 you're all set thank you I'm going to call this meeting of governance organization legislation to order it is according to my watch 1032 a.m. on May 20 and this meeting is being recorded pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law its meeting of GOL is being conducted by a remote participation and if we do have public attending and we do have attendees at the moment if when we come to the public comment portion I will read the instructions relevant to that we look at are you have shortly if we can put our agenda up for just a moment yeah I'm going to move things around we've had a number of things referred to us on Monday evening and so what I'm going to suggest though it's certainly open to debate is that we move immediately to item 10 items not anticipated by the chair 48 hours in advance and we have three items that were presented to us on Monday evening these temporary zoning bylaw and also a potential revision to town council policy regarding public ways I don't think I will see how much time I don't know how much time they're going to take and then go back to the agenda as it's presented to you so if there's that's what I'd like to do and so if we if you're agreeable to that what I was going to suggest as we start first with the temporary zoning bylaw and if we could have that up on the screen it should be in the packet I'm not sure which item it is there's a lot there yep the temporary zoning moratorium my mark 6b in the packet can you find that Lynn I could share it if Lynn's having problems it's all right take your time we've been asked by the council for a determination on the bylaw itself five you got it it's four yeah it's it comes at the has got to scroll down there it is we've been asked by the council to determine clarity consistency and action ability of this request for a temporary zoning bylaw and we need to get it to them by June 15th but we do not we meet again on June 3rd but I thought I need your input here whether people had hopefully a chance to look at this if they haven't do you want to move on this now do you want to wait I've looked at it I don't have any questions or concerns but I need to hear from the rest of you whether you want to move on this today or whether you want to hold it off until June 3 George I just want to point out that two of at least two of the people who are in the audience are people that are here to speak to this proposal okay so let's have a look and so I'm gonna look and see who we have so if someone would like to speak to this they just need to raise their hand and otherwise yeah I have one hand raised looks like okay both John Page and Claudia Pazmani wish to speak so Claudia if you could go ahead do I need to do anything or can she do it directly that's a question Claudia are you there you might have to unmute her okay let me see if I can do that I think or does Lynn have to do that I think Lynn will have to allow her to speak and unmute her yeah sorry Lynn as the host can you hear me now Claudia yes thank you yes can you hear us Claudia now she's been muted again hello okay hi Claudia hello I can hear you Claudia Claudia please speak get down get down all right can you hear me that's not me that's Claudia both John Page and Claudia have been unmuted and can speak okay so I will this is John Page speaking on behalf of the Immersory Chamber of Commerce and I will read our statement thank the public ways policy change put forth by town staff on Monday night is creative innovative and bold it exemplifies responsive government and just like our businesses are doing it enables adaptability to the changing times this is essential to sustaining the viability of our small businesses specifically restaurants and retail establishments as many of you heard from me already I won't reiterate the significance of the economic crisis we are facing in here in Amherst outdoor dining altering floor plans changing signage are all critical parts of successfully reopening and season towns from New York Cincinnati Berkeley Rockland have already implemented street and public ways closures of various types to enable better social distancing outdoor dining and retail market spaces this proposal empowers the town manager and staff to work with existing businesses to offer safer and solvent business models that may include use of the public way put your trust in the town manager and his expert staff and delegate this responsibility rather than the full council possibly debating items such as furniture or sandwich for placement this is a temporary measure and the requests are temporary nature albeit many will be longer than the normal 14 days in addition I do want to note that based on your public ways policy the town manager will have to notify the council of all his decisions so you'll be kept in the loop on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce I implore you to move this public way policy change forward as quickly as possible I want to emphasize that we need to plan now and have a process in place for when requests do come in thank you for your time thank you John now admitted Claudia into the panelists and I'm unmuting her I'm trying to but you may have to unmute okay now you're unmuted how do you hear me now yes okay I I just want to reiterate what John has already shared I think he was very clear about what our support is in this proposal and clearly this is temporary and I just want to make that clear but this is something that that we can do as a town in short term in order to give our businesses as we reopen carefully and safely with health concerns as our primary goal but also to give our businesses the best opportunity to move forward in a tough time so you know we thank you for your time and anything that we can do to move this as quickly as possible as John said this is really unprecedented and I'm sick of using that word but it's just that is where we're at so thank you for your consideration great Claudia thank you we're charged with simply the question of clear consistent and actionable and so I don't know if you've had a chance to look at this and whether you want to deal with that today we don't have to decide this today we could wait I don't have a problem with deciding it today but I need to hear from my colleagues because I think that's our only task as GL are there any issues of clarity consistency or action ability related to this document I have a question George then and it might actually be best answered by Mandy Joe and that is it seems to me that the issue of the discussion between CRC and the planning board could surface something that makes this not clear consistent and actionable do you foresee that Mandy Joe yesterday's discussion in CRC did not surface anything and did not surface any requested changes to this draft bylaw it is my understanding the draft came and has been reviewed by a town attorney not you know the zoning town attorney that we tend to use Joe Bard and given that the planning board reviews it tonight we will know more then whether there's any sort of requested changes from them before we go into public hearing the public hearing is scheduled for June 10th so we could probably act on it today but it might be worth acting on June 3rd after we've had the preliminary discussion with the planning board to know if there are any additional potential changes there but I would say that whether those changes happen it will go through attorney Bard prior to the public hearing but to anyone else do you want to lay on this until June 3 do you want to vote on it today I have to raise my hand because I'm I can't I would love to vote on it today but I recommend that we that we wait until the planning board has spoken my one reservation with this is about new businesses and I'm not clear that that belongs about what Lynn my one reservation about this is approving new businesses and then not having them come back through a regular process I have no problem with giving new businesses temporary ability to go ahead but at some point I'd like to see them evaluated and have to come back and go through the regular process thank you Mandy Joe so it is strange review but we asked Rob at CRC some specifics about that and we need to keep in mind that the new business grants would be solely for those three items retail establishments personal care establishments and food and drink establishments and so for example a person seeking to build a mixed-use building would not fall under this article someone seeking to build a restaurant would fall under this article during those six months but but we generally the biggest concern for new developments in these areas has been the mixed-use and apartment type buildings and those do not fall under this proposed administrative review that was made clear by Rob morey yesterday so I thought I'd just bring that up and given that clarity CRC did not have like I said CRC was not inclined to recommend any changes to the wording of these effective uses. Mandy when you had the discussion did somebody clarify the requirements for common vitriller's licenses and compliance with board of health regulations and those issues. So Rob more did indicate that this only applies to the land use permit portion so if that restaurant seeking to build a new building say to put a restaurant in you know and it fell under this one because it was a food and drink establishment this bylaw applies only to the land use portion not the common vitriller's or food and drink license that the board of license might issue it would not also apply to if that restaurant was being proposed whether for a new building or or into a vacant space in an historic district where the historic commission would generally come into play this does not oh this bylaw proposal does not permit that applicant to avoid historical commission review it does not permit the applicant to avoid conservation commission review if it would happen to be in a zone that conservation commission needs to look at this is solely for the land use portion that would normally go to either the ZBA or the planning board all or and then the design review portion of it it is not for the portions that go to other committees besides those three I think that answered your question Andy. I think it does let me tell you my reservation about this is and because I don't think it's I think it's solvable but it gets into this question of I'm not sure I've never been sure what clarity means and so it's kind of standard that we have to figure out what means those you guys can tell me who've been on the committee before we all had an experience in town in one way or another and being a member of the select board at the time I'm particularly sensitive to it about how a restaurant that was under the name of Porta came into town and the consequences of not having had the kind of review that we should have given under normal circumstances and what we learned by it and then moving into now a process that is going to clearly be a expedited process are we increasing the risk of repeating a mistake that we made once before and don't want to make again and what steps do we need to take to make sure that it doesn't happen and one of the things is to get a better chart of all of the things that need to happen in order to go from the beginning of a process to establish a new business to actually get it up and running and to make sure that that list is provided to applicants and known to the community as well as known to the council and all relevant staff so that people can be guided through that process quickly but that all of the steps are in place to make sure that we don't have a result that we're going to ultimately regret and I think to try and respond to your question about clarity and consistency at least I think we read this simply from the point of view of as a document if there's something in it we simply don't understand that doesn't make sense we seek clarification from the sponsor where we raise a concern the same with consistency if there's some kind of internal contradiction or something doesn't seem to be in agreement with other existing rules or procedures and that also can cross into the area of actionability this also I think is going to come up in just a moment with the wage that bylaw when we have things that are like bylaws that that would normally get legal review I think we do have a question as a committee as to where we we fit in in that process but right now it seems we're I mean our task is simply this document as it's written is it clear