my position this work our way afternoon at the end approximately unless there's any questions a little bit backwards okay okay i'd like to welcome eric uh thank you for uh going through the process here uh i'm gonna turn the i'm gonna start the questions down at the right here and then we're just gonna walk walk through it and relax if you need to take a drink of water or whatever you know just be comfortable and we're just here to hope to hope the interview goes goes well for you so hopefully go ahead and uh start with uh council member thorson eric i got the first question here for you and that is uh please tell us what interests you about this position and highlight key qualifications that make you the best person for this job i'm interested in the city manager position in here in north st paul for several reasons uh the key one is the unique character of uh the community and the organization is a place that i would like to to be aligned with and uh serve the community by me that i mean um it's unique it has its own characteristics its own downtown its own separate history from the surrounding area i came in last night and chatting with some people over at max across down the way here it was interesting because people found said they were from north st paul they didn't say they were from the cities or twin cities or the area they said they were from here and that speaks volumes to me i love being an area where people take civic pride and community pride um having met with now with your department heads i can say that there's that pride also continues on through the organization there's a lot of local and civic pride as well there and that's something that interests me in being in a place that i can be long-term that is known as its own entity and not just random suburbia it's also a full service city uh that's important to me as well uh as i've as i've gone through my career experience i've started in very small communities 1500 people i've been administrator up to in this communities up to 20 000 people i've wore all the hats and so you take bits and pieces that you've learned from those stops and it's very important to me that i can continue to utilize what i have learned in the next organization as well so it's a great community and it's one that when i saw was open i had to jump in the chance to apply for because it's an area of of the the an area of the cities that i have somewhat familiar with and wish to okay serve question number two describe how you would build trust with the city council and staff building trust is absolutely key when it runs in any business but in particular the private public sector um favorite story is what years ago uh i this is a career change for me going back to 2003 when i first ran for and was elected city council member in my hometown uh found as a calling it's calling to serve and if you're serving the public the public has to have trust in you elected officials have to have trust in you and your staff has to have trust in you so i start from square one where there i have trust with them and i explained to the department has just now um follow some very basic rules and that is no surprises if there's something that's going to impact uh their departments if something's going to impact uh how you need to uh what information you need to do your jobs uh appropriately you're gonna hear from me first you're not i'm not gonna wait say yeah i heard about that a while ago and and find that out about so we're gonna continue that trust because it may be unpopular opinion it may be information you don't wanna hear but you're gonna hear it from me it's important of that my expectation likewise is it goes the other way as well that you know if something's going to impact the staff the departments our ability to serve the public and you hear about it you notify me as well of that as well so we can develop that trust the trust comes through communication and i have very frequent communication with staff and i frequent communication my expectations as city manager that would be that we set up some time that it's appropriate for each one of you to meet one-on-one uh depending on your work schedules so that's fully understand what it is you're hoping to accomplish as as elected officials in the city of yours as well um and to be able to present what is i can do to help move those things along both with staff and as policies as well um and the last thing is um if i say it then do it um and and you can never go back if you say yeah i'll get that to you by tuesday and one zero's around you don't have it yet i've lost trust in you so it's being able to uh follow through with the expectations as established through our communication thank you uh describe a time when you made a mistake at work you never do that how did you deal with this situation and what was the outcome specifically there is a shared ride service that we have in onalaska and there's a triangle review required of that because we take fta funds for that public transit service and um the finance director was responsible for that retired after 40 years and he'd been doing for a long long time and we hired a new finance director who went to the training remote training for fta had done the report and were just waiting for the results to come back results were came back i invited say when do we need a response back to this and got a response back saying uh by your next triangle review which of course was three years fantastic turns out that there was two parts to that that study one part was due a week and a half from now and the second part was due to the trial and review so i asked the question received an answer unfortunately was the wrong answer that's on me that's because it was new to me and something that uh i had not experienced before so reached out to staff who had the information uh where was that information available um reached out to the fta to get extended the deadline reached out to elected officials to notify them of what had happened so owned the mistake found a new timeline to make up for the mistake found out the information needed to provide to the fta in timely fashion and got that done but hiding your hiding your face or pointing blame elsewhere doesn't accomplish anything it's a whole lot easier to move forward when mistakes are happening owning up to it and moving on hi thank you eric i have question four how would you reach or serve diverse groups or traditionally underserved populations within our community diversity inclusion and equity is is finally i think something on the forefront that we've been talking about for a long time but it really haven't been you know taking full steps to do that and what's important is to understand that the community needs to be reflected in the organization that service the community um and that's different wherever you go um so what i can control internally is the best place to start and i've done that through our hiring practices in other organizations are we closing out opportunities by people by not having by having very strict policies or having requirements in our job description that we don't really follow through or certifications or education or are we looking at job descriptions and requests for hiring positions that talk about skills instead so however you get those skill sets be able to fill that so we've taken with within the organization which