##VIDEO ID:AHjuhpm3-Hg## okay seeing after 6:30 meeting of Jeff yes yes Kathy yes and John John is here John is here okay um first I need to say that this meeting is being recorded otherwise I get I suppose we should just ble into the business of the night consider the um candidates or or the General candidates first obviously don't remember I think we have everyone everybody's here so so I don't think it matters email that we were sent that General can first okay um I would ask that the general candidate take four seats thank you Eli have you been a selector no but I'm not I'm not buying Bea select that's okay okay you'd be wonderful but I know okay we starting with M Jes would you just say a couple of words about your we asked you to write things we asked you to put in application just say a few words why you think you would be particularly appropriate for this position well I think that have experience with working with the Town Administrator um having been on select board and planning board and been chair of both the reason I'm not putting my hat in the ring for the select board but as an at large um I think that I can bring a lot but I also feel that those running putting their hats in the ring for select boards are really fantastic so so you're afraid of the competition well I'm not afraid of the competition I just know them to be superior they have more experience than I in that would you like me to repeat I'll watch again do you have questions for Becky um no I don't really because you're more than qualified so thank you that thank you for stepping up thank you when you're on the planning board back that would have been great so you have no experience with any other T um not not as a planning border select board member but I have been involved with um school council and involved with the school for a long time and through that ended up having some interactions with a select I mean the Town Administrator and you got opinion on distra of one Serv say it again please so you have I'm sorry I'll say just slow actually just little more loud speak up which which one's you good here bad ear worse uh so no so you've got an idea of the strengths of the pre ta that you work with when you're in the school board as well okay so you know what works and what doesn't um I have a perspective on yes thank you thank you no I'm good okay um on your right up Becky the I think there was only one question that I didn't see a response to and I got this kind of late cuz that the email system went into my junk folder so I found it late yeah um how you differ differentiate between management and Leadership and so that based on the email that I got either got cut off or I didn't see a response could you just elaborate a little bit sure um and those I didn't fill in six or seven just because Debbie had noted in the um when she sent out the email that those would be addressed in person um so unless I miss no you're right you're right um so it's just my understanding of differentiating between the two is that management is more um the oversight organization and insurance completion of projects and tasks leadership um I feel is more uh guidance and inspiration to accomplish thank you and see so the other question like you said we were supposed to ask these um in person I'll go ahead and ask if you don't mind um what thoughts do you have on how the committee should narrow the field um I think it would be um best to start off with what what um the the screening committee and the select board feel the ideal candidate would look like once there's basic understanding of that um and narrow down based on the most appropriate for what is perceived to be ideal candidate thank you yeah first I want to thank you all for all of these writeups all of you contributed to great deal of reading time for us but it's been great to see what the story is and to learn and I will say that in general most of you much of it is you're you're in tune with what's going on in in town here there's no no question about that um the decision we're going to make on a new town manager I think is the most important decision we're making this year in this town and there's a lot of stuff going on but I think this is the most important one um Becky in particular when we interviewed who was a paradigm Associates they're the group that's going to do the search John petran was his name he says the average tenure of a town manager is like three years four years three to five it's certainly under five years we're very lucky here we're sitting here with a guy that's been with us for 11 almost 12 almost almost 12 years so my question Becky and you know I may ask this of the other folks is is what's what's most important here picking somebody that might not check every single box but you got a good bet at getting a long run or somebody that you said this is a Whistle Stop he is or she is an expert but the chances that that person is going to stay here is not high or at least is not going to stay here for a long time and I supect that this committee is going to have to make some decisions along those lines what are your what what are your thoughts on that um I I understand that it's an unusual situation that we've been fortunate enough to have Greg as long as we have um I think part of the challenge is going to be um the pool of candidates and I'm concerned that it might not be a very big or deep pool at this point so yes you're not going to get everything um I personally feel that it would be critical to understand um the needs of a smaller Community um and the very difficult decisions of overseeing the tasks that have to be managed by that I mean um that every town or city has its own big issues I think being a smaller town um provides or or has some even more difficult because we don't have uh as many resources in terms of I think getting grant funding um I think we have to look at infrastructure needs which somehow we're going to have to continue to have prioritized in terms of improvement uh and with the iffiness of funding um I think we need to have someone who understands how to best maximize what resources we have through the people how that person will manage the people um delegate projects as needed and Not Duplicate or triplicate the work okay all right that's kind of a description of all the various things those are the boxes that you want checked and maybe I mean that has to be balanced against maybe someone who can't check all those boxes but it's a long term you're not going to get therefore perhaps an older person maybe not somebody who's 45 years old but somebody who's 60 years old who has been around but like Greg when Greg came here I think he did tell the interviewing group this I plan this to be my last stop so we kind of we knew what we were getting yeah and I don't necessarily believe that age is going to be the um what's going to distinguish what they know and what they don't know um I think it depends on where they've been and what they've learned in that wherever they've been prior okay thank you for you what would be a red flag probably someone who's moved around a whole lot um in Rapid succession someone who just doesn't stay more than a couple years I think it takes more than that to understand the community for which you're working so that would be a red flag for me what it's hard to ask for a single most important characteristic but if you were looking at someone who um seemed very technical and was a little less articulate versus someone um who perhaps couldn't run the DPW by himself but um communicated well I mean that's a pretty obvious question but which um I believe feel that to have good guidance you need to be able to or the the the person would have to be able to um manage well I don't think they have to be the most articulate but I do think that the person needs to be able to manage effectively and efficiently yes I would ask how would you judge that I think that would have to be um through reaching out to wherever that person had worked before um talking or emailing um with a number of people to try to understand if that person really was good at um oversight completing tasks and being able to delegate appropriately does anyone else have questions for Becky me yeah I'm uh I'm it's been a long time since we've eaten any candidates who show it up for anything okay all right that's thank you very much always first uh I have I'm a uh uh have experience in my professional career running a large Department of a Commercial Bank uh Urban Commercial Bank where we had 180 190 employees and a operating budget of around uh $45 million um and um overa assets of of about4 billion and um so I that inevitably required certain amount of of uh staff turnover or inv all that so I did have to uh uh winow out who I thought was going to be a good staff member for from a poor staff member and then I had to do a lot of evaluation of uh of the performance of folks and uh so I had that experience I also have run my own um operation for 30 years and uh we we oversee uh operating properties that are Hands-On and very uh required deliberate management not stewardship but deliberate management and and there's a big difference between the two as you all know so um that's my story I've have lived in town for 48 years but that doesn't make me any smarter so here I am yeah so so I'll ask you the same question I asked Becky the long-term person or the shortterm person that checks more boxes no question about it I'd rather have a smart short-term person than a person who hangs around and take your chances 20 years yeah they fall in love with the to things are things are too damned important to have somebody who's incompetent and so you know being committed for two decades and believe me we've been lucky or or incredibly wise in our choice and fortuitous providential in our results and so that's fine but uh no I would I would uh definitely go for uh someone who can grasp the the wheel and steer rather than somebody who shuts on the autopilot and hopes everything works out okay okay okay good thank you Kathy um Dar on your questionnaire you mentioned um the select board we need to refine and restate the mission of town government yeah could you clarify what you meant by that or do you have specific suggestions you have some real flaws in what you do here um and that's tied up with the job description of the guy that reports to you you have you don't have a town manager as I understand it I think he's called a Town Administrator um and I think it's very important for for the I don't know how many there are but there Le five of you five of you that you understand what your mission is and what the mission of town government is now maybe you've got a mission statement and it's all laid out and I just missed it but I just haven't seen it maybe just I should study a little bit more but I haven't seen it I would like to see that happen so how do you like that for being obnoxious I'm just trying to understand is that the the job description because we actually did have a conversation at a select board meeting about the difference between a Town Administrator and town manager as the first thing we discussed there's a write up on what the town administrator's responsibilities are right so what you're saying is missing is the five of us our mission correct your mission I think you need to refine that I know you say wait a minute we we waste enough time why do we have to have a mission cut it out you know but but I really think you should think about that doing that and have a statement so that you can say this is what we do then I think you should seriously think about not having an administrator I think you should have a town manager wait sorry okay I'll stop okay just just I'm off the track as a as a point of information um Hamilton and winham one has a manager one has an administrator our administrator is halfway between the responsibilities are in his job description not in his title there really isn't a well okay all right so um I get what you're saying is that our Our Town lead the the the chief employee yeah um would have a job description um that is more authoritative um yeah than what you're seeing now that's what I say and I believe this gets to the management versus leadership question okay look if you got to have somebody in this job you got to trust them you know you can say oh no well we meet weekly or we meet every two weeks he can check with us every time he has to decide whether about 20 paper clips or 100 paper you know it isn't going to work that way you got to have somebody you trust and they're gonna screw up inevitably he never has but you know um uh um you know they're going to screw up but you gotta you got to it's like when we have a 300 unit apartment front and we have a community manager it's a it's the thing is worth $90 million it has a big budget it has 300 families that live upstairs that depend on competence downstairs and and we got a big Financial Risk of are we going to release or people you know all this kind of thing at some point you have to give him his job description and then review him based on what he's doing and you have to be willing to say great break C+ F great and actually do it and he has to be willing to do that with with the descriptions of the parks and W and the DPW and the health department and the building inspector who the building inspector you know and so forth and and he has to be empowered to fulfill those kinds of that kind of stuff because if you know if you don't do that you you're not getting what you pay for and and you know so that all right okay Kathy please I'm sorry I step over you no no no so we deliberate on deliberated on that and and it is what it is I know um last question um again what thoughts do you have on how the committee should narrow the field down well I think it's pretty simple I think that references and experience are critical I think if you get somebody who ran the um you know the small small Department in Asberry you're probably not he's not going to make it because he doesn't have or she doesn't have the this experience so experience and