consistent and actionable we don't need to do this today I'm hearing that perhaps we should postpone it till June 3 and that still gives us enough time to do what we need to do does anyone feel like they want to do it right now when the only thing I'm I think as good is that we're raising these issues and I have to be honest and say all of a sudden I'm going oh that this doesn't excuse them from historic district review it doesn't excuse them from conservation Commission review so the reason I'm interested in having a process whereby if a new establishment uses this successfully to open they have to come back for some kind of evaluation or review is exactly the kind of thing that Andy is pointing out with Porta interestingly enough I think that building is still considered historical it was put under historical for one year and that may have expired but there's another place in Amherst downtown that is in the historical area and it's a it's a catering group that has been trying to open as a restaurant and they may be able to successfully open and I hope they can they but how do we come back with a review so I think it's important we're raising these questions so that before it comes to the final vote for the council there's been answers to those okay any other thoughts because what I'm hearing is a consensus that we're going to hold on this until June 3 the second element second referral connected to this we do have to act on today just by virtue of time constraint this one we don't okay I'm not hearing an opposition to that so I'm going to postpone any final decision on this referral as to the zoning bylaw clarity consisting actual bill I'm going to postpone that to our June 3 meeting the second item that's been referred to us is related to the council policy regarding public ways and that is in this memo as well it's a sentence that would like to be would be added to the existing policy I believe it's page three of the memo and it's a little bit further down right there whoop it's got it's italicized text sorry I have to move my own so right there yeah it's just if you scroll just read so this italicized bit of text in addition sidewalk or road closures requested in conjunction with requests to expand sidewalk cafe and other retail areas under article 14 colon temporary zoning or other requests to facilitate the reopening of retail businesses and encourage public activity in local business districts this would be added to those items that can be decided by the town manager without town council formal town council or our review and that is before us and we've been asked to make a decision on this by June 1 so that we would need to decide today so enough Mandy Joe has her hand up a manager go ahead please um yeah so I am going to recommend I'm still formulating how I did this as I was reading this I think it's unclear as to what it grants it's listed under short term closure closures which is equal to or under 14 consecutive or cumulative days I don't know whether that would apply to the second sentence or not but if it does and it's only for roads or sidewalks but not parking I'm not sure it does what the town manager wants it to do or what we'd be wanting it to do so I think as I think about all of this I'd actually recommend a new miscellaneous item maybe like item a like add a new a that is then tins but then references you know sidewalk you know short-term or long-term quest for and I can come up with wording for reservation of public ways parking and reservation of public ways road or sidewalks that directly relate to this article 14 temporary zoning or whatever fall under the town manager because we're looking for the manager to be allowed to essentially allowed the sidewalk closure or road closure I don't know how you reserve a part you know or potentially reserving of a parking spot for longer than 14 days and so I think we could clear this up with either a new for instead of under miscellaneous that is like temporary zoning article 14 or something or so it is clear that it applies to short-term and long-term closures until December 2020 December 31st 2020 for requests directly related to article 14 temporary zoning or something right so it should be a separate item standing on its own apart from this that's what I'm leaning towards yeah I think that that makes sense but we're gonna need to wordsmith it now I think I can start working on that if people want that yes do that and then we'll put it up on the screen give Mandy a moment to let me just say I support what Mandy Joe is suggesting because break for example restaurants that have a backside to the town parking lot may ask whether they could put something in the town parking lot on that top level or something like that and I want the town manager to be able to grant that I'll give Mandy a moment I'll work on it we might want to just move on to something else and come back to this one yeah I was also I thought I had put and maybe I didn't I thought I had put the town council policy document in the folder I'm not seeing it now let me yeah I don't remember seeing that George that's the one thing I forgot to do great because it might be helpful for the committee to have that to look at if I can find it and put it in are we done looking at this screen for the moment yes because the next thing we'd look at when Mandy's ready would be the actual her actual proposed language which I'm sorry no yes we are done with the screen for the moment my head I'm just gonna talk for a moment well and we can come back to this when when Mandy's ready and we're ready but the third item I had put on the items I anticipated is the wage theft bylaw and I think I just need to hear from my colleagues what they want to do is something like this in terms of how to proceed my my thought would be that it given its complexity and given its length it's certainly not something we can do today though you may not agree but I'd like us to be clear on to as to what exactly we do plan to do with it for instance my main question is legal review I would think that would be customary for me simply to just send this as it is to Paul and ask him to have it sent out for legal review but again it raised the question of process for us at what stage do we ask for legal review and at what stage do we go through this and declare clear consistent action well seems a little bit odd to do that before we actually get legal review on the other hand legal review doesn't always come expeditiously and sometimes it comes back without a lot of it comes with changes but without much explanation now I will communicate that to Paul when I reach out to him with your permission but I guess my question for this third item wage theft bylaw a do you want it to look at it today be what do we do about legal review my hands raised George sorry Pat I think it will need to go to the lawyer of you know for legal review but I also feel like if there are questions or concerns from committee members about aspects of the bylaw in terms of clarity consistency or action ability that's something that we can do today and so that's where I am okay so in other words things that could be communicated to a viable attorney requesting some clarification or help yeah anyone else there are a couple questions original sponsor of the bylaw is it Mandy or no it's me Mandy and Kathy okay so the then the second question since you're one of the three is did you model it after another community yes we did several and have his did you have any opportunity to talk with people who are in those communities as to whether it has achieved the purposes that they wanted you want and whether there have been any problems with interpreting it and forcing it as it's written I don't know whether we spoke directly I know Lisa Clausen and some of the Margaret and Rose have spoken directly to towns involved there is no outstanding issue that I know of and I also want to say that the Attorney General is really supporting the development of local communities doing this so yeah and I totally in agreement I'm just wondering fairly clearly what I was curious about was whether there's any experiences in communities that have bylaws whether they have issues that they would want to alert us to think about based upon their experience so that we don't repeat mistakes and can either in benefit from what they did and avoid problems that may they may have identified Andy Joe do you have a response to that go ahead Andy Joe you what we've heard from not muted I'm what heard the proponents that requested sponsor this and that we've worked with for months is that it has worked well in areas like North Hampton and Lynn and some concerns at TSO that we need to do address so it is actually significantly different in terms of not having a wage theft advisory committee anymore and delegating much of that those duties to to respond to some concerns regarding open meeting law stuff that TSO committee members have had experience within the past have had concerns within the past so I think in that instance the individuals that have had significant experience getting these through towns and then watching them be implemented and so which has done a little things a little bit different but we've been able to rely on their expertise I change ours to better implement I want to mention though if we're saying off to town attorney George you only included one of the two bylaws packet are actually two separate bylaws and so we would need to ensure we send both off to the town attorney okay and both of them should be obviously in the packet for today for you for review by us as well correct probably they weren't I can show them off the final versions at this point or the most recent final versions that's the other problem is right it's right and so I you know at some point I don't want to send something that's not that's not final what sense George in other words we sense under the attorney and then it gets changed we're gonna have to send it back well then every bylaw before anybody reviews it should go to the lawyer and that's kind of not get into it was it through the committee that does the substantive and then GL reviewed it we sent it off to the made the inges and made recommendations without having to send okay so Mandy what I'm hearing is that you are prepared to send both bylaws to the attorney at the inner current state for legal review and I can raise with Paul the separate issue of legal review and that the committee has asked that when legal review is done to the degree possible some kind of explanation or cover come with it so that we can get some understanding of the changes and edit some of them are obviously just minor things but occasionally we've had edits or changes that seem much more substantial and we are sometimes at a loss as to why the change is being made so I would make that request separate from this and you would go ahead and send both of these bylaws to Paul requesting legal review in the meantime what do we do as a committee it seems then we simply look at this as and we need both not one and this is a seven-page document I need some guidance from the committee as to how they want to proceed with since we only have one of them today we both we need both of them but we do have one how do you want to proceed with the one we have in front of us it's seven pages long I guess I guess we could put the when is the next meeting what's the date of the next meeting the third in trade if we put it there and what I would want is that we actually do it we don't move it around on the agenda we don't understand because it may be easier to address both of them simultaneously although I hate putting them off but I think it would be a good decision so if I may go ahead I think we I think the best practice is to ship them off to the attorney if we know we're gonna have a returning review before we make any decisions if we have concerns about clarity consistency that attorney might help we could send them off with requests to the attorney and then they need to be looked at it's gonna need to break we're now down to two because we Mandy I'm sorry breaking up just a bit sorry we proposed a set of three bylaws it's now down to two because we just combined two of them into one bylaw without changing the substance of them we just got rid of repeated definitions essentially to shorten it so I would propose my my feeling is to send them both off to the town today have they ever been looked at by an attorney not to my knowledge by our town attorney I'm sorry Pat no