the interviewees and with Lynn. Um, to make sure that we find a date. Um, that doesn't have any conflicts. And I will update you all when we have one. Her comment is in the chat box. Yep. I see it now. I didn't have the chat box open. Okay. I am going to adjourn this meeting. At 11 40 AM. Thank you all for bearing with us. Thank you. Thank you, Evan.