references are incredibly important and You' got to talk not only with the the boss that she reported to but the people who she was serving in her prior job so so that the references almost are the Civ that get out the most of it if you will um so I'd start there um and then I suggest that you ask each candidate to write I used to teach English in high school so um I ask that you ask each candidate to write an essay about what their they perceive as their job and why they're going to do a good job on it sounds like college but sorry thank you okay have to fill a whole blue book has to be it FL room they have to have a pencil yeah uh no I just um the so what you're more concerned about rather than continuity is someone who Okay as opposed to someone who is surrounding himself with good people surrounding yourself with good people is critical continuity you've got feers already on this board you have you have more continuity then you know and so continuity you know just because you get somebody new and now I'm not saying cono isn't important but I wouldn't I don't think it's the you know preeminent factor that would be what I would say yeah um in your years a high people yeah what experience have you had that makes you a good judge of character um to use the whole sentence experience and being a good judge of character I've made plenty of bad hiring decisions but they I hopefully learned something from the Duds that I hired who really didn't care they didn't understand the mission of the organization even though we pounded into them every day they still didn't grasp it and so forth and they just didn't make the thing work and that was a stupid hiring decision so I think that um I've I've seen um poor hiring decisions and uh I you know I wouldn't say I'll never do another U plunk on that but I've L I have same experience in that department right I I was going to ask you what you learned from your worst hire but I think you just answered that um so instead um how what would you look if you're looking for somebody who is not likely to be here for long yeah um and in that case I think it would be critical that that person to be very good at hiring how do you how do you find that how do you what do you look for in a candidate that suggests that he will he or she will not only be a good manager but will also be good at at hiring people who will carry the burden Well I obviously experience and references are critical um I believe the greatest um pH uh personal character istic other than intelligence and energy and integrity okay maybe those three is the willingness to seek and learn from advice the worst things I've done in my business career I did when I didn't ask advice from and I I had plenty of smart people I could talk to who were you disinterested they were you know they were great my mistakes were when I didn't ask ask for advice so if if I found out that Greg never asked anybody for advice when he had a difficult situation on his hands I would be disappointed so that's what I would that's what I would look for um it's hard it's sounds easy but it's not easy finding advice especially when you're in executive position uh you have to admit that you're not perfect and uh you know you got to call people up and say hey Larry now what would you do suppose you were the head of a the real estate department of a bank what would you do when Bank happens um that's that's not always easy to do so um that I would look for somebody who maybe I could say to the candidate tell me three people you turn to or have turned to for advice over your three jobs you've had in the last 15 years what you don't have have to tell me their names just tell me their characteristics so that's what I say other questions I'm good I'd like to say if I'm not chosen I'll still help thank please I'm D I'm definitely Junior to all you guys spend a lot of time on the board and stuff I have some experience with the um held back in the 990s for about n years of a member and chair we hired registered sanitarian a couple times um another different position crazy I was on some U RFP committees with with water waste water with Bob  I got selective facts a heavy engineering background it's more for upgrades and things um but as far as um like professional stuff I I'm a hiring manager I have positions underneath me they hire all the time for more it's a construction related but still um we I hire people all the time for uh both um trade partner as well as uh administrative um but I do that on a regular basis not anything for something like this type of position but I think like what um you know Becky was saying and we were leading into some stuff is you know some of these pools of candidates might be on you know might have on the older side the people coming back in which you know a lot of experience with that I'm not all for the you know the Young Gun and you know or even staying for a long time but um we're finding that too in my industry a lot of people coming back in with a lot of good experience and a lot of good advice that we can reach out to and you know leing on I'm going to be 60 this year I they're almost like mentoring me on some stuff which is kind you know um it's funny too because we're you know you talk about certain techniques and stuff uh you know even like the hiring stuff we we talk about what we look for on candidates and you know I I'm looking for something a little more different than what another gentleman might have done like 10 15 20 years ago you know so um but that's my op that's B A Town all my town knowledge I haven't been on any select boards yeah hav't owned any banks smart so I um been in town a long time yeah been yeah been in town I've uh I grew up in Boston but I moved up here about 37 years ago so I've been around for a little bit um but I thought I'd be able to help out with some with this type of process it's um type of work I have I'm in ch we I work at the airport and basically that's like a big large town we have fire we have police we have snow remov we have massive Public Works we also have a lot of airplanes but it it's kind of we we do a lot of sim stuff I kind of not laugh you guys do stuff on a small scale and I look at stuff around town and I'm like you know you probably see some some of my responses in my letter some of the stuff around town I kind of hold with with like certain things and you are you're bumping along I can see that one of the things was resiliency few other little things but um that's I guess they have that that piece behind that might help a little bit procy yes um I wanted to ask you a couple questions thank you for stepping forward by the way um you said that you're fairly familiar with the challenges and the opportunities facing the town did you elaborate on what you think they are I just have like I'm not a you meetings I'm not I'm reading stuff I we have have the but I mean we're looking for for residents at large right I mean that's that's what so we're not looking for you know necessarily everybody to be an expert so I'm curious I'm just asking okay you understand the challenge what what do you think they are well one of the biggest with the housing the MBTA stuff going on the swanic hall I mean you have um you know the municipal building going up um to uh maybe with the with the U Black Earth is the the whole CST project which I hope you know people got their heads around that I mean I I see what challenges you have like infrastructure and stuff like that some of the stuff that they built like that's one of the biggest projects probably in town but um what my feeling is I I have familiarity with a lot of the projects and I I'm approaching more from the construction side or more heavy than that but also for Staffing traffic things like that so I kind of globally look at that and how you know that's going to affect the town and of course we do traffic studies and stuff all the time and you know I think that in the back of my head and you guys have the whole parking thing going on so I kind of and wrap my head around all that stuff but I'm not like diving in all the time and get I get a better sense after you explain you know especially you said you work at the airport what do you do with the airport I'm a manager of uh uh structural maintenance been an engineer there for almost 30 years so so I'm curious as to because one of the things you know the Town Administrator we talk a lot about you know the big projects blah blah blah but a lot of what the Town Administrator is responsible for is what I would characterize is operational excellence so you work at the airport and given based on what you do I suspect you have a strong feeling about what operational excellence yes is what how would you describe that operational ex with with with what we do operational excellence is is delivering a product you know that's at a higher standard that you know passengers and customers are going to be acceptable you know on a day-to-day basis but um know operational X we can't really have things falling down I mean we we do so many checks we have so much video I mean it's just it's but you know we're we're at that level there I mean we have so many political layers of of that come in we have we have things set up even in the Homeland and City police and FBI we have so many layers that stuff that we are getting constantly checked by stuff and things change at moments notice you know different so if we want to make sure that the town the next Town Administrator um not only does the big projects well well but can um ensure that Manchester's um daily operations are run well okay what might you ask candidates to kind of screen them for those types of qualities so they detail oriented do they you know follow through on on a you know certain requests and how they you know categorize that where where do they come in with that um mostly um you know how they approach an operation or process and how they would add how would they make it better do they have any suggestions something you know to make it better not the whole thing but maybe the top three things or we have this process right now how would you how would you improve that you know what three things would you take out of that that type of thing thank you so looking from a resident point of view what what would be some attributes that would be you'd be looking for and what would be red flags for you so as a resident I mean um continue with the communication getting out just like does that Weekly yeah U that's I mean just getting the communication I'll be for as a resident I would think that's that's key um you know and basically uh you know having like a like a little open town for a small thing like a Friday C just just kind you might even already do that great I'm not sure just to get the word out like what what's coming up what what's next what they're looking at um I think that would be probably good as a resident feel a little more comfortable with something like that I'm not that I'm uncomfortable now but I think something of that nature would be just a little more communication for that but um what's the second part of that question what would what would be a red flag um you know I believe I'm not taing on Becky but you know some guy who or some person who's been around a few jumping around from down to town that might be a red FL me as well um but not necessarily um you know like you said you have to V them you have to go through the whole process and really get down to you know what's important for the town what are we key things we looking for do they check all no they don't check all they might check only four boxes can we live with this you know it's it's what you guys can probably live with what you been living with now and you know I'm sure you know I know he's a superstar but I mean there's a few probably other things you wish you could you know do better there's a few things maybe that could be polished up I you know but I think the uh you'd have to really check the backgrounds the most but I obviously red flag yeah movement um work history maybe even location for you know they are they from the Northeast from New England I mean warm weather type of type of uh area versus you know the ice and the snow and all the impacts things freeze that type of thing you know problem B problems you know from the day-to-day operation thank you yes it's right here you went right past me Dave one of the reasons I think we went with that Lodge is we don't want um we want a different perspective than someone who's got to you know understands the intricacies of the town going forward you're resident okay you've been resident forever I had your kids on the court 20 years ago yeah all right uh what just from a resident standpoint what could this town have done better what would you look for a manager or administrator to improve what you saw his problems from you know raising family here do better yeah good question I mean to talk about like the last 10 years last 20 years I mean well just well uh I just I want to I want a resident's perspective of what this town means to you and what you want to convey of the next administrator if that's the same okay mission statement that you want to see I I would i' like to see like this even like this building here you know get moved probably 10 years ago before you know again all the climate change stuff going on I would have like to see you know some of that in you know some of the um other improvements with the harbor maybe some you know uh more you know dredging and getting together maybe with the Army Corp for other you know grants that might be out there for you know that might be available um but there's a resident I mean you know I look at the roadways and I look at like water treatment that stuff I mean I think Chuck does a great job I think uh infrastructure wise you know you you get a lot of things ahead of you coming up that maybe could be better planned out that that I can see but then that's like in my wheelhouse type of thing um for the most part I mean snor that's I think you guys do a great job at that um the improvements um yeah definitely the municipal