go ahead I wanted Linda finished but I was trying to figure out why she is asking the question well it's a complicated bylaw and and one of those issue and I always feel much more comfortable if there's been an attorney review on a much more complicated substantial bylaw sometimes I don't think we need that but this one is complicated and I would just suggest we get the legal review and then bring it back as fast as we can so we can pass it any other thoughts that I agree it's just said because when we're really down to and when you're talking about clarity and action ability for statutes and having dealt with statutes in various ways for my entire working career it all falls down to the questions that are going to be in that review it has to be understandable which is a clarity is all about but there has to there can't be any provisions in it that are vague from the perspective of enforceability and understanding and it's not an actionable item if it doesn't have that so we do need to do need the legal review and it seems from what I just heard that we're ready to go to that step okay I've got my eyes open here both on the video and also hand raising but what I'm hearing is that we're going to ask Mandy to send these both by a Paul for legal review and that when that legal review is done we will then examine both as expeditiously as possible in the meantime I will also send a separate message to Paul simply asking politely that the attorneys when they do this review keep in mind that when it comes back to us it's helpful if they can provide some kind of justification or explanation for any kind of major changes that's my understanding yes go ahead instead of me sending off to Paul I think it should come from you I can send you both of the current iterations and do it all on one email fine that's fine then I will do that and if you could send them both to me that would be great all right all right that is item 10 out of order item 2 has been taken off the agenda I'm sorry go ahead I'm ready with a draft okay so let's go item 10 fine and let's take a look if you can put it up on the screen I have sent I've actually put in the packet the council rules the town council public ways policy is in the packet if we need it I was also can email it to people if they want but let's first begin with Mandy's suggest added into the public ways policy as you can see you've done it okay good then we don't need it great thank you so I'm creating a new section 4 although maybe it should be section 5 at some point we'll have to delete section 4 but it reads not with standing the above limitations and sections 2a 2b 3b and 3c all temporary short-term and long-term parking requests sidewalk closures road closures or temporary usage such as display of signage requests requests to expand sidewalk cafe food and drink and other retail areas under zoning bylaw temporary zoning or other requests to facilitate the reopens and encourage public activity in local business districts and then the way we do it is a little sub thing that says the town council delegates through the town manager with a monthly report of all requests and approvals provided by the town manager I added to that sort of standard sentence with a past 180 days past the effective it should be the effective date of the order of zoning bylaw article 14 with a monthly good I added under zoning bylaw article 14 temporary zoning because otherwise it's unclear which bylaws were referring to general or zoning and the I added a clarity for things like temporary uses just to I could see sidewalk sandwich board signs being a big request especially in things like that that's not really a closure of a sidewalk it's more of a just an extra use so I thought I'd just be clear that it might be clear in there so that was also added beyond what Paul's language was okay let me give everyone a minute to look at this carefully digest it I think it does make sense to have this as a separate item rather than simply a sentence attached yep I think that I think we're agreed on I move that we recommend to the town council that they approve this article second okay we have a motion before us it's been moved by Lynn seconded by Pat that the town council approve this amendment correct this amendment to the public ways town council public ways policy any discussion I got one thing please because it is significantly different in form than what the manager proposed and that this item was also referred to TSO I would request that whenever after our vote if this is what we recommend that we ship this off to that US chair ship it off to the geo the TSO chair so that they can look at the same document we voted to recommend approval on okay the timing is good TSO meets again on the June 1st before our meeting okay keep adding forgot a period yeah so again I'm gonna give a moment for people to look at this one last time but also any comments questions but what I've been instructed is that subsequent to this decision that we're going to make it should be sent to TSO ASAP I switched the knot in the two mm-hmm okay I'm satisfied with the wording anyone else we have a motion it's been moved consented I'm ready to call the question all right this is a real call vote so again with Pat yes Lynn yes Mandy Joe yes the chair is a yes Andy yes all right so the vote is five zero it's unanimous and this will be sent to TSO after the meeting Mandy again I'm gonna ask you to you can you'll send me the copy done thank you I'm gonna send it off of the whole committee now thank you okay all right then we have I think actually successfully made our way through item 10 items not anticipated as I said the pollinator resolution item 2 has been delayed and I did that because I felt this probably was gonna take up a good bit of our time to June 3 notified both John Root and Darcy of the delay I've requested that they both be present at June on June 3 so we're gonna deal with that on June 3rd the next item is the LBGTQ proclamation sponsor is Evan Ross and Pat DeAngelis and if we could get that up on the screen if we need it people may not need to have it up on the screen I'm ready to vote on it but it might be helpful to have it in front of us just to see but we need to declare this clear consistent and actionable and I will make that motion just to get it on the floor so we can move forward that we make the determination that the proposed policy on LGBTQ pride month proclamation is clear consistent and actionable okay so the motion has been made that we declare I'll second it and it has been seconded by Mandy that we declare the LGBTQ pride month declaration clear consistent and actionable any further discussion comments changes of periods punctuation whereas is therefore we still plan to hoist the flag hopefully good so that that should stay in now this is really picky you but usually you hoist a flag once right but I'm not sure it matters or that by flying the flag but it's fine it says by hoisting the flag from June 1 to June 30 okay we might end up take does it get taken down every day that's a good question in the US flags unless they're lit up should be taken down and put up every day all right let's not worry about it any other thoughts concerns questions the question you have a question link now move the question all right so we're ready to go to a vote against a real call vote so we start with you start with Pat yes and Lynn yes Mandy Joe yes now the chair is a yes Andy yes all right again to go to 5-0 unanimous we declare the LGBTQ pride month proclamation clear consistent actionable and we will send this on to the council I want to actually go to item 4 I want to give you an update on the current status of applications to fill the finance committee vacancy and there actually is hopefully somewhat helpful hand out or file in the and share point which is called a timeline GL timeline for and I thought if that were up in front of you we could use that to sort of focus the discussion and then I'd like to go to the the process which is something we do need to decide today at least two of the items I think we must decide but there is in your packet somewhat crude but hopefully helpful list of that the timeline for this we currently have five candidates in the pool that have responded yes so the vacancy notice was published on May 4th and it is now two weeks plus one day since that point the link is there if you need to look at the vacancy notice there I did collect the CAF's man he was perfectly right it's not wasn't all that hard even I could do it so I did it and I sent out notifications there were 10 people in that pre-existing pool and in they responded most of them did some did not and five said yes they would like to be considered so at the moment we have five people who would like to be considered for this vacancy there have been no new applicants so all five of these are the result of people who filled out previous CAF's for this position and have gotten back to me and said yes they would like still be considered and I have sent you by email the CAF's of those five individuals and so one thing we need to do today is hopefully determine the sufficiency of the pool whether these five candidates that's a sufficiently large pool for us to proceed and that is something we should decide I think we also need to establish selection guidance and that's where we would then switch over to the process because I have put in your packet as well to drafts draft 2a and to draft 2b to give us some basically describing two possible processes however the selection guidance is the same in both so we should look at that and I think hopefully make some decision today do you want me to go to that selection process I want to go through this first yeah the selection process is in the is in the packet you want me to go to that now that yet I want to just go through this with you briefly and see if there any questions or if anything's missing because I think we I think we need to establish the selection guidance we'll come to that in a second we need then to decide if we want to go to interviews again that's a process question and we need to solicit then SOIs statement of interest if we agree that that's what we want to do and then I've given you some dates here these are alternative so that's the situation any questions about that about the current status and about what needs to be done some of it today maybe some of it later so I have one question on the sufficiency of the pool question when you had checked with the applicants and are you aware as to did you talk to them about when the committee meets and whether they have any problems with meeting with current schedule of meetings for the committee I did not and my thinking is probably very different than yours on this and it may be something I'm gonna have to change but normally when a committee gets new members they have to sort of decide about when they're going to meet but so when people said to me oh I don't think I can do this because I can't meet at such and such a time though I think in this case none of these five raised that issue but for those who did I simply said to them you shouldn't use that as a deciding criterion that's something that a committee has to decide on its own when members 90 you may disagree on that and there may be a good reason to disagree on it but short answer is no I did not raise it and when it was raised by some of the people who were considering my advice to them was to not let that be the sole deciding criterion I did tell them when the committee traditionally met I told them that how often it met and I told them that it tends to meet a lot more often as the budget becomes due but I didn't say that that would be a deal breaker so for these five I don't know the answer and if it is if it is a deal breaker I guess we should we should put that in every notice that we send out I should say if you want to serve on this committee you must meet on this day at this time I don't think that's appropriate I think what you're saying about committees having to read decide when new members are added is kind of important any other thoughts on that well if you are trying to decide sufficiency of the pool which is that you have a certain number of qualified candidates that make you comfortable that it's sufficiently large to go forward and it's a committee that meets entirely during the day and never has in rarely has evening meetings and somebody can't meet during the day but can only meet in the evening I think that is going to be problematic