is uh where i'm currently at in onalaska fifty percent um uh female 55 percent male we at least had the department has now matching that as well which historically was not so it's just taking steps to do to make sure that your organization reflects what you can it's also understand that voices need to be heard in the community and the voices have truly not been heard it's convenient to to say well you know the office office hours doesn't work out or um that's you're not an important voice in the community um you know you're not the name with so and so um so i have an open door policy and i'm glad to say that you know open door policy means that my door's closed a lot because people are comfortable coming to me and expressing their opinions as to how they're not seeing services being provided or the needs that they may have and it's incumbent on me as city manager to listen objectively actively listen ask probing questions do the research and provide solutions necessary for that i don't have all the answers i can't i have all the answers but i can find the answers and i can uh give information to this body that you may need to know uh that we have restrictions in place or we have barriers in place that are not conducive to you know every resident every citizen feeling included and so what can we do you know and the information that i can gather is the information that i'll provide thank you eric welcome thank you question i have describe your experience working collaboratively with other units of government or organizations and then describe how these uh how building these types of relationships benefited the community or organization you worked for absolutely in onalaska we do have a a sanitary sewer utility we collect it but we don't and we transmit it but we don't treat it the city of lacrosse treats it on a regional basis for us and we do have long-standing agreements with the city of la crosse for example that agreement expired and we spent over three years trying to negotiate a new agreement uh with the city of la crosse for the treatment of our regional sewage that included doing some research on our you know how much it would cost to go on our own um build our own with the wisconsin dna not even allow us to discharge into the mississippi river separately and working with the the other bodies it took that long because there was different perspectives that each unit of government had as to what that was both communities felt as elected officials and residents they were being taken advantage of by the old agreements and so the individual requests by both onalaska and lacrosse were were not feasible and not in anybody's best interest so it took a matter of of communication communicating with the elected officials communicating with staff and communicating with other regional partners who would be responsible uh also signing agreements with them to really reach an agreement that made sense for everybody because again regionally if you don't support each other you're competing against each other and competition is more expensive than cooperation so and that absolutely would have been the case that way but it did take three years of negotiations to get to an agreement that served the regional interest i think it's a little different than the experiences that many communities have around here which do from my understanding you know how utilities are working together and at times um that's not necessarily the case there but hopefully we've turned that around by cooperatively working together but it takes building relationships and it takes trust and it takes time to do that to work with other areas all right back to me here in question number six in your current or previous role what is the most difficult decision you have had to make and how did you come to that decision um out of respect of the person uh i won't get into too much details but um certainly when you get to the point of having to terminate somebody that you're close with and you're friendly with um or reach a separation that that's that's the hardest part of doing that i mentioned before you know it's a calling to work in the public sector we can all earn more money and with less issues in the public um you know in the private sector in the public sector um but we do because we love to do what we love to serve and knowing that about your employees and when you have that issue that they still love to serve they're still a good employee but you know you've followed through the hr process you've established expectations you've done a performance improvement plan but ultimately it's not in the best interest of the public anymore for that employee to be there it's hard on an individual basis when you have to do that but it's also hard on an organizational basis because relationships are built as a team you know within the department heads and within departments themselves and it's difficult because you can't really disclose everything about you know why you know and not finger point but just continue to move forward cooperatively uh so i mean it's organizationally it's the right thing to do at times but it's also very difficult because they're still dealing human to human and you know friend of friend in some cases but you know having to make that decision stuff to do okay eric number seven describe a situation that you feel demonstrates your integrity and ethical standards um in five years in the city of onalaska i've had five step increases based on performance every year i've had my contract extended twice every year so it's an organization that i really appreciate and quite frankly it would still be at but through the contract extension it is apparent that the council will be looking at perhaps reorganizing a different direction from city administrator and looking at some other organizational study styles there uh and so to avoid it being public debates or or an issue where they're not making changes based on what's best for the city they're making a base perhaps based on individual i even had a contract extension offered a resignation and to move forward for them so that they could purely look at what's best in the best interest of that so i am i am coming to you at a point where i am employed through september 30th i have no job duties right now through the city that way but i believe strongly in making sure that the city manager city administrator is the right person for the right fits and if it no longer becomes that way then it's incumbent on me too to move on uh so it's the toughest decision i've had to make for me in my family and professional career but it's also the right decision to do because if you no longer have faith in the position then why be there thank you what have you done in your current position or previous positions that made a significant difference to the organization i believe it was recently completed here but in mcfarland and in onalaska being able to do the employee compensation and class study to do a review for the staff it was significant because again people do this because they want to serve but you can't take advantage of that either you have still have to be a place that is a choice place for employees to work at um and have you know try to drive morale forward as well so um leading leading the council to fund not just a compensation hiring a consultant to do a study but also then fund the results