building the roadways um water treatment probably should have been upgraded wastewater treatment probably a few years back I can see um more from the project end but nothing uh have any real bad you know things I don't come in hereas I ask is that we've already acknowledge that we're sitting here looking at uh a can that's been kicked down the street the last 50 years yeah now we're facing that yeah right yeah and uh so far was prioritizing projects or something like that yeah yeah okay yeah biggest thing though I think you got Miss Missing the ball I don't want to get to the resiliency like like you talk you guys got that c project out there and I I've been in some of those early meetings on that I know some TR people on that but that really needs to be SM people I mean I talk to Chuck on some stuff with that but that really needs um I hope they get that all figured out um certain construction techniques be visited do one thing one those guys run that they we do a lot of stuff with the tunnel in Boston we do we talk before we did that shutdown this past summer so we do everything we possibly can to actually have to shut things down that's how we do in theut those guy they they like to do their own thing and it's just it's not as Progressive sometimes and I think might be missing the boat on that because our Heights and things like that but I don't know that project inside out so I'm not I can't uh sit here and rate that I think resiliency overall that's would be yeah Dave I think we've kind of worked over the fact that managerial skills in terms of planning organizing implementing that's that's that's a definite uh need for this this position are there other experiences that you think that a candidate should have uh if they're going to be seriously considered for this job what should they have done and you've described some of the challenges that we've got here but what should they have done someplace else so that you know they know something about how to get certain certain things done here what's what what are your concerns that you'd like to see experience in uh the candidate I'd like to see somebody who comes in um first of all that they kind of they've kind of done some research they're interviewing with you they've laid out almost like a plan ahead of time like hey John I did some research before I came in for this interview oh still the consultant interview me I really think you know looking at your town you might have wanted to have you know you know some other grants file like you know I had I had a schedule so that's coming in I in other words I almost would think a gentleman would have person who interviewed for maybe have come in with their own an own their own plan based on what they know for the for the town but from what they've done in the past from another time I think that's what you're asking that's kind of what I'm asking what's what's their specific background just two or three things maybe one thing okay i' see basically U that they' have you know been charge of most of the hiring you know that's going on sometimes they they have other assistants doing that or they'll hire a consultant to do it then they just rub a stamp I would think that's a big piece having more like Hands-On depending on the size of the the uh Town there'll be one um uh trying to think some others but um I would think that'd be the that that'd be the biggest maybe um you know having like a um what their track record for maybe you know filing for different like I grants and projects you know for for the town and what their success was you know with the fall through you know with the project just I that's like off the top of my head that's more selectman stuff that I don't sorry okay and and I'll also ask you the question the long-term guy or the short-term guy probably I'm yeah I'm probably going to lean to the short-term guy so it's a Sprint you guys can always put another contract in front of them and renew if you wanted to I would think but I would probably go maybe a shortterm guy because that's good to see if both sides enjoy being here and you can handle the the workload and likes what he's doing you answered everything that I can think to ask so thank you very much didn't talk to much hi I'm Rob batty and I've only lived here 10 years but uh I've loved every minute a fresh view well I thought so too uh I I was uh born in Washington DC and my father moved around a lot and so we didn't live in any one place for too long until we moved to Texas in 1967 and I was there from 67 to 2015 um I uh worked with uh a top 100 am law law firm for 40 years as a commercial litigator principally in the oil and gas area and was responsible for representing oil and gas companies land owners natural gas plant operators the whole thing from Soup To Nuts in that industry in any kind of litigation a lot of contracts were involved a lot of Highly technical things involving petroleum Engineers Reservoir Engineers geologists petroleum geologists uh forensic accounting for trying to chase the money follow the money so I've had to hire expert Witnesses people who were experts in their particular field whether it was accounting forensic accounting petroleum engineering any any field of technical Endeavor and decide are they going to to be a the ones to present my client's case on the technical side to ative jury are they going to be able to teach before they preach in other words are they going to be able to explain themselves clearly and communicate in a stepwise basis so that the by time that they are asked to make a decision they've already come to the conclusion that the expert wanted because they took them through that process step by step rather than coming in sitting in front of you and saying here's my credentials and I know all this stuff and I've looked at it and this is the answer um I had the great Fortune of marrying a woman who grew up in Boxford went to college in Northampton Massachusetts and had the great Misfortune of marrying a Texas oil and gas lawyer who after 35 years said no more of this heat I'm going to buy a house on the North Shore and you can come if you'd like Yes dear and I'm one Happy Clam I like winter even if even if I'm cold or shivering I like four seasons instead of two summer and not so snow hot but um I probably wrote as much as not if not more than most folks because writing is something that I do I did a lot of Appel at work so I'm a big believer that clear communication is imperative you should be able to communicate clearly orally and in writing persuasively oftentimes it need to be in just paint by numbers for people a good communicator can be a good leader and a good manager but if you're not a good communicator I don't believe you can be a good leader or a good manager so one's ability to communicate is I think the first one I I did a little research trying because I'm trying to figure out where does this uh office of Town Administrator come from I found out that the the general laws in chapter 41 section 23 authorizes towns to have Town managers and that this town through a special act that representative tar put through many years ago that we are authorized to have a town uh administrator and and it spells out in some detail what that person to do I was kind of surprised not to find in our bylaws a statement about what the Town Administrator role is and what he's supposed to do although the bylaws are riddled with references to the town uh administrator having this or that uh obligation I too agree that you get the best candidates you can and you hire that person I grew up being a Tom Landry not Jerry Jones Cowboy fan and and their idea of hiring and scouting was you get the best athlete you can we'll turn him into the position player he needs to be so I'm a big believer in hiring the best person you can at the time you got to take care of the problems that are on your plate in front of you and they're very real and they're they're demanding of your attention right now some someone has to be able to come in and hit the ground running and deal with those now question of leadership really that comes from your group you're you're you're the board of directors so to speak of this town and you set the policy and you give the instructions and the executives Mr Fatale various board chairs and people like that are the ones that are supposed to implement that I've had some experience with that having served now five years on board of assessors first under Jenny Thompson and then under Michelle Fran Forte and I apologized to Michelle because I mistyped her name and said her name was Michael in my my letter that's what happens when we trust computers to do the spell cheing um I don't want to repeat too much what been said you have three really excellent C candidates here every time I've come to a town meeting or worked on the board of assessors I've always been amazed at the depth and breadth of experience in this room other than potholes in our road back in Manchester by the trees on a loading Place Road um uh and and then I found out that it was a private road and we had to shut out okay bad on us infrastructure is seems to me from reading and living here seems to be one of the key problems we were saddled with all kinds of cans that were kicked down the road and Pension funds that weren't funded but then you had schools that needed to be built and I'm here to tell you that having a First Rate public education system like you have here people in Dallas would pay 40 and $50,000 a year starting in first grade to get the quality of Education in a private school that you're able to deliver here I'm immensely proud of what you all have accomplished here I have your your your encomium is in the wrong direction okay okay well you you all stand on a lot of big shoulders maybe maybe I've spoken too much or maybe it better to just let you cross-examine Brian oh thank you wasn't prepared think you're thank you and I'll remember that too uh no I mean uh you're here I for one want to thank you for uh being the short tery here still stepping up and wanting to contribute back to the community uh and the uh you've answered a couple of questions of my questions already and um so far I'm I'm satisfied with everything I've read and everything I've heard good yeah Rob thanks for uh the Soliloquy there good covered everything I think got a question about leadership and management and we covered management here dealing with all of the you know planning organizing implementing activity and Leadership is more associated with inspiring influencing motivating people there are great leaders they're are great managers there are very few people that are both usually someone is stronger in one area than the other if you're hiring somebody for this position what's more important I have a great leader was a little shaky on I'm not even saying shaky on management but which which one is the more important character eristic of the two uh given the fact that maybe everything else is kind of a wash well I think municipal government presents a different situation than private Enterprise you are stewards your shareholders are the residents here that's your taxpayers and they also are your voters I think it is incumbent to be delivering effective governance whether it's from the select board Town Administrator the principal assessor or the head accountant think it's competency in their particular areas and their ability to manage their baileywick the leadership I think becomes more from you I see the town administrators being full on a teer totter trying to not let one side or the other fall too low uh that that he or she can manage the people beneath him on the art chart not not in any other way uh as a team and encourage them to work as a team and not to be siloed into little departments that this is all I do and I'm not really concerned about what else is going on in town hall I get some sense from working on the board of Cesar there some sense from having been very active in uh as a citizen at what Mr furbach and his group at the Manchester housing trust was trying to do in terms of of of affordable housing and then in terms of what the Board of Health was trying to do in terms of imposing some pretty stringent War qualifications on people like us that have a town well that there a tendency for some of the boards to kind of get out of their Lane not really U end to the knitting that been designed and I think that's one area where there needs to be a little bit more emphasis on management and Leadership at the same time good thank you one other question you mentioned communication which in fact everyone in this room it was number one or number two in terms of what was required of a Town Administrator and there's written communication and oral communication and you're an attorney so you're good at both but I don't know about that but well not all attorneys are I know but nevertheless well practice um is one particular aspect more important than another for this position it depends upon who the audience is and at what point in time and I'm not trying to be like an economist and on this hand and on the other hand but there you know five-and econom I wasn't trying to be like an attorney or a diplomat um he's Town Administrator is having to communicate to the community at large and Greg does a great job of that in the pieces he writes for the cricket uh but on a day-to-day basis with people inside town hall who need to be motivated or directed that's where oral Communications and the ability to lead through deed and word are very important so it it depends upon which constituency he's having to address at the time John I'm sorry but that that's way chips I think fall can I ask uh can I ask Greg a question I know any typical day talk to your point about communication how much outside correspondence from a very enlightened engaged Community do you how much time do you think you spend or okay uh because we do have a very engaged intelligent opinionated constituency here y all right and so the question for you is what do you think how much time do you think you spend on it well so so