and then that person is really not a qualified member pool and you get back to the question of sufficiency I don't know that that's an issue obviously that's why we asked the question right so Andy my hand up because I have a couple questions I'll respond to this comment first before I ask my question and that is I'm torn on this one there are certain bodies that we appoint like planning board and zba that traditionally meet in the evening and have done so for years and then you think about the council as a whole that has set up Monday night meetings and we've all adjusted our schedules to do that if someone runs and wins knowing that Monday nights when the new council comes in and most people expected to meet on Monday nights and one counselor who happens to win an election can't meet on Monday nights you know there's there's an expectation of reliance for some people on a specific day so you know in that sense for some things I think we need to rely on the ability to be open to certain to be able to meet at a traditional meeting time at the same time when the council itself reorganizes its own committees we always have to reorganize the times we meet because different groups of counselors have different availabilities for example CRC had a traditional meeting time of Wednesdays at 8 30 when we reorganized we had to move Tuesday at 2 which only works for the summer we had real problems finding a two-hour block every other week as a standard time to meet so I think this is a committee of the council where any if a counselor member changed I don't believe the president appoints members council members to committees simply because they are or are not available at the traditional meeting time it is expected whenever the committee gets together for the first time to find a time that all five of them can meet or all committee members can meet so that's our for finance committee I'm less set on they need to have the finance committee time available because we don't require that for membership of counselors to be available at this time and then there's also the if we do that in the middle of the day we cut out a whole lot of people whereas if we do that for evening meetings we cut out a less number of people we are still cutting out people if we require someone to be available at a certain time in the evening but given United States working patterns a meeting in the middle of the day cuts out a huge swath of this town from being able to serve and I'm not sure I can support that to go to my original question when I was looking at the CAFs I found a couple of things that I'm not going to use names because I don't know if we're supposed to but I saw some names missing and so I think George you answered some of that with there were certain CAFs filled out that when you contacted them they did not want to at this time be included in the pool anymore and so that could be an explanation for why some names that we have CAFs for that have expressed interest in finance committee are not on this list and I'd want to make sure that you heard yes or no from everyone I'm concerned with your comment of I haven't heard from some I'd like to know whether the ones you haven't heard from are still on this list or are not on the list and then the second comment I have one of the names on this list the CAF date is four years ago not three years ago and so what do we do about that especially if that person's already been contacted and has expressed interest remaining in the pool when the CAF date violates sort of what we just passed I didn't see that the CAF date so that was my oversight I think we're going to have to come back to that one my feeling was that I had sent messages to everyone and there are one or two people that simply did not respond most people did respond but there were one or two who did not and I did not pursue them beyond the initial request in other words I said I've sent them an email I can send you a copy of the email if you wish that described what the situation is and asked them to get back to me as soon as possible and some did not and I did not pursue them beyond that so the names you have here are the five people who did respond to my request there are a couple names that are not here because they did respond and said no and in one or two cases there was a bit of a back and forth before they said no and there are a couple cases where people simply did not respond can I follow up or please um I guess it's not really a follow-up on part of it is I would say those that didn't respond should remain on the list for now until we can get a response and then to Andy's question of sufficiency of pool with the changes to the CAF that the council just passed we're not going to have any of that information before we determine sufficiency so I think our determination of sufficiency is do we have enough people to be able to potentially fill this position with sort of options instead of a one-to-one say thing because one of our when we get to the process one of the things is we may choose after statement of interest or after interviews to not recommend anyone from the pool so from that point of view my thought is the pool is sufficient any thoughts on just process question when an invitation is land go ahead um I I agree that we should declare that this pool is sufficient but leave open for the people who have not responded so that if they do come in before we interview or whatever we do they can still be considered I do want to add to the issue that's been raised about meeting time and I understand the issue about daytime versus evening but the finance committee is a committee that relies heavily heavily on staff not just the finance director not just the controller and the town manager but for example when we start talking about individual budgets then we have to have all the different department heads come in and so forth and the more you move that into the evening the more difficult it becomes I know the previous finance committee with town meeting often that on Saturdays so it you know there was all kinds of different operations I don't think it should be an excluding factor but I don't want to overlook the fact that of all of the committees of the council the finance committee has more staff that need to come to it than any other committee okay if we include those who have not yet responded I guess I'm asking what yeah I'm just I'm just struggling with why would be looking at well I mean whatever yeah at what point do we if we declare the pool sufficient we have five members in the pool but now if we declare it sufficient we actually have more than five members because they're at least one or two that simply haven't responded I don't know what to do with that it's yeah go ahead how long ago did you contact them I mean it seems to me there needs to be some deadline if you haven't received a response that that reason that person gets taken off the list for this round I mean well I think it they get taken off once we declare a pool sufficient right instead of members in it which we if we but if we we haven't yet but if we do and we include members in that pool who have not responded um I have an issue with that because that means we then have to examine their CAFs etc or send them we're going to send them a statement of interest and you know it's like why not just do it to everybody they've been they've been notified they've had to respond they haven't responded um you know that feels yeah it feels like plenty yeah and if if you ask me to do this I have no problem with doing it's not a time issue at all it takes me only a few minutes but then again how long do we wait another week two days five days I mean come on it's I made it clear my message that I need to hear from them you know within you know as soon as possible and two weeks seems to be more than enough it is also the formal requirement date for you know posting the notice it has to be up for at least two weeks um but again the committee could decide I'm perfectly okay with this that they want to delay this um you know another two weeks while we wait to hear from those who haven't responded and I think it's very likely that they won't respond um and uh that's another two weeks gone where deadlines are starting to pile up um so I am a little reluctant to put into the pool people um who have not responded to a request so right on I'm many please yeah um um we have a draft process out there that does not close the pool until statement of interest are in for those that might fill out a CAF between now and the due date for statement of interest that's the draft process we're operating under so I don't think it's appropriate to close the pool for those that have already submitted CAFs but might not have extended it you know said that to you um or responded to you when they could they or someone else could submit a CAF tomorrow and be part of the pool um because it comes in before the statement of interest is due so I think the pool closes formally at the deadline for the statement of interest um and so I think the determination of a sufficient pool is slightly different than the finalization of what that pool is determination of a sufficient we now have enough applicants that have again confirmed they want considered to go forward with a pool I would not be willing to declare the pool sufficient if we had you know the many many applicants on CAFs and you hadn't heard from any of them so we didn't even know whether any were still interested um but we know there's a sufficient number still interested that have expressed formal interest to go forward that doesn't mean I don't believe that means we should keep out those that have submitted CAFs that haven't gotten back to you I think we should send that move forward not delay move forward towards the statement of interest to give them deadlines for that and they don't submit one of those that's that's the cutoff in my mind all right okay all right Lynn I move that we declare the pool sufficient but leave it open until the cutoff for when we actually um declare the pool closed all right there's been a motion to declare the pool sufficient with the proviso that it's not closed until we send out a notice of SOI there a second I'll second that we have a motion and it's been seconded any further discussion I have one just minor point Mandy raised a very good point that one of the CAFs is outdated and I can I guess my point is but that person got back to you and said they were interested yes yes yes I have to double check I assume that you are you looked at all five of the CAFs of the people who are in in front of us today and you noted that one of them was outdated if that's there not in this list then it was one that was in the list yeah right so one of these five has an outdated CAF and you were about to say what I would say keep them in the pool if they've affirmatively said they're still interested maybe encourage them to fill out a new CAF so that we have an updated one okay exactly okay and I was gonna have one comment when I'm looking at I know we haven't adopted the process yet but we're trying to follow it sort of um sufficiency of the pool one of the things we said we might consider if we adopt this process is not just the number of applicants but the demographic diversity of the applicant pool I think when Evan writes his reports for Oka he always mentions things like well it wasn't necessarily diverse in this grouping but we still went forward um I haven't looked at the demographic lists for this pool I think gender-wise it's probably diverse um beyond that I don't actually know because I haven't spent a lot of time with it but if we could acknowledge whether or not it meets those demographic diversities we're still going to move forward because it's sufficient in other sense I think would be nice so some comment as to the demographics in the uh chair's report okay I would be concerned Lynn don't share the CAFs up here they're not they're personnel documents and you're on video yeah so kill your screen sharing of them right they're there for you they're in your emails for you to look at individually if you have the time and we could look at them now if you wish um but we shouldn't have them up on the screen I almost made that mistake by putting them in the in-share point so Lynn you have to switch to a different tab oh you have okay he has yeah all right so we have emotion it's been seconded um related to efficiency of pool comment was made that demographics should be in the chair's report