of that said study which could mean some people getting raises that others may not be comfortable with because it's competitive you want to be that way been able to go through that twice successfully fund successfully you know wage changes to be competitive um doing it with employee input throughout so that it wasn't a surprise and uh funding those changes so that we could see morale increase wherever that has happened that way because again the organization is key people have to be motivated to be here they provide good service you know highest level service to the lowest possible cost is key but you can't take advantage of that and do it in a fair fair manner i think it's significant because then we can continue to support and provide service to the public with employees that are that are happy and to be there and their morale is good thank you all right question nine north st paul has experienced some recent turnover with the city manager position if hired what do you feel needs to be addressed right away by the way similar question to what i answered with the department heads but slightly different um stability was the answer when i asked the department heads what are they looking for when it comes to a city manager in place and that was the answer given almost universally and so if stability is the is the answer and stability is what i aim to provide how do i do that what what what accomplished by that um my first goal as a city manager would be to meet individually with all the staff you know do the research about the staff build relationships with them why are they here what do they do what are their needs for their departments how do they provide service how does a public perceive that service do the same meeting individually with you getting to know everybody as council members as well what are your initiatives what do you like about the city what needs improvement to the city and um reporting back to you with a pathway forward that isn't just for the officials that are here at that time but also for the city manager is to say this is the pathway forward this is how your manager is going to be here i can provide these solutions for the next five years or more hopefully i intend this to be my last stop uh and hopefully it all goes well it will be um but you have to learn how the machine works before you can try to improve the machine and coming in here with with initiatives and policies to say i can fix this or you need to do that is just a mistake you know what you what you need to do and it's my job to help provide you with those solutions so we need to have that relationship built before we can do that but it's communication and trust and it has taken the time to to build those relationships that would generate that stability uh you need to be able to trust me as your city manager that i will be here and i'm not leaving and i won't do anything that will cause me to leave why should north st paul city council select you as our next city manager i think i offer a uniqueness i mentioned at question number one as well uh beyond having a drive to serve the public everyone in this position and interviewing will it will tell you that as well you know it's important um it's a stressful job and we you have to want to do it but i've also been on your seat i've also been the elected official and i've had the calls about barking dogs or crack sidewalks or someone's parked in front of my house or any of the other issues that seem mundane but also the concerns about crime the concerns about public safety um you know are the streets plowed in time who do they call first they call you first don't they you know when you're out shopping or you're out trying to have dinner people like hey you're so-and-so and i gotta tell you um about this so i've been in that position and i think that's gonna be unique uh for me and why i say north st paul should hire me as city manager because i've i've done both sides you know i know a staff needs to be supported i know how to communicate with staff to support that staff but i also know what issues you have and what issues you may be supportive as well and and how to help deal with that i'll go back to one in 2003 and when i was sworn into sheboygan we were in the midst of uh first thing we had to do was vote on a development agreement for his major uh redevelopment project that the previous council had been debating for two years and nelson here's the agreement go you know sit vote higher nay um we were obviously budget cycle that way so i was waiting for this beam of light of knowledge from the heavens above to say here's how you how you do your job never came you know i had to do the research i had to find out i had to find the resources that i could do that job and having been the elected official i am that resource for you to help accomplish what it is that you need to accomplish or answer questions you may face in a way that is respectful and dignified because i've been there i also know that so i do have the experience i've run a full city up to 20 000 people full service city up 20 000 people i've been the administrator in positions um where you know the heat is on the most public face of all the staff i enjoy it i've experienced doing it i love doing it and i would love to do it here for the next how many years i get to retire if you'll have me thank you if you don't mind i'd like to just follow up on the number one question and if i heard right or not but key quali key qualifications that make you the best person for this job okay um so key qualifications um similar to how i finalized that last question um have been a full city administrator in cities large and small uh for 11 years so i've you know been in that role in the position that you're you're looking at as a city manager i have the master's degree in public and nonprofit administration or public administration um and i've had the elected office experience so those are the three things i think that make me stand out and the experience i think i can provide here in north st paul thank you i think that's it yeah mr mayor members of the council we do about five minutes and as long as we're consistent with all candidates if a candidate does finish early hopefully you feel it'll be appropriate if the candidate has any questions of you unless there's any other follow-up questions the council may have any other follow-up questions if not do you have any questions for us for me to keep it under 30 minutes for 10 questions is a miracle so i appreciate that i apologize have i gone too fast so if there is anything i said too fast please follow up otherwise i do have a question for you all right okay my question is what is the number one thing you you are looking for in a city manager um experience is really important to me the last two lacked a little city manager experience so i appreciate people on the job training but this is such an important role and we've been through some turmoil and like i i agree with this stability piece we have great crew we have great workers but they need a leader no so that's important to me yeah i would say looking for someone to provide stability and to be here long term that this isn't something that they're getting into and then realizing that this is something that's i mean over my head or a stepping stone for a bigger position somewhere else so if i may um why here i