the the email inbox overflows and that's how people communicate most these days in terms of residence so I could spend my entire day just just responding to emails so I can't there's other things to do yeah um so people get a little frustrated with that because I don't I'm not able to refund no no and again so that you know to your point of ritten communication and and uh because we do they have an exp expectation that they want immediate response to and we have to and Greg has to prioritize how much is Spam right I don't envy him that and so I think we're looking for uh an individual who's is going to come into knowing this up in advance you know I don't know what you know this is my first experience in town governance okay I don't know what it's like in any other town I don't know what it's Greg does you know any other uh well he's been here since everyone's got your other assignments 12 14 years ago I think that email wasn't as prevalent true not quite but I often say you change the names but the characters are pretty similar the issues are pretty similar kicking the Canon infrastructure is classic [Music] okay the the attention is on what's in front of you today and it's really hard to get people to focus on time Horizon oh good job thank you um in your uh the background information that you sent you mentioned the variety of types of individuals or roles that you had to interview for you know um so when specifically interviewing for this have you had to interview for this type of operational leadership role um and if so how or if not how how would you go about um uh assessing the candidates qualifications with this particular type of management role I have not had that kind of experience um but one of the nice things about being a trial Warrior having to Pi up whatever the file is there you become your own an expert in something very quickly by trying to read up on it but again you and Paradigm are going to provide the rubric the set of guidelines by which we are to evaluate potential candidates we're not going to be making that up on our own at least I hope I guess what I'm trying to get at is yes we you know we have a job description and a set of expectations for the next town administrator and I'm trying to um understand how you're going to elicit the types of responses that will tell you whether or not this person is qualified to um be screened into the next round well I think just by asking open-ended questions about his or her experience in doing a particular job uh it is when people talk to you that you can judge whether they understand what it is they're talking about whether there's speaking with confidence and Authority for whether they're making it up they go along the gu's point filling up a a u an BL book with a bunch of words and hoping something sticks well the problem problem is if we ask people to write essays they're probably get AI to do it [Music] and everything spelled correctly you know it's well good then I my letter clearly wasn't um I I think there's nothing beats just talking to someone face to face looking at them in the eye asking them an open-ended question where they have to respond for instance you worked at you started out at uh let's say Shrewsbury and you were in this department what was the worst experience you ever had with your Town Administrator why was it a bad experience and what did you learn from it and and get them it's it's kind of like doing board IR when you're trying to pick a jury you're trying to find out where they where their heads at by just asking them open-ended questions generally about the types of issues that they're it's going to come before them so that's my answer to that answer thank you um I guess this will be a little bit of a repeat question but um so I agree at communication we covered that that's obviously important but looking from a resident side what what certain things do you think are important to Residents clear concise Communication in a timely manner U somebody complains about well I never heard about this where has this been um maybe there needs to be more May rather than relying on people to read the cricket or to read the minutes from this the gust body or just you know have it HD over the head that's my answer to that is more more pinpointed to the mailbox Communications perhaps or but beyond communication do you think there's any other attributes from a resident s side that's important to you cander cander saying you don't know when you don't know saying I don't know but I'll find out and I'll get the answer to you yeah thank you it frightens me when they sigh sorry that's I wish I had terrifying yes yes I've heard um I guess I guess doing a v is as close to what we're we're looking for is is that's that was an answer that really resonated with me trying to figure out not just from what somebody is saying but also how they're saying it what they're doing at the same time I chewing on a pen I do time what is it what because we're not asking you to run the town because I would run the other direction we're asking all of you to to um use your skills and experience um to wiow um a field of six or seven maybe to a few who are brave enough to stand up um and and I I've heard very good answers from all of you and and I greatly appreciate you're coming in and spending the time to write out answers for us which we did to find out whether you actually valued communication wish you great for all do so unless anyone has any other questions you may take the back bench or you can go home ask like lawyer may we be excused thank you very much for coming thank you thank so much thank you just just before people go hang on a second yeah I just just playing so the board after the interview on on Monday they hope to make decisions and at their meeting on Monday and then from there be the Gathering of the group come couple couple few we tun in stay tuned in let us start from the other end Lee Spence uh I'm uh I've been at the town for 55 years which I found really strange when I you know didn't real you m here when you were two basically yes and uh I've uh I've been involved a number of uh Town boards I've had about 40 Years of various uh Town Services uh starting with the Conservation Commission many years ago I served three years as chairman on that uh I've been on the finance committee nine years spent uh uh three years as chairman of that I've been a selectman in two uh non-overlapping terms and in that the question came up earlier about t administrators I was involved on the select board when the first T administrator was here that was Rosemary Cashman and then uh the second time around was with Wayne uh after that but so I you I've seen that going and Jo made the point about uh the Town Administrator act yes that's true I looked for that on the website and I couldn't find it uh but there is something in the general laws and I found that I do not know how to search the uh uh the general laws but uh I I know that it is out there and there's also somewhere in this a description of the duties of the Selectmen uh so uh that maybe should be more prominent in the in the site uh I've uh uh I've also was involved in the uh one of the Committees that interviewed U and made recommendations for the new Harbor Master was we got Bayan invol in that uh professionally I've done a lot of interviewing typically students the Masters and PhD levels but uh I've I've done some others uh and I guess those the the major things I wanted to uh wanted to cover okay John yeah Lee thank you I think we met I think a year or two ago I recognized your name but we I I know I met you too far back yes so all all of the people here all of you folks are pretty familiar with the town issues and the challenges Etc so I'd ask you um what's specific to two or three aspects of the background of a candidate would you be looking for that would be pretty important to us given the challenges that we have in our town today the this came up a lot before experience is the thing relevant experience what did you do before and then to you know then to try it's very hard to to get a sense of some of these other things like leadership capability and whatever but understand the roles they had you know what did what did you do what level did you do it uh those are the the main things I'd be looking for I find in interviewing a very useful thing is I I don't go to to questions like uh uh Brian tell me what you learned the last three times you were in jail uh you know I uh keep back to the wall I just find a conversational Style with the with the candidates just start to talk about you know what did you do where have you uh uh what you been um and this can lead to discussion of challenges uh you know accomplishments what were the big problems in the towns uh or assum it's Town people were going to be seen in these these roles but maybe not I I think I would hope this uh the consultant does a fairly good job of getting candidates at least have a chance you know that uh get some quality out of that and get the ones that out of the way I've seen that happen before they they do a good selection on and I guess the question I asked before short-term Guy versus long-term guy yeah that that question sort of puzzled me because I don't there someone putting their uh resume I'm going to be here for two years uh you know I I I don't know that that's the thing I I think you can make an argument for both things now don't we have a contract with the selectman were you here that's not the concern you just have to look at the profile of the person and say you think this person is going to stick around oh in that sense yes or do you think this person is going to be here for a long time and there are a lot of different factors that go into that and I'm just saying if you look at these two applicants and you make that judgment which one do you pick I would definitely go long term okay that's just because then we don't have to do we're used to that exercise too many times yeah we've had had pretty good luck with that yeah we don't want to sit here again at that's the key okay good thank you kassy uh just wanted to first of all very nice to meet you and I'm not sure that we really met um briefly once a timee briefly briefly once yeah that's right you came up and introduced yourself um I just to pull on that thread a little bit that that John U mentioned given the choice of a uh strong performer who might only be here you know 5 years for versus a mediocre performer who might be here for a little longer that's still your answer and you'd rather have someone here a little bit I would rather have a strong performer I mean I I think that's if you have someone that's going to be around three years five years they're going to be able to do things for the time and mediocre you'd have to get into the questions about well what strengths do they think they don't have is it leadership of the Town departments is it the ability to communicate uh in in writing is it uh the ability to keep uh AR and I don't want to put words in your mouth because I'm I'm just assumed that when you were comparing a a long time uh uh suggesting that someone might only be here for a short term or someone might only be here for a longer term if they were both outstanding performers or you thought they were going to be you'd certainly pick the one who would be here the longest okay I let me clarify the definition there let me ask my go ahead go back I wanted to clarify what my question was because we had this conversation when we we hired our uh fire chief okay and I'm happy with the way that worked out I'll just say that so um so that I think I got my question answered on that um regarding the other information that that you sent in um you know when it comes to the select former select board members I'm always interested Ed in understanding how you um will assess a candidate's qualifications to deal with the municipal finances okay so there's there's the project stuff and then there's the um operations and although we have to vote line by line at town meeting that's not how you plan so I'm curious as to how you would elicit um the qualifications of somebody to um do the most they can with the tax dollars that they are given I the thing I would look for there is some experience in fiscal management this would be you know a a like position in another town and basically the financial problem in Manchester is quite simple we ain't got enough money and and know that's sort of ious but uh it's the the select board the finance committee the school committee the department heads get together and then we you know start to juggle things around oh no by the way a water M broke uh you know major water man that took another million bucks so it it's we can plan but it's not uh there are a lot of surprises in that but as far as judging the people it just goes back to you know what experience have how do they talk about these things how they talk about it that's how you would assess their qualification with the if there's experience to that's even [Music] better uh how important is it to you we have a unique geography here unique okay we have to deal with Co coal issues climate change resiliency is it important to find someone who's got some understanding experience with that so or someone who's coming in from I don't know blood L uh I mean I'm I mean it's a unique uh set of uh skills and something that something that do we want someone's going to learn on the job or has at least an understanding of of some of these unique challenges that say even a Medford might not have yeah uh things like that uh you know you go to your expertise for you go to your consultants for I I heard it one said and I don't know whether I agree with it or not that the best manager is second best at everything uh so you know that they that's where you you go to your Consultants to get things as far as things like Coastal management whatever well we've got a lot of things that going on in this town our roads our sewers our tax collection all these things they're just sort of common things that that have to be done no matter what if you got