and request should be extended to the outdated CAF that we would ask them to update their CAF I'm going to call the question um Pat yes Lynn yes Andy yes there is a yes Andy yes so it passes five zero we declare the pool sufficient now Lynn if you could go to um the draft proposal and I believe it's draft 2a the difference between these two is one includes interview an interview process and the other does not and um I'd like to start with the one that does not because both of them have the earlier elements of uh that we need to uh decide on before we get to the issue of interviews and at that point once we make a decision we could we could look at the other um so if you could get up the draft 2a on the screen I could find so I have made um we're going to go through this quickly item by item um items one and two vacancy and community activity form um we have already reviewed and also really sufficiency of the applicant pool George yes go ahead have a comment in sufficiency of the applicant pool go ahead given the change in the CAF um I think the third bullet point the current needs of the finance committee including any current burdens placed on the body by a vacancy um beyond I think the including any current burdens placed on the body by vacancy is irrelevant to finance committee since these are non-voting positions so they don't go into form they don't go into anything but the current needs of the finance committee when the CAFs won't give us any background information because of what we just did to change them I would delete the whole bullet so bullet three under item three you would suggest be deleted yes okay thoughts about that you want me to change that on the screen um that would be helpful in I just want to say George you did a fantastic job modifying this uh well thank you I'll take praise where I can get it um a lot of this let's be honest as a couple of you know is actually the work of of Evan Ross and of Oka um that have worked so hard um but yes thank you um so we delete the third bullet point um any concerns with one two or three nope I'd like to go then to selection guidance and here I did make some major changes and you need to look at this and make sure you're happy with it and if not suggest um we had received from the committee and from the chair these the the first paragraph here um it should have gone into the uh vacancy notice but it didn't um and in the future hopefully it will but I did insert it here under selection guidance so this this wording is taken verbatim from what um Oka got from the committee and its chair when it did its initial search um so it's specific to this appointment finance and the wording is taken word for word from that and um then as you'll see so I deleted some of the more generic language and simply inserted the specific language taken from finance committee and then I put in term limits um again hopefully making the changes in terms of length of terms a number of terms that is accurate but otherwise I did not change the language so we need to decide if we're happy with four both the language for the finance committee um it's uh bullet points and then are we happy with inserting the language for term limits I want to ask a question and actually to some extent to Andy when in this first bullet um it seems like do we just care if they have experience on other private or public boards or do we want them to have experience on the finance committees of other private or public boards you know that I was thinking about that when we wrote that because that was from the original round the reference was to the prior finance committee as this um has life and continues on that becomes less relevant so should we say experience serving on public or private finance committees and then get rid of the last part of it I would if we're going to go that route I would add finance or audit committees because now finance deals with audit and then strike that okay I'm fine with the rest I have never been a fan of the term limits paragraph I'm just going to put this out there for the minutes and things I've never been a fan of it um but I'm not going to contest or argue for its removal given that this committee prefers that in there I think that is that's still open to discussion I mean we again this process is our process so if we decide that as a committee that we want it um removed we may um I believe this is the way the charge is written so if we change it we need to change the charge well I think last week the committee's preference was to keep this in and I just want to again reiterate that I'm not a fan of that but I'm not going to stand in the way of it I have to agree Vandy Joe it's interesting this is actually leftover from select board times and from previous finance committee and it still is being used somewhat when the town manager appoints people to committees but it's never been a council policy I think it is an important issue though it may not be for this committee it may end up being for TSO because I think it's more of a problem for the two boards at bay point two that's CRC CRC and and that issue has been been battled ferociously at OCA and this was I felt a acceptable compromise between the differing positions didn't rule out going beyond the suggested term limits but it did suggest a preference for four term limits of six years maybe my you can satisfy my issue I don't I don't mind because it's worded is normally limited but I would take out this appointment's committee handbook because it's not a handbook of the council it would in both sections but I agree to take it out huh well it's disgusting um and you say both sections Mandy I'm sorry oh it's right it's above it references to it in a paragraph that's right you're right um I think it's it's there in part to reflect the history um but it is not an official document of the council that is correct thoughts about me Pat yes no no no that's fine are you okay with taking it out Pat no you're not you like to I have no I don't have any trouble getting rid of the appointed committee huji that's fine but I feel like term limit I I like the reflection that um that this sets up are you know because I feel like a committee chair for not particularly a good reason this is not a reflection on you Andy could say I don't want this person because they're constantly voting differently or suggesting this and I don't like it and this gives some some possibility that we could bypass that if there were a negative dynamic that wasn't stopping the committee from working so I guess my biggest problem with this this reiteration is the giving preference to a second term it goes kind of in conflict with Pat with if the chair is saying it doesn't work you know this person I don't like or I don't like the way they vote or I don't like this while in some sense it's nice to give preference to a second term to someone who's already spent two or three years on a committee learning the ropes and all um sometimes there's a good there could be a good reason not to and that reason might actually be that some another applicant is so much more qualified um but that that much more qualified applicant given the language of we give a preference to someone who wants a second term might get kicked to the side and then also feel really you know if we're trying to encourage might not even apply the next time like oh if there's always a reappointment I'm never going to be able to get on might be there they're feeling coming away from something like that so I that's the biggest I guess problem I've always had with this statement is not is that preference that someone automatically gets a preference for a second term no matter the circumstances surrounding who's applied or what their service was like on the committee and and how that service potentially affected the committee um so I which is why I'm not a big fan of it um yeah it does say generally though and it also seems to me that one of the things that um Andy wanted or Andy has talked about and I'm speaking for you so correct me please if I'm wrong was that um it takes a while there's there's a steep learning curve for finance and um so someone who in essence may be more qualified because they've already been serving and so that's it I don't know I guess I'm going back to how contentious and I shouldn't so I'm not contentious it was when we first started this and Andy didn't want non-voting residents and now he does he sees the value and that's cool so I'm I don't know there's nothing to send dispute because I don't think I really ever spoke against having the non-voting members yeah you did but we don't have to go there okay um can I say I personally feel that we should just get rid of the first sentence but I want to point out that politically we now have this very situation where a first termer is coming up for a second and as much as I don't like it to take it out now it seems a little politically loaded the chair is ready to speak but I don't any other thoughts before he opens his big mouth okay he's gonna open his big mouth um I actually would like to keep this in um I think partly reflecting that the struggle that Oka had with it um and my own struggle um I'm thinking of another body where soon someone may come up for renewal that um and my feeling is that I may be very well in a situation where I don't particularly like some of the things that they have decided or done but there's also a thought that they have given service and they have in other words if they are functioning on the body they're not causing you know if there's not a good reason to remove someone from a body that can be articulated in some you know some way um I would tend to have a preference for continuing people um this doesn't say it's guaranteed it certainly leaves it leaves room for uh saying no but it sort of implies that you better have a good reason you better have something you can actually put forward in public that you can stand by and if you can't then um I think the preference should be honored um if you take it out there's a sense in which every time someone comes forward we it's all the playing field is completely white the slate's wiped clean and I'm not comfortable with that um and I'm saying that because in it painfully for me because I can imagine myself in a situation where I would have to just swallow my dislike or distaste of some of the decisions and still um vote for someone in that case because they have fulfilled the basic requirements of the job and they are not and there's no clear reason why you can remove them there should be right so that's I'm not happy with taking this out and partly I think it reflects the battles of Oka it reflects my own change in thinking um unless there's something about finance very particularly that we feel this is not appropriate and I don't see that I think if someone's been on the body for six years um you know that's a pretty long time and there are lots of people in this community that that have knowledge that can be brought to bear so unless there's a really strong case to be made and it could be I mean one can make that case I would say we should keep this and including the first sentence that's my two cents silence um does someone want to make a motion I'm not going to push for a removal even though I don't like it and George you made a really great argument yeah I'm not going to push for you okay I mean I I'm perfectly willing to have us go to a vote that's that's all right we don't um because there's disagreement here and I feel a little bit on both sides but um we are we okay with taking out a point at committee handbook section 2.3 yes that's exactly the consensus okay otherwise I think we um we made some changes to bullet number one and we've deleted the one reference and so we're we're okay with this as it stands yeah okay I think so um Andy because it has the word generally in it which uh then gives the committee a right and I agree with the point that it's very awkward time to take this out because it affects somebody who's currently uh a member is uh napkin it's I don't know how to handle that issue and there can be arguments made on both sides of that I think there's also language in this that could be used um in that particular case either way that's why I think it's yeah I think it's up for the committee to decide and discuss but the way it's worded gives room as opposed to just definitively saying we're just going to take it out or definitively saying six years and you're done statement of interest um if people have a chance