followed that question that way i did have family live in saint paul on grotto near lake cuomo also in stillwater in the area i did go to school here in the twin cities uh but this sort of sector of the twin cities area is really where i'm most familiar with so i've been through on 36 i've seen the snowman and going back and forth between um so you know i've not lived here outside of going to school here um but this is the area that i've always really enjoyed in terms of quality of life as well so moving here and providing stability is something that i'm looking forward to and i would echo same thing stability and relationships you know for someone to be able to build relationships not only within the community but within the uh within the organization here that's important for me yeah i would probably echo um you know stability and relationships um and and for myself i i believe that you know someone who can really foster um you know some community really deep community engagement we're a small community and i think you know we're changing a lot so um just having making sure that community has their voice heard and their input is um there as we continue to develop so not to echo everybody but no i um it that goes without said but i'm also looking for a strong collaborative leader that will empower the divisionals the the the folks underneath him to go out and do their jobs that said uh only got a couple minutes uh i just want to say being from wisconsin we don't hold that against you if you're a packer fan or a viking fan you don't have to be one or the other although we uh minnesotan you know we would love to have a super bowl at some time so thank you thank you and i wish you the best of luck been a pleasure you have a tough decision and good luck to it all right thank you thank you thank you so much yeah i just saw a survey not too long ago was the handshake dead and for the mo and for the most part the answer was no everybody okay with how it went anything different do you want to see or do or low they're low all right on alaska in alaska yes just over the bridge from minnesota right before you get to la crosse oh now i know where it is okay next one is start a little earlier if you want i mean we can do i'm ready to keep driving okay okay does not look like camille that's not camille [Laughter] it's ken kenneth oh she's coming out of the panel interviews i see okay you um okay i okay sounds good standing chamber okay great thank you hi hello hello so you want to start right away then she's got a half an hour then so let's just stop this okay we're [Laughter] yeah do you want to take a breath i'm good you're good yes i am thank you explain her about the 10 questions in the 30 minutes and let me go ahead and introduce and absolutely go ahead and say the process you bet mr mayor members of the council thank you this is your candidate number two and you have 30 minutes to answer uh 10 questions and if there's time at the end then you have opportunity to ask a question of the council and otherwise they'll just go through a round-robin format and they have the same questions that will be asked to all the candidates and there may be questions for maybe some further clarification but otherwise we should be good to go welcome camille thank you i'm going to turn it over to this side of the table so let's start from there and go this way okay and then back again okay sounds good just relax and you need to take a drink or you know whatever good luck thank you welcome all right first question please tell us what interests you about this position and highlight key qualifications that make this that make you the best person for this job okay great thank you very nice to meet you um and thank you for this opportunity what excites me the most about north st paul is really this community a few a couple of months ago i came here for my economic development certificate program which i've completed now but came here and met the community and really all the different developments that are here so that was my first true interaction i knew about north st paul but really true interaction with the community really getting to know the character i have met a few residents since then the superintendent i've met the local business association president the historic historical society president and a few others and one thing that they all talk about is one how fantastic the staff is here how great the council is the leadership and the community pride and not every city has that and that's what really draws me to north st paul in this position coming open when i came here a couple of months ago i didn't know that this position was available so once i saw that it was open i was very interested there's a lot of character here like i mentioned earlier the community pride is huge the residents care about this community and they want to see it continue to be a successful community a community that will continue to prosper and thrive and i want to be a part of that i have a lot of enthusiasm a lot of energy and passion to be in the public sector and to work with community and so i'd be so excited to do that here with north st paul residents in the community my background so i'll start with the most recent like my education i'm currently at hamline university i graduate in december with my master's in public administration and masters in business administration i initially went to hamlin to get my master's in public administration just to gain more knowledge on policy the law being a public administrator leadership in the public sector but then i decided to get my mba as well just to better understand strategy and alignment with the finance so i've learned a lot about strategic management how to allocate resources creating a strategic vision and priorities for a community i also have a certificate in economic development but also crisis communications diversity equity and inclusion in the workplace i've worked for the largest county in minnesota hennepin county where i am now i've worked for one of the largest communities in one of the most diverse communities um in the midwest i've also worked for the fourth largest county in the country and so i've just seen a lot of public sector organizations what they do well what they don't do well um and i can bring all of that knowledge and training and put it right to work right away right here in north st paul just to continue to build off of our success continue to grow our leadership team um and and build a strong team i know there's been a lot of um instability uh within city hall the last couple of years i mean with this change in city management but then also covid19 civil unrest um and much and other challenges and so i'd love to bring all of my knowledge here to help this community and the staff so yeah thank you you're welcome welcome thank you question two describe how you would build trust with the city council and staff yeah i'm a big uh believer in building relationships and so that's what i would do right away is wanting to build a relationship with each of you and collectively the same would be with staff is learning listening leaning on their expertise their institutional knowledge many of them have lived here for a long time many of them have worked here for a long time i definitely want to listen and learn and collaborate i'm very much a collaborator but i also want to