those things it' be a plus I don't think it's you're only as good as the people just r s right yeah um so an administrator has to wear a ton of hats obviously um um so what do you think are things that we're not going to find somebody who's can do is the best at everything but what are some things you think we can work with someone on and what are some mus haves coming in the door communication skills a well organization we can if you can far that out in an interview the ability to organize things uh I I go back to experience and experience is an interesting thing because it can be in related areas but you know the ability to transfer uh your uh transfer what you have done your previous work to the new situations these are all these are all difficult things thank you um I guess there are various kinds of people who are likely to apply for this job um somebody who is an administrator in the top job in a smaller town or somebody who has a second level in a larger town or a city yeah what how would you consider those candidates from those two areas someone who's done it all someone who's done some of it but in a much bigger in a bigger place well I mean the it's done at all I think is probably the preferable thing you may ask why they're coming here uh and then many places smaller than here yeah well no I mean they've done it all in in a big place that's the No No I'm trying to say someone who's done it all in a smaller town in a smaller place somebody who's been administrator in a small town versus somebody who has been an assistant you know I think it depends on person I I I really do I don't uh you might prefer someone who has been in the actual administrator uh but uh you know there there are people that for various reasons are not the administrator uh I I I can think of a one of my kids is in a position where she's a deputy and she knows that the director is never going to retire before you know he does uh so it's like there's there's no way up and but that's that's the kind of person you might want to get into uh a uh that's person you prefer over maybe someone that had actual administrative experence the direct ministration experience a chair a little bit of time on one of two subcommittees before that on dispatch that's been my experience within the County government spent a lot of time hanging around school committee and finance committee prior to um joining the select board FL location I'm a software engineer um more limited management roles in my software career business most of my management experiences been direct reports project management and my time on the board have a bare amount of experience understanding as most folks here about the interactions between State local government um fairly broad knowledge of the town's infrastructure needs and the challenges that are upcoming what else we' like to tell you back answer my questions um I guess I'll sort of repeat the same question what what is some must havs for you and what would the candidate would you weigh a candidate more who's been a TA somewhere else or versus someone who's never filled a position before youve never been in the TA position yeah but has skills from yeah Co operable I would I would prefer somebody who's had a TA position um it's not a a deal breaker if they don't have a TA position um the reasons that I would prefer somebody who has a TA positions I'm fairly well aware of the levels of interaction with the state and the importance of the interactions between the state and the municipal leadership and uh the pitfalls that can arise if you don't have a good good amount of experience there um I don't think that as a select board member coming on I would have had a hope of telling a UT ta guiding them on how to what they needed to do with respect to interacting with the state to keep the town from getting into hot water so if it was somebody who was not um an actual ta position coming in I would want to be sure that they had enough um other indirect experience working with the state and could articulate um either the ability to very rapidly um expand their knowledge or that they already had that knowledge through their indirect experience um as for the top three things well um I would like to see somebody who can clearly uh demonstrate that they can provide leadership to Department um I want somebody who has experience or shows the ability to handle uh Capital planning um and then the third thing is somebody who has a very very solid understanding of that principle and state interaction um operational uh budget management is a fourth item it's important I think the capital planning side is in many respects a little bit more challenging requires a little more finesse um and uh so those would be the yeah Jeff asked a question um I was going to ask um Ste also how critical is background say dealing with Regional School Districts for instance I'll give you I'll give you two minutes to meetings so and whether that makes the list or not yeah it it does so that and one other thing I mean your ability to deal with neighboring Community the neighboring towns that have inter inter interlacing uh well depend um any place where there's a a regional dependency where there's uh Mutual Aid where um where you have a shared resource the school district isn't definitely a challenge we spent a fair amount of time working pretty closely with Essex to try to align our long-term budget so that we're all in the same page um so it was important for the time for Greg to be able to communicate well with his counter part and Essex to try to manage the interations of the Two Towns so essex's leadership communicated back down to their boards what uh what the what the longterm picture with their their um [Music] it's gonna be a challenge so um to go back to perhaps the the question that I asked Lee um if you've got the long-term person versus the short-term person and the long-term person maybe the shortterm person has checked the Box I've worked with a Regional School District and there have been problems but we figured them out and the longer term person is perhaps a stronger manager in terms of what the history is I'm just looking at these tradeoffs because you may have to look at those trade-offs in terms of who you're going to recommend yeah and where where are those trade-offs at and capital you mentioned Capital planning put that in kind of the list although pretty much all towns have that as a challenge um okay so um the answer is it depends on a long-term person fors short-term person short-term person uh uh if they're stronger um I I might be willing to select them uh if the long-term person didn't show um well slightly in intangible characteristics so if the longer term person didn't show an ability or an interest for example didn't show an real interest in importance Capital long range Capital plan I might hold that against that where if the long range pres show showed indications that they were really just kind of waiting to retire that that good things and in terms of I'd like to I know that there was a little bit of a thing here with mediocre versus checking boxes mediocre that was her work mediocre is not cut somebody who doesn't check all the boxes you I've already um short-term person um red flags for me would be indications that they would really uh using as as stepping stone if we're not going to be investing years or if they were constantly going to be looking to other Riz and distracted but they're a short-term person going to be here for a known kind of window in time I would need to get the sensor that the blinders are going to be on to the out outside of the three and five term during that three to five term here last question um you've been on a couple of search committees for fire chief for police chief Y what you learn from that that you say I'm going to apply it for this particular search if you select um well uh I learned a little bit about um the shortterm versus long-term I learned quite a bit about um well evaluating um waiting the difference between somebody who might be a technician versus somebody might be a combination of technician and a leader and if you lean too heavy on the technician side you can make errors um so uh I think uh you can have somebody who's a a very good technician but lacks the ability to be a good leader you're not going to get so we have um it's really it's really quite critical that whoever is here has the ability to provide good leadership to the different department heads um a lot flows from that uh the way the residents interact or get their interaction department heads um will reflect back on not only the but we also make it easier to do certain jobs when um residents have interactions with Town leadership that frustrate them um and they're always going to have that way they will respond negatively to when it comes time to signing off on certain political agendas political Financial whatever and so a lot of what will make your job your political job EAS easier will be how well does the Town Administrator be the department heads and set the example for interaction thank you not really anything other than uh in our particular as you're all well aware our time is also basically our HR guy right pretty much firing firing uh is that a conflict do you have uh do you think that how does that work for you and would you look and so now you also have to look for someone who's got the experience in hiring and firing as well well HR and hiring and firing are two different things um uh we spent a fair amount of time trying to um kind of Outsource to some extent some of the HR aspects and my experience has been I if at all possible I think it would be um good to decouple the town administrator's job from the HR job I don't want the Town Administrator doing the HR job I want Town Administrator um executing on the policies of the board I don't the board doesn't set deal with HR a lot of companies when they they start up will actually hire an outside HR firm to do their HR because it's pretty well defined um and it's it's better if you have a an HR professional doing no because I know that that Saddles a lot of or some of your time could be used also answering emails you DED a bunch of times to than that so let me ask um because I think most of the questions I think you did a great job answering them on U on the email and then you know the other folks have asked some good questions I have a question about our culture because when hiring right like you mentioned is the technical aspect of hiring person with the right qualifications skills competencies Etc but then typically especially for leadership roles you like to kind of assess cultural fit okay so how might you if you were part of the screening committee try and assess the cultural fit of a candidate So when you say cultural fit um it means somebody who understands the culture of the Town well yeah that's probably a better way of putting it someone who who is culturally aware let's say maybe I'll say it that way right um but when you when you become a leader you become part of a an organization and you become part of that community so you become part of the culture and so there's a there's a fit you know typically and that doesn't mean that I don't mean to say that there's a particular type of person we want to hire but you you want to make sure that the person um Can leverage their skills and competencies in a way that will be effective for the town and and generally people will enjoy having them around um so given that broader explanation how would you assess that person um yeah during the process all right well um uh I would I would be inclined to ask them questions or related their previous experience how they how they interacted with the department has now that those interactions brought them in touch with different aspects of the culture some parks and R will have one one things these might have a different and I would assess them based on their responses to hypothetical um what happens if you're we talk to the candidates who've been presented to you and none of them really they they they check the boxes I don't know whether there's something in the search process that would allow us to stop and try again but of course you always have that option so so in other words none of them are really that great you chain him to his desk [Laughter] and an inter room Town Town Administrator um B Bar see if you you would extend a contract temporarily until you get another but you don't take um the B's available it's there's there's there's never going to be a good outcome you're going to suffer with it you're going to have a three-year contract you're it's going to be terrible from the outset you're going to stall Capital planning be and now following up on that has that happened not here oh yeah that's happened happens a lot reopen the search search reopen so you're aware of that happening in other yeah you look for an intro you haven't booked your trip yet right have not booked the trip else hi I'm Jeff v m Turner relative to people sitting on my left and right I have less Town experience than all of them um but I have a commitment to this town that's really deep very strong and I have experience on boards and working with the town election um I'm currently on conation commission previously was on and my background and experience in hiring I worked on the chi Poli screen committ um and I've worked I've had my own business and my own business it was a relatively small business compared to what was talking about but nevertheless make decisions what um Jeff um um one of the things you have listed as a forensic psychologist can you elaborate on that a little bit and then come back to us and explain what's wrong and then come back and tell us what's wrong with this that's an assumption that's made about people who are in that profession I watch TV I don't do it unless I get to P yeah as a forensic psychologist I um had a variety of different roles uh interacting between the court and criminals um primarily um but also victims of CRI and um my experience included expert testimony in the courts being appointed as