to look at this that basically this is something that okay has been pushing and I think there's some support for it here as well but we need to discuss after we declare the pool sufficient which we have done today the chair or designee contacts each individual in the pool which we've agreed in this case would also be individuals who have not responded with a negative but in other words have not responded and um the designee will then in the solicitation send a copy of the committee handout and the selection guidance we just approved up above and then it describes what the format of the SOI should take and says the SOI should describe why the applicant is interested in serving and the relevant skills and experiences they bring to the body in light of the adopted selection guidance and this is important I hope everyone accepts this but if not we need to resume and attachments will not be accepted so all we are soliciting and all we will accept is this 700 word plus or minus document that's it I will establish a deadline which we should agree on today before we're done for submission of SOIs and at that point right the pool would be closed so if my understand what was suggested earlier once someone has failed to submit an SOI by the deadline they are out of the pool yes I just had my screen go blank it's me sorry that's okay I just want to make sure it's not me my mind goes blank all the time but my screen usually stays stays okay thank you so George please I think we need to talk about interviews at this time because the two this is the part where the two plot processes starts diverging I agree I agree 100% but first I wanted to be agreed can we agree that this is what you'd like for SOIs other than maybe the question how would they then interface with interviews but we have to have the SOIs anyway before we can go to interviews so can we agree are people happy with this text yes yes yes okay and then Mandy is absolutely correct in this version we then we'd have a meeting and we would have the SOIs in front of us and we would have the CAFs and we would make our recommendation and that would be that so the question now becomes do you want to have interviews and that's the alternative to be and I don't know if there's a way we can maybe we should just talk for a minute about whether you want to do interviews at all and what the pluses and minuses of that are we talked about a little bit last time I made the case that this is a council committee not a multi-member public body and it serves at the pleasure and at the service of the council which to me is an extremely strong consideration unlike planning board CBA this is a very different body so I think I'm still in favor of skipping the interviews but I do have a request if that view does not is not the prevailing view if the prevailing view is to do interviews that the interviews always happen that there's no middle ground where we only decide on interviews if we don't like the statement of interest things I think it's a problem to receive statement of interest and then say oh well this is sufficient for us to decide without interviews or oh no we need interviews because we still have questions I think that that raises a lot of issues so I I would either say we or we make those interview decisions before we receive the statement of interest I have I guess I have concerns about making the decision after the statement of interest are seen yeah I like mandu joe I don't feel like we need interviews in this situation if we were to go to interviews I would feel like we would want to include the chair of the finance committee and we have you on GLL but if you weren't on GLL it would be good to have the chair of the finance committee in on the interviews or or or the vice chair someone from finance as well as the members of GLL but I don't think we need interviews in this instance Lynn or Andy yeah I mean I feel sort of uncomfortable the idea that we could end up with a decision to either exclude a candidate who nobody has ever met in person or making a recommendation to choose somebody who nobody has ever met in person hmm that's the process that we would be creating good point I have to say I agree with Andy well then I perhaps we should put up for while we are if Lynn if you could do this if you'd put up the other and let's look at that process and while you're doing that the chair is going to make a quick exit do could I take one minute do you mind I'll take one minute I'm I'm afraid the chair needs to and I'm happy to suspend the meeting for a moment if people are willing but take a break yeah yeah and we'll just put that one section on the screen if that's what you want to do thank you very much Lolly do you want to go out so this is the section yes six and seven while we're on break I see we've lost every single attendee I'm sorry what did you just say I had to close the door I see we've lost every attendee it's just like a regular gol meeting pat no one's here to watch right feels much better okay I've lost my video to see all of you and I'm trying to figure out how to get it back you need to just click the speaker view button or something up there you probably are only showing your screen oh because you're the one sharing this screen right yeah the video ends up I think down in a corner somewhere like like you'd have to find it somewhere but there is for me some kind of black bar on the your sharing Lynn which is kind of making it difficult to read things yeah did you share the whole screen or did you just share that document Lynn I I'm sharing the whole screen if you share just the document you you don't get those black bars for us because zoom will not let you share those screens so so kill that I got you but we'll still have the black bars yep because of how you're sharing instead of sharing your desktop share just that document got it so let me just stop sharing sorry go back and share just the document like pick word instead of pick the desktop in the options here it is no I still have black bar yeah that's weird see I you know I didn't realize a black bar was shown where is it it's at the bottom of your screen on the screen is it where your cursor is did you just get now it moved to the top yeah that's fine okay so I want to before we turn to this let me just say something probably inappropriately about the history of this interview issue it became quite complicated and quite complex and contentious and what finally was created is I think politically and perhaps even reasonably I'm not sure about that but it's politically necessary but it's extremely cumbersome and so please give it some thought I mean it's also possible we could consider an interview process that is not quite as as elaborate as what we have concocted for planning board and zoning board but what we did learn is that interviews cannot be conducted by two members of the committee it has to be conducted either by one member or by the entire body and so we conduct them it seems it seems to me that part of the controversy last time may have been because it was conducted by one member it also seems to me to have more than to have the committee because in the process of talking with each other around the candidates I think sometimes you make a better decision than if there's just one person's input no matter who that person is I guess my concern is how helpful you know George you're the only one that's I think been through these with an OCA process in terms of group interviews my only experience in this sense is sort of with the committee where the interviews without any follow-up were fairly helpful but I'm not exactly sure they changed anyone's mind given the voting and so I'd like to know whether the interviews have given the strictures of one set of questions they already have them in advance so they already have their answers prepared in theory do we even need to bring them in to answer them um and no follow-up questions right how helpful are actual interviews in that situation instead of just maybe if we get statement of interest and are like hey we'd really like to follow up on this one thing with this person or this one thing with that person sending follow-up questions I don't find that process without having a give and take without follow-up particularly helpful you're right basically what people do is some who are more comfortable speaking in public can simply speak directly to the committee with notes in front of them some literally read what's in front of them every question is is already known in advance we're doing it with everyone present and I think the reason for that is because it's planning board and zoning board I don't see why that process makes sense for this kind of appointment um and I don't think it'll be very fruitful um if you have the SOIs um you know that would seem to be sufficient if you want interviews they should be interviews I would assume with the entire body where you could have given taken back and forth it would be more of a conversation right you have to do with you have to do with everybody and I don't think would you have to do with everybody all at once I don't see why but you also run into the issue of scheduling blah blah blah but um so I'm not opposed to interviews per se but the format that was created for planning board and zoning board strikes me as inappropriate for this kind of of body a and extremely cumbersome and not very useful we could come up with our own process it seems to me if we felt as a committee that having people in front of us to talk to would be all that valuable um but we'd have to do everybody we couldn't just do one or two we'd have to interview every single candidate and we assume we'd have to interview them as a body unless we're willing to let one person do it and I think Pat's made the point that that's really not a good idea so all five of us would have to be present and would you want to do all of them at the same time that seems like a terrible idea um but we could I mean there's also an issue of just time and energy on the committee's part um you now would have to arrange for interviews of at least five maybe more individuals over the next couple weeks um where all five of us can be present and they can be present so we don't have to follow the process that oak has created for planning board and zoning board I don't think we should that doesn't mean we couldn't create our own process for interviews if we really feel interviews are are worthwhile but there are going to be certain things we're going to have to do no matter what and one is we'd have to interview everybody and sue it seems like we'd all have to be present and then are they public in other words would these interviews be a public um meeting obviously our own meetings are public people can come and they can they can listen um but interviews may occur at other times other than during they would probably absolutely occur at times other than when the committee formally meets so they would be strictly interviews off the sort of you know and can we do that can we have the five of us meet and conduct an interview that is not you know official in the sense that people can attend Lynn if the five of us meet it has to be public right we don't have that option so it has to be posted it has to be right and a whole nine yards right to be recorded um staff especially in these days with COVID-19 and we have to do this for um is that's why we went to everybody once right you know but then you don't get back and forth you don't right you got to just follow a script well no if you do everybody at once and you finish the script and then people wanted to do follow-up this group is small enough that we could do that when you when we were doing school committee and we had 17 people it was just not going to work right we could if we go with the interviews we could actually adopt the supreme court method of arguments if we want to think sort of new um which was each individual counselor gets so many minutes or whatever to ask questions or you know we could say each counselor gets so many questions um if they have them and that question maybe goes to every interviewee if we do interviews and then as Lynn said if there's follow-up you can follow up or you can each counselor gets to do something like that or the next counselor in line could change their question based on what the one before answered it wouldn't be the process of going out to the council to get specific questions and maybe the interviewees wouldn't have the questions ahead of time but maybe