learn about the strategic priorities of the council as well what you're looking for in the future for this community and making sure that we as staff are in alignment with that but building trust would be through just getting to know you and however you would like to do that whether it's meeting for coffee every now and then or just regular phone calls but i want to definitely earn your trust and get to know each of you better yeah okay describe a time when you made a mistake at work how did you deal with the situation and what was the outcome okay um i'm not gonna say that i've never made a mistake um it's hard to pick or to think about um a mistake at off the top of my mind right now um what i will start kind of explaining it explaining kind of my process i guess for a mistake that i may make and then if i can think of a good example i'll bring it up here but for me if i make a mistake i own it i'm very transparent about that i take all accountability for any mistake that i do make whether it's minor or major i think it's really important to own it um so i of course try my very best to not make mistakes but uh i'm sure they have happened in the past i'm just trying to think of maybe i'm trying to think of a major one and there really just hasn't been a major one that i can think of but i just know that my character is really to be honest about it and to bring it up right away if i know that i've made it and then try to course correct and figure out and bring options about what we can do to fix it but i can't think of a specific mistake at this point other than maybe a typo that i probably made once or twice okay thank you so i have question four how would you reach or serve diverse groups or traditionally underserved populations within our community this is really important to me and i know that north st paul is a diverse community and continues to grow grow into being a more diverse community we have a lot of schools here in our community and so of course we have a lot more families too that are very diverse in moving here i think it's really important to engage um i think it's important to work outside of these four walls if you will and be out in the community try to reach out to the different cultural groups that we may have in our community and make sure we're having ongoing conversation i have experience with that working in brooklyn park even working at the county as well but in brooklyn park more so because it is such a culturally rich community a lot of different we have a very high immigrant population it's majority people of color who live there and that was really critical is making sure that we were having ongoing conversations with those residents to make sure they were meeting their needs and that they knew what we were doing and that we could so whenever we needed to work in their neighborhood or we needed some input from them they knew who we were um and we made sure that we weren't putting up barriers for them either we wanted to make sure it was a welcoming community and so that experience that i have the tactics and strategies that we use there i would bring here as well i'm sure we may have some of those strategies i always think of staff as community engagement experts because we're all really community engagement we're all out there or should be out there engaging with our community so i would bring the same knowledge that i have there here and make sure that we are making sure our city hall is welcoming um making sure we're meeting people where they're at and if we don't have the perspective or understanding of a certain cultural community i'll make sure we go and get that and make sure that they're at the table so that's how i would handle that yeah welcome thank you uh describe your experience working collaboratively with other units of governments or organizations then describe how building these types of relationships benefited the community or the organization that you work for um i do have a lot of experience with that i feel like throughout my career especially in the public sector it's been working with the state or city city and state neighboring jurisdictions one example i can think of off the top of my head is i was part of the blue line coalition in brooklyn park and so that was a coalition made up of several cities that we're going to be along the blue line extension from target through to brooklyn park um and so that was uh a coalition that we really tried we were advocating for light rail funding making sure the state reps were listening to us and helping us uh bring light rail to our communities but also thinking creatively about how can we get attention how can we market this how can we um make sure that we continue to be at the forefront so nobody forgets us and that we're not an afterthought and so that was a lot of collaboration across jurisdictions there was even a branding effort where we had to work with different cities on a new brand for the light rail corridor so that's one example i can think of i think in this position one thing i would do is build those partnerships with the school district for example so the superintendent would be somebody i would have a regular meeting with i went to the rotary meeting on friday i would continue to do that in this position i also think it's important to have a strong relationship with our chamber so the st paul area chamber i've spoken with b kyle the ceo and so building a relationship there looking for opportunities to bring businesses especially to our main street and how to retain businesses and looking for money to keep them here and helping them and so i think for me it's all about relationship building um with our partners and even the neighboring communities maplewood oakdale uh meeting with those city managers and seeing how we can we're always stronger together so um meeting with them on a regular basis uh just to find out what's going on in their communities how that could impact us um and then also that that i think would help me keep a pulse on what's going on to update you as well about what's coming what could be affecting us um so that's my experience and what i would do in this position as far as working across jurisdictions thank you all right question number six in your current or previous role what is the most difficult decision you've had to make and how did you come to that decision okay um i think i'm going to have to do kind of what i did earlier at the mistake question there's definitely been a lot of decisions that have been challenging but i think i'll start with talking about the process and i'll share one example that i can think of right now when it comes to making a difficult decision i think it's really important to get input first so whoever is going to be impacted by the decision i think it's really important to get their input first and listen and see if i need to do additional research if i don't have good information in front of me but one example that i can use would be around covet 19 we all in government had to deal with covet 19 in budget restraints one thing i had mentioned to staff just now in a meeting is we had to decide where to cut and so i was part of the senior management team at brooklyn park and a tough decision that we had to make is okay where can we cut and it was thinking about our strategic plan our strategic priorities and then making the decision