forent neutral um in child custody disputes where um there were allegations of sexual abuse and to make recommendations to the board about that should happen to child custody in that kind of circumstance um evaluating uh inmates and the California Department of Corrections who are coming to the end of their criminal commitment and um whether they met the criteria of the sexually dangerous predators law um to have an Extended Stay in custody with the state of California on a civil commitment and there were very specific legal criteria that we had to meet um to uh to um make a decision about what we thought whether this person met those Criterion should be kept in custody as a sexually dangerous predator um so I I've faced some very tough decisions in my life um I also had uh Private Practice U working with um many court referred uh clients who had engaged in various forms of sexual abuse adjudicated in the court and referred to me by probation um to try and reduce the risk of their recidivism while they were in the community um I will on the hats I'll tell you why I asked that question is because when people are in an interview process they're on their best behavior okay you think that gives you an edge to look at people and see beyond beyond that um that's a great question um I process a lot about where people are coming from when they make their answers and uh and where and they make their questions um but primarily to understand uh where we might get a little deeper into their skills and abilities that were applied to this kind of a job um as as the Town Administrator um so um yeah I've got a lot of skills in those areas I've got skills in group facilitation um because this whatever the group is um two of the four of us and um I don't know how many of the previous group that does this screening we're going to have to be able to communicate with each other and all the things that we're asking of the TA candidate um and um I think it's important to be able to um help to support t askask of the group so we stay on task and we get focused on what the needs are of the town with each of the candidates so yeah I think I have some of those skills that are useful to this process thank you um you were part of the district Community School District Community I was part of the school district Community for almost 20 years yes so um as you're aware and it was brought up before probably one of the biggest the white the big ele white elephant in the room is going to be the school budget and how it impacts uh course it's going to blow up in everyone's face in the next year or two and so the question is yeah it's uh it's gonna get ugly but uh so the candid the candidate we're looking for you'll be looking for for us is someone who who's has a good understanding of school finances and budgeting uh Staffing I think is important you know administrator versus uh the teaching uh is that something that you would agree with and and you have can you prioritize that uh I certainly think it's a priority in terms of the challenges that face the town in the regional agreement um invest I had the unique opportunity to work for two years in Manchester Elementary um Manchester Memorial and then 18 years over Essex Elementary um so I I've seen both sides of that equ I also served for five years as the um president of M the Manchester six Teachers Association and was involved in contract negotiations with the super attending schools and school um I know the budget and the budget problems and the limitations of the budget particularly when it comes to um the Collective aring Agreement so um I'm aware of what those issues are um I'm aware of what the structural issues are in terms of um the interactions between uh the levy limit um up two and a half and what towns can afford and what happens when you go over the levy limit and um Town Services get impacted or town Capital it's uh Capital develop we're not looking to solve the school district problems we're looking to figure out how to work with the school district problems and how we can balance things here looking for someone who's I mean it's it's a unique situation I I call this District the Vatican totally you know it's totally surrounded by this town but it's a whole entity on itself so so that's something that ta is going to have to really work with and understand and also understand the the culture and ethics and where they're coming from yeah try to guide board um I have a question since you know you're a me member or of are you the chair or you just a a current member of the concom you're a member of a commission commissioner okay um so we haven't really talked about that much this evening um when looking for a no yeah so just conservation and and and that aspect of our community as part of this interview process so I'm wondering um where you think um how well are we doing in that area in Manchester U given the other priorities we have talked about at length um when you know if you were part of the screening committee uh where where is that falling on the on the priority list how well are we doing and where does that fall on the priority list for screening screening the candidate for yeah um there challenges in from of land use in this town um that up all the times for the um and the limitations that they placed on various applications of use to a property um where does that fall in terms of the priorities of the Town Prett look um when it comes to uh my time on the Conservation Commission I've been very particularly involved in looking at the issues related to the Western woods and um and uh with an emphasis in terms of the policies of the Town towards conserving the Western Woods or developing um or allowing some development um where does that fall in this process of the Town Administrator I'd say it was fairly low um and and um it's very high priority to me personally but it's a very low priority within the town and much higher priorities would include facilities development um uh Revenue development sources of revenue development um and uh the really critical issues of Pensions and Health Care retirees um and how those will be addressed in the future um so From perspective of screening candidates for Town Administration um I would want them to have some understanding of those issues I'd also like to ask a question perhaps about um lands um because the pressures are enormous and um and we found out you know some of the reactions to that when great task force when through the process that they went through and I think it highlights the critical mean to not just communicate but to communicate over over over over again um to get a point across because people hear it maybe the sixth time um so I hope that is responsive to what you're asking but y um I have a personal interest in it it's not my overriding priority being in this group um as a screener for da um because I think that we got bigger fish to fry um although that's very big fish it's in the back of the truck sing um one more question I think you mentioned that you were on the don't get me on beers you were on the screening committee for the police chief the Hang so that was um Chief Conley when he was hired or chief fitgerald I'm sorry Chief fitgerald okay um so what did you learn from that process of um being on that screening I think it's really important one of the things I is I think it's really important not to prejudge People based on a resume or um an interview um uh there's a lot to learn about um how candidate goes through the process process of being inter VI but I think it's um it's critical not to come in with with blinders on in terms of what this person may or may not be able to do thank you okay here's a topic that hasn't come up today how thanks John how's it you put it fairly high on your list in terms of town concerns or uh issues that we need to deal with and I want to know your feeling about how important that is in terms of the background of a candidate you would consider in terms of that person's background I don't know whether it would be planning board at some point or whatever what you would look for for a town manager to put that fairly high as something that he or she would look at in uh working here I think a lot of people have a perspect perspective of Manchester by the Sea as being this very wealthy community um that uh that you know is a very exclusively wealthy community and the fact of the matter is that it's a very diverse community and we're squeezing out that that a lot of people um very sad to see here be Pisces leaving town um but they they can't afford to live here um and um the options for um housing for long-term residents um the options for housing for people who work in this building that work in the schools are uh vastly diminishing um uh in the time that I've lived here yeah in that's about 25 26 years um so it's a pretty important aspect of what we do in this town to try and stem the tide of having two town houses go in where cargo unlimited is um and uh and lose the opportunity for um multi-use of that property where there could be businesses in the bottom and apartments involed um that are affordable to people who live here um so I'm concerned about the residents of our town who have been pushed out squeezed out are being squeezed out are worried about that afraid to leave their own homes um don't want to man manage a bigger house but afraid to give it up um and I would want any candidate who came in here to have a grasp on what this town is we talk a lot about protecting the character of the Town preserving the character of the town but the C character of this town is eroded in single family houses that um are much bigger than most people can afford um and uh wouldd like to hear uh any candidate's perspective on uh how we go about cracking the egg of affordable housing I think it's as tough as the one that Brian's focused on tonight about the school district we are a great School District here but it's financially um crazy in terms of its organization it has its own inherent infrastructure that makes that craziness we have we have a great town here but we're losing out a lot of people who um are friends of mine that I would like to be able to have stay here that are worried about the future to a followup to just comments I think any candidate coming from anywhere in Eastern Massachusetts has witnessed that I think that this farus affordable housing any of the quote unquote bedroom communities like we are it's not unique to this to town it's you're going to find that any candidate who's got any experience at all uh has run into that in any Community I agree with you to some extent Brian but I think that the perception outside of this town if you don't live here is that it's a wealthy Town it you say well you know where do you live I live in Manchester W first thing you to do is stop saying by the seat right I say Manchester B the SE um actually I say Manchester byid the beach um but I think I think it doesn't matter what you call it but people's reactions to this and and I I grew up in in this area not in Manchester but I grew up in this area and coming into Manchester was a big deal um you know you felt like you had to really make sure your shoes were shine before you came down the street and then they left me in that was the perception that was the perception of what it was like to come into this town and I'm bringing that up in the context of a candidate who may have that same perception that this is a wealthy town they can afford anything well I think that every retailer there's a lot of the retailers that have failed that have failed with that same perception so yes I agree with that been asked a wide variety of questions dare I really don't have very rare wow wow 8:30 on okay so I'm M drll and I'm grateful to be a lifelong resident of a town that is changing so in my opinion this higher is as important as bre's hire was because I think we were beginning to evolve them how many years ago almost 12 12 right 12 right um I am currently a member of the affordable housing trust and the proing W committee I had in your seats for nine plus a couple months because of covid when we kept postponing the town meeting and the elections um and I'm also a member of several nonprofit boards in the town here and the surrounding communities I have experience on two police chief hires think I have to say three fire chief hires um and a DPW couple interim dpws and a DPW director so I feel like I have background um I feel like I understand where the town is and I have a sense of the frustrations of some in the community warranted or not I understand those frustrations um I am a retired employee of the school district along with Mr BT we actually started at Memorial School just about together I agree with you that the school district is potentially at a Crossroads I think finding a Town Administrator with any level of that kind of experience is probably not going to be easy I think that's um probably a role for the next IND individual that is going to take a group effort to help figure out how we're going to continue sustaining the budget in some form you know with the school district um I think we're looking for a a a proven leader a strong communicator someone that absolutely has Capital planning and budget experience um collaborates because of the school district and as Eli I think mentioned the surrounding communities absolutely we need someone that has got some level of experience working with our state reps because that's where the grant money is coming from we can write Grant applications all we want but we need to have someone that goes and knocks on the doors because that is how we get the money and I think we're missing a little bit of that right now that ability or that connection to the state state house um I'm happy to serve if that's what you all choose um one of the things um that I wanted to ask you about was kind of what I think we started to talk about a few minutes ago which was housing yeah you know it's it's just such a critical issue um for the community and and you know if you were a part of the screening committee