we could think of a process that would allow for follow-up if we're going to do it i'm still not in favor of doing it um but if we are i want to make them worth the time so if you have the interviews you have the SOIs in front of you right so i assume we would have the SOIs and then we do interviews and so your questions would be based on their statement of interest and it doesn't make sense to me to have a series of pre-programmed questions that's where the point of the SOI the SOI was to put out you give them a chance to tell us who they are and why they want to do this and then but are we also then going to have a set of questions we all agree upon that we're going to ask all the candidates um one two three four five or are we simply going to have the five of us with the SOIs in front of us and just say okay anybody have any questions for candidate a candidate b candidate c how do you want to do that you could do that down the line so that you know we're doing candidate a first and we go through each each counselor gets two minutes or something similar to how that it was crazy at the supreme court when they did it but i understand the point is that yeah lin it's all right i i'd like us to think creatively about this i do think if we have prepared questions they have to also be public that is that there's no question about that and they can prepare their statements and that leads to the very stock kinds of answer though that we got when we did the school committee oh if we're going to do it i would do them all at once i would ask each counselor to have one question with a couple in their back pocket on case their question got answered and then i would give each counselor and and the question would be answered by all of the people being interviewed one in a succession and then you rotate starting with the second one and then at the end if there's any follow-up questions each counselor could ask one follow-up question i think we're going to learn a lot and i think the next time somebody brings up this idea they'll say forget it i guess right sorry i don't necessarily like the the idea of having to ask the same question of every candidate because if you've got a statement of interest in front of you one candidate you might want to ask about their experience at x y z company that does this and another candidate you might say oh i don't see you have much finance but can you give me you know like you you could tailor the question to each candidate having to ask the same question of every candidate is i think what defeats the purpose of an interview versus an s li i'd love to hear from andy i agree to what you just said i think that the s li really does you're you're hopefully getting a pretty good feel what i had said before was that it seemed weird to choose somebody or not choose somebody who you've never had actually had the purpose meeting opportunity to meet in person so that you don't even you can't even don't even recognize nobody will recognize them as when they walk in the room we sort of it got to that point and so something that has informality to it and and you know it's just even a few questions that are geared towards the individual's s li in background that gives that has a little bit of a personal thing and allows the person if they wish to make a statement to say it to the people who are making the decision i would try and limit it to devise it so that it has a time limit to it and i don't think that it needs to be formally structured lin was describing a process that was like what the select board used to do and i don't i think the s li kind of took that away it really is probably a better way to deal with it than the old select board process we do something like each candidate gets two minutes for an opening statement even if it's like their s li and afterwards each candidate gets two minutes for a closing statement and then have the time in between being more free flowing i'd like to ask candidate a to expand on their experience at company x so why don't we do it actually i'm not sure that i would do opening and closing i think you should just welcome the opportunity to have you to say whatever you would like to say to the committee about why you're interested in what you think you have to offer to the committee by serving on it and then give each of each of us an opportunity to ask either one or two we can decide in but not require it so that we make it clear that if we don't have a question that we just uh say so and go on i don't want to prolong it so only opening statements and then questions brought to individuals from counts from the channel i'm worried about this really um this is not an elective body it's not a body that right it's not like the committee um you know they're not running for office they don't even have a vote um right i'm the committee they're serving on we're basically asking them as a service to the town and particularly as a service to the council and as particular to the service to the finance committee i mean in the in a rational world the finance committee would do this and choose people they felt would best help them do their job um opening statements closing statements questions right um i'm i'm worried that this is a it's going to take up a huge amount of time but b um it's vastly overkill when we're really what we're looking for people who have some kind of financial background or experience and and and exhibit in a in a uh now obviously an interview might help a little bit here but really you're looking to see what they what they bring to the table um and uh the more we add on to it uh and the more cumbersome it comes it's not starting to sound like it's some kind of big political office where you've got a lot of power and we really don't um you're really you know trying to help an elected body function better and the more difficult or challenging we make it fewer people are going to be interested in doing it um we got a pretty good response people are curious they're willing to you know offer their expertise or knowledge and now we're going to have them come in for you know make public statements submit SOIs undergo undergo questioning they're all going to be president at the same time in the same space because it's convenient for us um i'm worried we're gonna we're going to kill the we're going to kill the goose um does anyone else have that concern that this just seems way too much yeah yeah it's interesting what you just said because when i uh was uh the select board person who uh recommended uh committee appointments to the select board where the select board had the authority we met with individuals and um after um at one point we started having the meetings be up with the town manager's office the town manager wish to be a part of it that became but the idea was you get somebody from the staff and you get somebody from the who work with the committee and the committee chair and some of it was you'd give the opportunity to the person who is applying to ask questions about the committee so that uh somebody who had not been on the committee before uh you give them the chance to to ask you questions too and there was more of a dynamic conversation than a formal interview and this doesn't have that dynamic conversation element to it so we could do something where we just schedule um everybody in for 20 minutes one right after the other have a conversation make sure that they have an opportunity to ask us any questions and then with zoom literally you can throw the person out of the room right i certainly don't like the idea of having everybody and by the way have a waiting room where the next candidate is waiting oh we can't do that because the meeting has to be open so they'd be allowed to be an attendee right that's true yeah if they want to i mean they're these are now required to be there one fair choice no the way it's set up is we're going to ask you in addition to an SOI we're going to ask you to be present in this world right now via zoom in the future hopefully come to a committee meeting where you you'd have a few minutes to ask you some questions and you can ask us some questions we do that with everybody for five and then then that would be done that things now the other problem becomes what if somebody can't make it what if they don't show up well the the usual rule is if they don't show up for the interview then they're out right i'm i'm wondering a little bit if once we review the SOIs i think i know you answered my own question so i'm going to stop asking ever mind i don't think i'll allow you once we review the SOIs we look at and decide if we need to go to interviews well and sort of or just say hey you know it's down to these two people so maybe we really do need to interview Mandy Jo and George because they're you know they both have what we really need but we don't know either one of them or something like that and why would that good why would that be not permitted why would that be some violation of of what i mean this is go ahead yeah i'm wondering if because we wouldn't include everybody could that be a form of discrimination or something i don't mean it would essentially act as a selection committee staging of stuff the SOIs might narrow you down and then an interview you might serve to narrow further yeah which makes some discussion of the SOIs and the paring down of the pool would have to be public right right right i guess i personally still lean towards no interviews for this as it gets complicated what i i don't know um i liked the suggestion of everything we've talked about the suggestion the most of i think it was Lynn that said and it's a we put them all in a row or one meeting and it's an informal conversation so that they can get their questions answered as Andy said because that can be very valuable and i would say if they don't show up or they don't want to that's not a hit against them and they're not you know they're not excluded from the pool because i can imagine a person who served frankly i could almost imagine the person seeking reappointment um if that person is since we're looking at a reappointment and we're looking at an opening for a position that's not a resignation at this point um saying you know i know what this job is i don't have any questions and i i don't you guys know me you know i i could see a person like that saying i don't really need to do this now they may still do it because take the opportunity but um i don't think we should hold it against someone that has served on a body for five years choosing not to come in to to have that conversation all right we are obviously over time um and um we need to come to some i mean there are certain things i can do going forward i can solicit the soi we've agreed on what that should look like we've agreed on selection criteria i can send them that but i really and maybe i won't be able to tell them about interviews yet i just have to say it's still to be determined but we're also going to run into deadline problems in terms of meetings how willing are we to have extra meetings just to to meet because we need to fill this by june 30 and the council and schedule in our schedule are not ideal there's some dates on that timeline sheet i gave you that gives you a sense of some of the challenges in terms of timing what do i tell people when i go to them and say okay now we're soliciting a statement of interest this is the da da da da um do i say possible interviews to be determined do i say nothing do i say um and then once we have your sois we will meet and decide i i need some guidance here andy pat anybody if i wasn't on this committee yep i what i would be suggesting was because uh that um offer them the opportunity to call a chair of the committee and if they have any questions about the committee and let them handle it that way because then it doesn't become part of the selection process because i am a part of this committee maybe we should see if kathy is vice chair of the finance committee would be willing to have her name put out there that the people who are applicants have questions about the finance committee and the role that they can call a member of the finance committee possibly the vice chair then that has to be communicated to us just be it's sort of source one of the problems is their questions to us right that was the reason to do that um what i'm trying to think about is how do we do this so that we contain the time that i think you really don't want to allow 20 minutes it really needs to be five or 10 minutes per