about okay if we were to cut this area would this take us off base would it not help us advance and achieve our goals and so um it's never easy to lay off anyone it's never easy to cut um but so that was the most difficult decision but having that strategic plan um thinking about what's best for the community is really what led to us making the decision that we made um and so that's an example i'll share but it's always about getting input from me about who's going to be impacted and making sure that they're heard and then making the consideration from there and seeing if we need extra information or whatnot number seven describe a situation that you feel demonstrates your integrity and ethical standards um i i feel that the best way i can um answer this is that um i'm always coming from a place of thinking of what's best for residents and for the community i think i'm a selfless leader and person it's never about me it's always about what's best for the organization for the community i'm trying to think of an example but i feel in general every day that's i'm working with integrity and transparency um uh i'm trying to think well yeah i can't think of one example um but i just feel like i'm always constantly thinking about is what i'm doing in the best interest of the community whether it's the decision that i'm making or the work that i'm doing um does that answer the question okay okay number eight okay what have you done in your current position or previous positions that made a significant difference to the organization um i think the to me communication has always been key and i think with when it comes to strategic planning um articulating that strategy to staff has always been very important and that's been a role that i've played even in my current role um it's constantly thinking about how can we connect the dots how can we pull things together how can we make people understand and feel that their role is part of the bigger picture and i feel like i've done that i've been in that role throughout my career and it's made a significant difference when i think back to brooklyn park um we had a lot of challenges as it relates to um well one having a very diverse community high crime um and it was always constantly thinking creatively about how can we bring the community together how can we learn how can we have our community learn about other cultures learn about how to work better together and it was through different strategies ideas that i had that really helped make the difference for communities in brooklyn park specifically um i was really building that communications department from the ground up we didn't have it before it was really my position in one other person and really working with the departments on figuring out how can we have better messaging how can we have better engagement with our community we were able to consolidate some staff under one umbrella hire a couple of extra other staff to make sure that we had effective communication to our community because that was very important just for them to stay engaged and informed about what is going on in our community and how they can get involved so i'd say that's one example of a big difference that i made a significant difference that i'd made for an organization thank you yes all right we've got question nine okay north st paul has experienced some recent turnover with the city manager position um if hired what do you feel needs to be addressed right away i think right away um the first thing i would do is really listen uh to the staff about what are the strengths what are the weaknesses um how can we continue to build on our strengths and then what can we do to improve our weaknesses but that would be the first thing that i would do um the second thing that i would do is wanting to work with you all potentially and well not potentially but hopefully in a retreat in the beginning of the year to identify strategic priorities for 2023 and make sure that's articulated clearly to staff eventually i think it would be great to also talk about a community plan maybe a five ten-year community plan strategic plan where we'd have some engagement with community about what they want to see how they want to see north st paul in 10 years i think that would be really helpful like i said i've spoken to a few residents who they they want to be engaged there's a lot of community pride and so i think it would be great to have them involved in a community plan that we could work together and give a road map to our staff too about where to go so yeah why should north st paul city council select you as the next city manager um i have i have a lot of passion for community north st paul has a lot of character it wouldn't be for any city that i'd want to be a city manager for i think this community really has a lot going for it and i want to continue to help build on these the success help continue to grow the community i have a lot of enthusiasm a lot of energy um i'm ready to hit the ground running i have a lot of training and experience that i can bring right away and put to to use here at north st paul and so i think i'd be a great candidate i'd be uh do a really great job for you and so i'd be honored if you chose me to be your city manager so thank you that was all ten questions okay did i make it in 30 minutes [Laughter] nice okay uh is there any follow-up questions from any of the council members how are the twins oh thank you for asking the twins are good they're old they're big now yes they're six we're not talking minnesota oh i was going to say they won five in a row oh thank you and on channel 11. thank you yeah they're doing well oh my gosh it was so huge on channel 11. but um because they've grown since then but yeah they're six and a half um yeah they're great i know they love all the activities that we have here in the community the car show they love snowmen so i can't wait to see the snowman especially in the wintertime they would love that um so yeah i think this community just has so many activities too fun activities that i think they would um they would really enjoy it here so you have any questions for us what's the top three priorities right away that you'd want the city manager to tackle first last time well you're going to be looking at maybe three new faces you know you realize that with the election i'm hoping i'm gonna be on there but i don't know but so that might be a challenge um what was the questioning on the priorities or what yeah the topic it's not so easy being on this side is it yeah top three priority projects or challenges yeah yeah just to keep the momentum going this has been a really strong team and you know we're being noticed throughout the whole state of how this used to be a little sleepy little town we're not a sleepy little town anymore so we want to keep the momentum going um so that's a high priority for me and i like the community engagement and i know our town has changed um and it's important to engage all the voices and i i do agree with that i'll just share one time and i think continued focus on our capital improvement plan we're an old older community and that's been neglected for many years and we kind of got a late start on that so but just we're seeing that in the the condition of our roads and infrastructure and i would i would agree with all those and uh you know stability is for me