what would you be looking for in a TA what type of skills or experience that might help us break through some of our longstanding barriers from my frustrated standpoint with all the housing problems if there was someone that even had the remote minutest piece of information on their resume about housing and any participation in housing projects from my one perspective I would put that individual right at the top of the pile and really want to delve into what they know and and and how they what they see in this community you know any candidate that's going to come in an interview with a screening committee they're going to have done their homework so I would also hope that that would be something a candidate would talk about before we even ask them and along you mentioned also in your write up uh the importance of negotiation yeah with you know we have unions we have um agreements with other towns could you elaborate a little bit on how you would assess candidates um ability to be a strong negotiator I would probably want to know actually think it was a question were asked would want to know what were their successes with contract negotiations what's the what what's the process they would use what successes did they have what took longer than they expected to be able to settle and why and how did they get there and how much do they keep the budget in mind when they're negotiating thank you who police chief searches question three fire chief searches DPW director I don't know what else I'm not sure quantity is really a plus the situation it's a learning experience it wasn't it's a learning experience so you you went through that and you know some things worked out some this was over a I guess Nye period when you were there so that was quite a few searches that that went on there um and your takeaway from that is it's not easy and you have to be brave enough to choose a candidate that may not have been the popular choice going to Jeff's comment were any of those choices four choices because of a cultural issue or a perspective I don't like that I don't like cultural don't use the word let's just say it wasn't what they expect I I think Eli somewhat touched a little bit on the technical versus the leadership piece and there were a couple uh times when interviewing was taking place where it was felt that we needed the technical piece and that the leadership piece would fall into place we made a mistake there okay so I I think it depends on what at the time you firmly believe the strengths are that are absolutely necessary to return to a topic that I had touched on earlier in the evening longterm versus shortterm right right candidate the right candidate okay that longterm shortterm I've been thinking about it since Becky started it's the right candidate and I it will be interesting to see for a group to see the resumes because I think hiring 12 years ago and hiring now the candidate pool is going to be different it is I think in every job every every Walk of Life a candidate pool is different now and you know some of us we see our our children their generation they're not work they don't stay in a job for 25 years they don't have any about jumping they're more out to just right what wherever the pasture is the greenest at the time would that happen here it could so from my perspective it's the right candidate so the right candidate that checks all of the boxes regardless of whether you think they're sticking around I'm not sure you're going to see a candidate candidate that's going to check all the boxes but I wouldn't walk away from someone if there was one or two boxes that we couldn't check because I would hope that as a the boards and as a community we'd be strong enough to work with those two boxes that we weren't too sure we being fully checked and get that individual to check those boxes well the position you know the position has been written up there there a lot of boxes on that position I haven't seen I is there a job I mean has the a profile profile yeah this is it it's out there but it's got a lot of things on well of course it does every profile does but you know is there one person that's going to check all those boxes boy we if there is we better jump quick already we should have done it' already been hired that's that's my yep I've had two hours to think about that one thank you Becky was not I'm good right no I just uh to John's point it's a lot of hires yeah it is that's a lot of hires and I'm I'm sure that You' learned and I've had conversations with Chief Gerald when he was first up what he did say though was that said he wasn't ready but he learned a lot from correct absolutely and also conversations uh Jake when he interviewed three years ago whatever it was wasn't ready okay and he certainly proved his mle he really did learn something three years we don't want to be that learning curve we want uh so you've learned you know and I think all of you have been involved in some kind of high rank at some point were did you say you one time did you tell me you were involved at all with Greg's hire or yeah oh yeah how many candidates do you remember you came up to lenux I remember that because I was on my way to pick up my I know up state New York so I stopped to visit him and encourage um how many let's see I think we hadit seven and then it three that his search yeah three theie to seven three and did the interviews yeah but that's 13 years ago seven was a lot then we worked with a consultant they helped us Whittle down and I can honestly say there were a couple resumés that the Consultants didn't necessarily encourage to be in the seven we put them in I'm good I mean you get a ton of experience here I don't I don't even know what to ask CU you've answered most of it um what is what would be your main one thing somebody absolutely has to have over anything else strength and conviction say what they mean mean what they say yeah and follow through and prove on that which You' get out of conversations with them and you know is and but yeah strength of conviction like you got to stand up at a town meeting and know what you're talking about and believe it people believe yeah yeah but but just the strength of conviction to get through a difficult scenario or situation whether it's a human resources issue or a God help us some kind of disaster in the community you know a strength of conviction to be able to hold you around answer those difficult emails yeah again well listen group here I I guess the only thing I'm tempted to ask and you've answered it already is I've made an awful lot of really bad HS I don't think I've learned enough from that do you think that that your experience yeah yeah yeah okay yeah I mean I I you know I think intuition goes a long way we all have intuition you get a sense when you sit at a table I mean you can read a resume y but you get a sense when you sit at a table and someone sits down you know quite frankly I remember that because um being on the town of administrator search was my first experience with it and I remember there were a couple candidates that came in and sat down and made no attempt to shake anyone's hand so right away I'm like well I don't know how this is going to go but that was that was preo it wasn't it was like that didn't impress me I'm might I'm that old school I guess that didn't impress me in the end those candidates didn't move through for a lot of reasons so I I feel like it you know you get a gut reaction you get a gut reaction and if there aren't good gut reactions and good candidates please be strong enough to start again because I think we did that make that mistake at least once please be strong enough to start again heard that a lot so it might not be a popular decision but sometimes the popular ones last but not least I'm in the Bion Pike position we interviewed Bion we interviewed Bion to be the Harbor Master he was the 13th interview we did in that position that day and told him I said I said if you if you if you are not concerned about triskaphobia maybe you should be now and but he just to go Trisa jackob just just to go back what muffin said that thing he knew and we all knew he was either going to blow everybody's socks off and be so impressive when everybody's going to say God that lost guy what was his name I don't even remember what he anything he said and when he got up and left I think every one of us said get the contract um so my name's Tom Kio um I have not lived in Manchester my whole life yet that's true um I I was talking to Kathy early on today and Kathy said I not I thought you said you were in the uh screening committee for Greg and I said I was she says it's not on your piece of paper I said well I'll bring that up because yes I was the chair of the board of selectman at that time um I've had an opportunity to serve the town in many different positions um from elected to the planning board for two terms elected to the board of selectman for four terms and then many other appointed positions you have to be careful with members of the board of Selectmen because they tell you you're going to work for a a position for two and a half years like the 375th chair so wants up going on for four and a half years to which uh my dear friend sou Thorne looked at me at the end of the parade in September two and a half years after it was supposed to happen and said this is the end so I I do think great celebration thank you but um I mean there's so many things that have been brought up I was going to talk a little bit about a little lot about communication but that's come up so much but I also noticed in the last couple people we have talked about communication in the town meeting and I mean you can communicate via the cricket or on a blog or in select board things that go out with the tax bills and the number of people who read those can vary depending on the interest level and what's happening at the next town meeting or why the taxes went up but um standing up in front of the town meeting when there are anywhere from 350 to 920 people in the audience um and and communicating as the TA or a member of the board um or a resident of the Town um take some skill but the people really listen to the town ad administrator Town Administrator is the voice of the town and it's so important to have a strong person in that voice of the Town it doesn't mean you have to have this big booming voice it just means you have to have confidence and conviction in what you say you need to be able to express your opinion and then when someone asks a question explain why and when someone ask the question a second time explain why a second time and until people understand why they're there um I put down budget preparation is one of my um issues that I thought that town administrators need to have and that's that that could come from being let's just say someone like the town accountant in a town who decides that would like to become the Town Administrator here or it could be someone who was a Town Administrator in another Town who knows how to develop your short-term yearly budgets as well as your long-term five and 10 year budgets because those five and 10 year budgets are the things that allow people in the town to know or to figure out exactly okay where what are we going to spend this money on okay where's that money going to come from because it's very easy to write down you know in the next three years we're going to have to do this this this and this but it's more difficult to write down in the next three years where are we going to get the money to do this this this and this and that's why that comprehensive budget um work is important um so I have done hiring as I mentioned before it's been it's listed in my work I also sat on Chief Kremer and chief Rogers uh hiring um after I get off the fire department so I'm certainly willing to answer any questions you have um I would consider it an honor to uh sit on this position and be be responsible for one of the seats that does the screening for the town administrator's position thank you Jeff well I feel like I've known you my whole life but because I have um I'll just repeat the question what what do we have to absolutely have as skills and what are some things that we can have somebody work on to coming in the door okay and I already mentioned communication and budget development I think those are really important um I think they also need to have and either have researched what is going on in the town what are some of the topics you know if someone comes in and sits down and says oh what's this 40b shingle Hill project you know which means they haven't looked up one little thing about what the town's doing or you know what what are you doing in terms of hardening uh the downtown area in terms of the police station fire station um water treatment plan um I think there are certain skills that the town administrators can pick up I'm not going to just for example like the Manchester bylaw in terms of land use you know in terms of the Conservation Commission uh you wouldn't expect someone who's coming over from another small town to have a working knowledge of that but they should have some kind of working knowledge in terms of what the state regulations are um I I think it's important very important for a TA to have Team build abilities right now because I think as all of us know there is um a fairly large number of department heads who may be departing within the last next two to two and a half years and the the the hiring process that the TA will put together uh the team that the TA will put together to do that um involving residents and things like that that's going to be real important because you want to you need to you know get a hire in process hire that person give them a contract and then onboard them and then get them to be part of that team of department heads that sits down every couple of weeks and talks about things but also that the the TA also um finds out a little bit more about them in like one-on-one conversations in the office you know after they've come on board you know they'll come in with two or three questions and then you