person otherwise it's too long it's too much of our time to do that i don't think we have it to give i don't think it will add all that much i'm almost tempted to force the issue at least for the sake of of of some kind of clarity and and recommend and maybe put through a vote that we simply not have interviews um and that we adopt essentially a draft 2a and do not adopt draft 2b um and in response to andy's thought i could communicate to people that if they do have questions about the committee and how it works blah blah blah blah they're perfectly encouraged and free to reach out to the vice chair and she can answer their questions but that's between her and them as a matter of just getting you know they need clarification but um i'm almost tempted to simply propose this as a motion that we adopt draft 2a um and force us to make a decision um one way or the other because if we are going to do uh something like 2b um we're not going to resolve it today um we're going to have to come back at least one more time and figure out what we mean by interviews and blah blah blah blah blah and we're going to run into some deadline issues which you know maybe we'll just we could let the position stay unfilled for a couple weeks or even a month if we have to there's where it maybe andy can speak up whether you know given the june 30 deadline um would it be a disaster if or could we ask the current member to stay on is that is that enough i'd like to speak to that please the reality is because of the way we're doing the budget with the one month and then the a full budget that is not the worst idea in fact it's a very good idea because to bring a new finance committee member on on july 1 when we have already gone through the debating of a one month's budget and then we're going into the 12 month's budget in this environment is like i that person's head would be spinning that makes sense maybe we're looking at an appointment to begin august 1 right at the end of this budget season can we do i mean i mean i think it's a one-year term or service until generally they're like service until your next person's appointed or something right um we could probably just get the council to vote if we recommended today uh to vote on a one month extension of that time of that thing to get through so that no matter what happens with the appointment process that appointment occurs after this budget season the budget season that will never end yeah right well but but after the fiscal year 21 budget is adopted because that's the whole point of having the term end june 30 is a new person any new appointee whether they're recurring or not starts at the beginning of a budget cycle not in the middle of the budget cycle so george i'm going to propose that we bring a recommendation to the council that we extend the term of the one-year person through the end of july that's recommendation number one okay and the second is that we proceed to firm up the pool and get the SOIs and look at them and decide if we want to do interviews okay um um do we need a deadline for the SOIs yeah we do well just we have we're still struggling to um decide about then what we want to do with interviews um it doesn't seem SOIs are all that pressing i could give them a month i could give them three weeks two weeks um i think my preference would be if we're extending the the current members term for a month we don't have to have a recommendation for a council vote on the 29th then why don't we make the SOIs do not for the june i guess it would be not for the june third meeting or maybe even not for the june 17th meeting maybe the deadline is sometime around june 17 or 19 um there's all that timing if we were to do interviews um but that we maybe plan on a june or july one meeting being the meeting we discuss finance appointments and by then maybe we'll have decided on interviews so mandy you're suggesting a deadline for SOIs like june what june 17 give us june third's meeting to solidify whether we're doing interviews and then get a a several timeline we could always move the SOI deadline right i just i want to make sure i want to make sure when i reach out to the candidates um whatever i communicate to them is what the committee wants me to communicate to them i mean i could simply not i could simply say to everyone you know to be determined we're still you know we're not soliciting anything um or i could say yes we're soliciting SOIs and the deadline for that is june 17th please get them to me by that date and in this format and um we have not yet determined if they're going to be interviews which sounds like what you're suggesting that's what i will do if i don't hear from anyone else um in terms of SOIs deadline of june 17 which gives them a little less than a month and um which means that that everyone's a candidate who has not said no until that date and i will send this notice to everyone who has not said no okay i i'm agree with that i mean and i have to say it's part of the problem that i'm having is just that i know three of the candidates um i don't know two of the candidates and i don't want to give preferences based on that fact because i'm in a similar situation i know three of the candidates and so in the best of what possible world is being able to meet everyone especially those you've never met before you might find very helpful just to certainly i don't want to set up an interview process that's um only for two the candidates right that doesn't seem right and to make a decision where i have personal knowledge and relationship and confidence and three people and two people i don't simply because i've never met them seems to be unfair to those two people and that's what i've been struggling with right so with a timeline of an so i do by june 17th if we it would allow us to decide affirmatively or definitively on june 3rd whether to do interviews or not and still meet all the deadlines in the proposed process whatever that process might look like for deadlines to do those interviews july 1 especially if we get through the council an extension of a term to the end of essentially the fy 21 budget adoption in the end of july july 1 interviews and vote potentially and then it's at the council whatever the council meeting something for appointment as of august 1 getting to hear a consensus of of doing some kind of interview that we're not sure the format yet um and i could communicate that to them that that while we don't know we are going to have some kind of well yeah because we interview we have to interview everybody or at least give everyone the opportunity to be interviewed right and has to have the option and um okay you could communicate there may or may not be but if they are if there are they would be july 1 at our meeting something like that if we're agreed to try and do it during our actual gol meeting right instead of we would have them invited and we've been interviewed them individually and we'd have their so i's by that point because they would have been submitted by june 17 i couldn't push that june 17 date a little later for looking at a july 1 interview date but maybe that's fine gives chance also there's the issue of posting the so i's there's another issue um so the public has i mean in that degree of transparency normally you make the so i's public so people can read them if they want to and also counselors can see them and we try to have a 14 day right we don't have to have 14 days but um so if it's june 17 it's not quite two weeks right actually it is it's two weeks exactly right so if june 17 were the so i deadline um it's going to be tight but um well you have on here one week is it one week celebration so one week before interview i think and that gives us more than enough time the idea being that they that people can see them if they want to and that seems to me okay i'd make that clear to the applicant that these will become public at some point um then we have the interviews on july 1 they would be ideally g ol meeting and um if they don't make it or don't want to do it that doesn't knock them out but everyone's invited and the format will be somewhat won't be rigid we won't have preset questions it's an opportunity for each counselor we'll figure this out but basically some kind of informal set of questions and they can ask us questions and we'd set aside time in a g ol meeting for that on july 1 is that seem like a plan forward i think it does i i also feel like we do now have to have one motion and that is the motion regarding recommending that mary lewman's term be extended to july 31st yeah i think we do have that motion that's been presented to extend the term mary lewman it's been seconded um just quickly we're doing this because it has nothing really to do with our own struggle to create a process and all the rest of it but we're doing it because it does make sense given the current situation and and here obviously we're deferring to andy uh and that bring someone new in on july 1 at this point would really be not very productive or helpful given the current situation i i do think you should make clear to the council um and particularly miss tollman um that this recommendation in no way um darin twos well presages what the committee is thinking in terms of reappointment or or that because i i would fear that a recommendation like this might be seen by miss tollman as a leaning of the committee to not reappoint her and and and the council to do something like that and i think we need to make clear that that is we've not even discussed the candidates or have any conversation about this it's more of where budget season is right now and that and to guarantee that it is not disrupted due to any whatever might happen in the appointment process do i need to reach out to her to make sure that she is willing to do this in my most recent in my most recent communication um my the sense was that she would be willing but this was obviously not presented to her at all i'm just reading between the lines but i should reach out to her but we still should go ahead with our recommendation yes yes okay and if i hear something negative i should then communicate that to the president of the council please okay so we have a motion on the floor it's been seconded any other discussion questions comments hearing none i'm going to proceed to the vote um pat yes uh lin yes mandy joe yes the chair is yes andy yes all right the vote is five zero unanimous that uh that uh joel recommends to the council that they extend the term of mary lute talman as a non-voting resident member of the finance committee through the end of july 31 okay well we're way over time um has anyone had a chance to look at the minutes they have been edited by um one set was edited by our amazing town clerk the other was very lightly touched up by yours truly um are people willing to vote on the minutes or do they want to hold off we have to vote okay so i'm going to make a motion to adopt the minutes of april 22nd and may 6th 2020 as uh presented on this date and we have a second from um i think it was mandy not pat sorry my pat um hearing no discussion um i'm going to move to the call the question pat yes uh lin yes mandy yes chair is a yes andy yes thank you all right um i will go through my notes which are all over the place on my desk right now and try and figure out what i'm going to do next time um and what we're going to do the time after that but um any particular things people want to mention briefly in terms of next time future agenda items they're afraid i might forget or miss or something they'd like to have on there um i have the pollinator um that's that i have committed to do that on june 3 um we have the wage theft bylaw what did we decide about that anyone remember it's so long going to the attorney so we don't have to deal with that that's off the table unless it's back unless it's back i love this next year right okay anything else and then the bylaw part of the town um managers proposal yeah all right all right anything else all right there's nobody left for public comment uh no if once again we've killed them all off the typical geoel thing if we can do anything we can get rid of the poll we can clear a room you need to clear a room just invite us all right um so i'm ready to adjourn i don't know about you i'm exhausted yes i have to go to a one o'clock meeting i know lin are yeah you're great um all of you are great um all right well i'm going to adjourn this meeting all right thank you george thanks george yep you're welcome thank you