relationships you know working with staff being able to work with the staff be able to work with the community you know that's a priority for me yeah i think you know i would agree with a lot of what everyone has said already and yeah i think one thing is community engagement for me especially as we continue moving into redevelopment and our community is changing and that you know everyone's reflected in those changes wow it's really tough to go to the end at the end everything they said no the only the only thing i jotted down like four and i went check check check check um the only other thing that really that i want to continue focus on is just the continued development of downtown and finding finding businesses that fit the needs and the services that are continued growing downtown environment needs yeah um would you say that these are issues that keep you up at night or are there other issues that keep you up at night about north st paul all of the above okay my hair goes on fire and he's lost his hair wow no i'm sorry i didn't mean that um no i just uh there's a lot that keeps me you know public safety is number one we had that horrible incident on friday night or thursday night we were out having a picnic with our police officers and they all had to leave and we thought it was a fire well it was more than a fire so i mean it's it it's creeped in in our saint paul and it's unfortunate but yeah there's this public safety and just the crime and we've got a great police chief and we've got people in place but it's uh it's a concern of mine well i sleep very well at night but sticking to the capital improvement plan you know when there's water main breaks our public works director they probably don't sleep so well because they have to get up and deal with that stuff and yeah sometimes it's in february when it's 20 below and or in august when it's you know hot and humid so i would say you know public safety is probably number one you know knowing that people are going to bed safe and uh but another one is our infrastructure too you know i think we need uh we're having these hundred year reigns now and you know we're prone some parts of the city are prone to flooding and you know it's uh it could be one of those things that you wake up in the middle of night and wonder if you know there's a car underwater or what have you so things like that back at you yeah i mean i think a lot of things keep me up at night but um you know some things that i would probably say is you know there's a lot happening in terms of redevelopment it's moving quickly i think our city is growing the economic development is starting to even start to see that i just and what concerns me is that we're not including everyone particularly those that are most vulnerable so that could be older adults people of color people with low incomes and we have a naturally occurring affordable housing in this community and so just maintaining some of those things that our current residents or other residents may need yeah okay i agree with everybody okay yeah and the cip the infrastructure the roads the pipes all of that really important for development so i i get that being really important and of course public safety of course um let's see well i don't know if you have time i want to be respectful i have another question two minutes you got about two minutes okay who would be your ideal candidate for a city manager like who's the ideal person [Laughter] somebody with experience it's important i think this is an important job i don't take it lightly it's a serious decision that we're going to about to make we've got to have a leader and a collaborator and a good person and getting our community engaged all the all the things we're trying to answer that question today we got five people interviewing but uh just looking for someone who's a good leader who has good leadership qualities they're honest transparent and will provide stability and hopefully is here for a long period of time and is not just looking at this as an opportunity as a stepping stone to advance their career similar and uh connection connection with the community connection with the staff uh we have a long history here at north st paul so it's important that that person connects with with all those yeah i would just second that um the relational piece to me is really critical yeah i and at the end i'm like a strong experienced collaborative leader that's going to empower the staff the plans and being in the community for a long time it's good thank you i and i want to say that i can do all of that i bring a lot of a wealth of experience marketing communications is something that i think i'm the only candidate that probably brings that and so i definitely am already an ambassador for north st paul i have my pin so um [Laughter] but i would just be so thrilled and honored to serve you all in this community and so thank you again for your time thank you thank you oh that was uh craig's class yeah that was you is yeah we my neighbor helped with his truck and then he had like a big old chain that's specific for hauling so cool okay all right september already um 420. as if you didn't know but i'll turn over to mark uh are we ready to go uh or do you want to wait a couple minutes whatever your wishes we can go okay all right we have candidate number three in front of you mr mayor and members of the council the council will be asking you the ten questions similar to the other candidates there may be opportunities if they want a little more information they may have asked some follow-up questions you basically have 30 minutes to answer the 10 questions and if there is happen to be at any time at the end you have an opportunity to ask the council some questions otherwise without further ado we'll start into the interview process we have a time end time end time will be right here dude yeah for uh or 44 for 439 okay welcome eric uh or ken i'm sorry and welcome ken uh thank you for taking the time to to interview with us and i'm gonna invite you we're gonna go from right to left so i'm gonna start uh down at the right end here first question here please tell us what interests you about this position and highlight key qualifications that make you the best person for this job um well there's i suppose there's several motivations obviously i've gone into this profession uh with the ability the idea and the that to be flexible in terms of the different things that i get to be engaged in involved in i i i have the type of mind in which i i desire to you know be able to work on a variety of different things so that's uh something that's always been very appealing to me which you know 10 years ago when i was drawn to this profession that was what appealed i think one of the things that i would say really brings me to see north st paul as a real opportunity it's just the opportunity where growth and development is happening it's very appealing to me and professionally it's the type of work i like to be involved in i have experience doing several different housing development projects working with tax increment financing basically working on well gap financing if you will for a variety of different projects working with industry labor um working on downtown revitalization and i think you know looking at where this community is going and the activity that's going on this is the place for me