might wind up sitting there for 45 minutes or an hour just kind of picking their brain as they're picking the new town administrator's brain to say you know okay I've taken the job now what what what do I really need to do um but I think that that whole team building process is going to be really important yeah I don't know think said everything there is to be said um in 40 years you've seen a lot okay good batter and D what do you envision going forward the next 10 years what this town is going to be looking forward we've got obviously resiliency we've got got coal resiliency what do you think manager ta is going to face on the I I refer to it as Workforce housing and we've talked about it here for in terms of um you know whether it's the for the DPW the the firefighters the police the the teachers the town hall employees getting Workforce housing and hopefully if things progress from the present site of the DPW barn and putting a new DPW Barn to be constructed and then opening up um that Pleasant Street property for affordable housing it could be worked in there so there's some Workforce housing in that area I I just I look at the people who are presently on the police department and the fire department and the only people who live in town live in family homes live in family homes or fortunate enough to have you know someone when their mother or father had a second home and and gave it to them to to live please uh oppos they're all yeah yeah and then you know you got uh you got you knowen at ducet and the um fire department um so it's and that's that's not only important for them to have ownership and more ownership in the town but it's also important for them to be able to make a faster response if they're needed if something really goes bad that's all I got um Tom you me you just mentioned um you know the fact that not only are we going to be losing Greg but over the not too distant future uh there are some department heads that are also likely to um be retiring um and that means that this new ta is going to need to um be equally as outstanding as Greg has been in in hiring people right um how will you assess you know in this process if you were on the screening committee how would you assess a potential ta's ability to um hire and develop Talent well the hiring of the talent I think you can kind of you know you can develop a question within your group of people who are on on the screening committee saying in the last two years you've been in your position how many department head level people have you hired um describe to us the process that you used and tell us a little bit about the success that's had you've had doing that um then there would be some reference checking to find out if indeed okay so this person has hired three people in a last three years and two of them have already given their notice that they're not going to stay okay I or or all three are there and all three are happy you can't really kind of call up the individuals themselves and say hey I'm just calling from the town of Manchester by the Sea and I want to ask you some questions but um I think you really have to say you know ask them or her what the U System was that used or that was developed was it developed by working with a firm that gave you some ideas I mean I when I was talking to muffin earlier today both of us were straining trying to remember the name of the guy who was our Handler when we were hiring Greg man he was like just like this and I mean he he he had that system down and we weren't the only group that he was working with at that time he was working with multiple communities but I think you really really need to ask the person some questions about what their system was how' they use it would how would they change it or did they change it from when he was first there he or she was first there to you know the last hire that was made before they left that job just to you know kind of ask them to kind of self-evaluate their their so that's on the hiring side what about the developing of talent developing of talent I think has a lot to do with getting together with um with smaller groups of depart department heads I also think that um that I I think that um part of the the developing of talent also has to do with the the Spree of core so when um they have a holiday party or they do something as a group that they try to do something together now that doesn't you know that doesn't mean you're going to do training in that but um there's enough I think there's enough possible training for example You Know Chief F Gerald's had some trainings over at the at the Legion Hall that people have gone to and some of the department heads have gone to so they learn a little bit more about the hardening of the area and and sea level rise um I have an idea that that is an area where there is probably adequate uh grant funding monies that are available that uh you know if we hire a part part-time grant writer and I know that you know Tiffany working on that a little bit but and Sue Croft has working on working with some grants on that um but I mean not on that particular topic that um we could um maybe get some money to develop something so they could work together and you know I I don't think there's anything wrong with saying everybody hey you know this half of the Town Hall staff is going to come in for you know at 8:30 and they'll go till noon time and then at noon until 1 we'll have a lunch and then the other half of the Town Hall staff will work in the afternoon and the same thing but you can't give everybody a day off and just close the facility but don't part of part of leadership is to take a chance do something that's a little different and say you know we're going to work and do this you know for three and a half hours and then we'll have lunch and then another group will come in and then maybe you know for at the very end everybody gets together and just puts their heads together so that that's that's going off and just just because it hasn't done been done before doesn't mean it can't be done yeah thank thanks Tom that's me one of those easy ones like you did the other day I've been taking notes I'm asking what hasn't been asked two and a half there'll be quite a few people that are turning over we expect in the next couple couple of years or so uh we've been very fortunate here to have a pretty stable uh group of people um that works against you a little bit in terms of uh new ideas you know having new blood with new ideas that they bring from other towns that's always uh the drawback of having uh a very very stable uh stable staff so it'll be a challenge but like the ideas that you mentioned it's it's quite Poss quite possible that some of these ideas there'll be other ideas like that that'll come along one thing that I'm interested in your thoughts on is we've talked about you you put down everybody put down communication you mentioned well budgeting and finances was was a close second for you in terms of importance and one thing that uh Greg has been looking at is regionalization and my question to you is uh how critical or how important do you think that is to the Future and would you put that in as a a check box if it's not a check box in the document I haven't looked but would that be something that you're looking for people that might have some some ideas or some experience in doing that in the towns that they are currently affiliated with or recently yeah so are you talking about major regionalization or just regionalization say in terms of veteran services or or animal control officer and things like I'm going bigger than that bigger than that okay I would say that um having some experience in terms of doing some Regional work um would be a would be a plus or a bonus it's probably not a requirement but it would it again it shows that they've they've been able to go out and work with other communities and that's been mentioned ter previously here in terms of um working with the state working with our legislators working with the communities um and sometimes we've had success working with other communities other times we've had the dump road with the town of Hamilton and it hasn't been that successful um so it's uh you know I think you can just you can open a lot of doors I think one of the things that the your a new ta needs to do is not only get out in this town and I suggest I in in my rough draft which did was on going page four um uh I suggested you know they get out and and go to some veterans meeting or go to the Manchester club and speak there and go to the Council on a in and serve the lunch and talk to some people there and and go to the harbor advisory committee but there's also you know the chair of the board of Selectmen and the Town Administrator going over and meeting with the chair of the board of Selectmen and the TA in Wenham or in Hamilton or in Essex I know we know the people in Essex much better than we do the other communities even Rockport I mean rockport's the same basic um governing system that we have except that they have about three times the number of volunteers that we have I'm not sure where they get them all but they they have all kinds of committees down there yeah so um I think I think it's a good idea John it it would it it would be a bonus to see that they have had some success in terms of regionalization okay all right all right well um I'm hopeful I look at that as a source of you know what some way to reduce costs somehow and we're we're looking at all kinds of ideas I don't know what will come down the pipe but um I know you served on the search committee with uh that found Greg many many years ago and I hope the search committee that uh we select for this search is is as successful me to me me also I guess I'd like to ask any of you if there's something that you haven't said that you'd like to say okay check the clock [Laughter] before I didn't want to keep thank you very much um very thoughtful interesting answers to our questions um and I really appreciate the effort that you're putting into this I think a search committee of 27 is going to be a problem so we can't can I add excent sorry what is the like where are the other um search committee folks coming from what other groups how how's it being structured outside of the select board and a couple um right so that four and then um chair of the planning board chair of the fov and shair of the school to me and the moderator and the moderator okay a group of eight had to give Allan something else to do right Allan has seen a lot of the sides of this town long time guess he seen just about all the administrators I think he started when BL yeah yeah he did he did when I just wanted to say no matter what we are in really good hands with respect to this reading and the at large candidates those who stuck around for the whole meeting and those who did not um we're in incredibly um great shape thank you all grateful thank you you're certainly welcome I feel a whole lot better except for the decision we have to make on Monday night when we B these seats going from Flat metal seats and we told Beth heis to find some 15minute seats hour and a half brought them these are the 45 minute certainly have two and a half hours good night everybody so the process is Monday night we make our decision deliberation yeah it's it's hard you got really good people to problem is finding we want to talk two minutes about how we go about making the decision um you know personally it's it's been my experience that when we we have to do something like this um you have a plethora of equally qualified candidates um what's important to consider is making you sure you have the right representation from different groups in town diversity of thought so whether that is you know geographical making sure you have you know someone from all sections you know of the town so they're hearing from residents in their neighborhood or whether it's you know different committees um um I just think thinking about how we can take the next few days until we have to make the decision to think about how we what types of diversity of thought were are important you know representation from the schools representation you know whatever it is um so that's how personally I'm going to approach trying to digest um this because there you know really other than that you flip a coin you know I think I don't think excuse me WR decision here right exactly oh that's mine I Wasing where I left all okay Jesus anyway that's I just want to mention that my just going to tuck it right in there you know that that's kind of how I'm going to try and think about this I'm going to go back and look at all the names okay this one covers this Bas and that one covers that base and at the end of the you talk about there still talk about schools we get some right right that's what I'm saying you don't want too much overlap right we do have cover on all those right so yeah would it be possible for Tiffany to get the recording of this up before Monday um yeah probably all of you would like to look at it I don't know whether all of us would like to look at it but I would like to look at it some of you some of I took my notes already I think the audio is going to be a little some of the candidates because they had their I know when I listen to these meetings this is coming up here so sometimes when they have the back I don't know I have trouble hearing them but wor a shot I generates a transcript of it [Music] too let me talk to she's probably anbri now I don't think so she all the girls from to drinking you know Brian what are you sure an accurate presentation excuse me so anything else that would be helpful to you no I think good make your ownis your own little chart yeah I've got my first set of grades already put down on paper so did I fail you failed when it first first time you well at least I can know I can only go up from here B is pretty low I may have misspoke when asked what I would do what I learned from being in jail but that's another story from the time there is a motion all in favor of a journey so what I may do is I may send you an email