to be able to put those skills to use personally i find a community like north st paul to really fit what it is i'm looking for at this point in my life i've come to realize i'm not i'm not a royal person i i like the convenience of of being in the city and having the services and actually like seeing a neighbor next door which right now my closest neighbor is like a quarter mile away so um so that's one of the other reasons and i want to live where i work you know so you know choosing north st paul isn't just choosing a career it's choosing my next home and i've i've given it a lot of thought i i don't just apply for every position that's out there and i i am comfortable where i am in scandia they treat me well but you know on that personal and professional level i just i don't have those opportunities okay welcome number two describe how you would build trust with the city council and staff trust comes from good communication and transparency i don't keep secrets that i don't have to keep i try to be forthright and provide information um sharing information is is the first thing that creates a culture of mistrust and and it just leads to unpleasantness i want to be your information resource you have a question i want to get you an answer you want to see a document i want to get it to you you know that's what i see is important i want to keep you regularly informed at least an email a week is you know something i'm accustomed to but obviously those bigger things you know that imminent emergency that people are going to come and talk to you about or something that's just going to bring up questions i want to make sure you know what's going on and have an idea of how to respond to that and give you the tools to be able to deal with those situations i want to make sure that i maintain a um of consistent accountability to you that you know um and you see my deliverables they make it to you on time i want to deliver you quality work it's very important to me that what is delivered to you is accurate and and punctual and and informs you so that you feel comfortable making the decisions that you need to make because i mean they're already hard enough and if you don't have the right information well that that's that would be a failure on my part thank you describe a time when you made a mistake at work how did you deal with the situation and what was the outcome oh i suppose one of the biggest mistakes uh in my career was very early but it was it was very impactful this was in wisconsin and this was back in like 2010 there was act 10 going on and the dissolution of a number of the public unions over there and as an intern i was actually tasked with helping develop the personnel manual which had been neglected because basically everybody had been represented and most of the policies had been addressed in the contracts and suddenly you know these contracts were no longer going to exist and i was working very diligently preparing this thing and working it with the department heads and uh what i didn't realize was how uncomfortable the staff was because they didn't know what the heck was going on and to me that was a very big failure because there's no reason why i shouldn't have been making sure that they could see the drafts and what was going on and what the resulted from that was a short period of animosity and frustration on people's part and it could have been avoided but i i didn't know any better but that lesson that lessons sticks with me ever since [Music] all right thank you welcome ken four how would you reach or serve diverse groups or traditionally underserved populations within our community i think that's going to take a really engaging effort it might even require some outside help but i if i was to undertake the process i think there's a number of things that we would have to undertake but i think it starts with identifying where our deficiencies are where we haven't been serving what are the concerns and needs of these communities and of course that means bridging the gap right so we need to find out why these folks aren't comfortable telling us uh their concerns or why why they they can't uh feel comfortable you know sharing those things and and that might mean reaching out to some of these uh you know diverse groups leaders in them uh religious leaders or uh community group leaders helping to make those communications happen um i think the other element would be uh developing what um and this has actually been something i've been studying um as a professional interest of mine but i i they in the industry of management they call it cultural agility the ability to um [Music] to recognize uh cultural difference and find the value and appreciate the perspective through that that different cultural lens which you know let's face it we all have our preconceived notions about what something should be or how it is done and i think to to deal with and become more prepared to integrate and bring in diversity means putting ourselves outside of our comfort zones uh challenging ourselves to to listen and and taking different perspective that really challenges our understanding of the way things are done and so that that to me is a that's going to be a very large undertaking but i'll tell you right now it's something i really want to do and when i saw that as an outcome in your comprehensive plan that was very appealing to me because professionally i think we have an ethical uh responsibility to serve all in our community and you know obviously it's understandable that you know societal conditions uh prevent us from sometimes uh being receptive to those communities needs but you know our job is to try to find our way through that gap and i want to be the person to help you do that ken welcome thank you uh describe your experience working collaboratively with other units of government or organizations and then describe how building these types of relationships benefited the community or or the organization that you were with uh i think you know in my career the some of the most beneficial things that i've been able to accomplish have been done uh with the help and collaboration of other agencies i mean when i was out in pine city we had just an excellent relationship with pine county and having their support [Music] behind a lot of the things that we were working on made a really big difference for example one of the things that i was challenged with when i came into pine city was addressing housing shortage and housing shortage for diverse populations because uh you know the community does have its fair share of of uh lower income uh individuals so uh one of the things uh that we did very early on is we partnered with the county and the county helped us prepare a housing study for the entire county and by the way when when this happened this was not just pine city but hinckley and sandstone were the other two larger communities in the county and that was just a very valuable effort so that we could all understand what the housing needs were and we did it collectively it wasn't really a competition and that that made a big difference too because our freedom of sharing of information uh helped us make a lot of very good development connections um you know i was able to facilitate what is now going to be a you know a 300 unit uh uh senior living facility right across in the courthouse over there and it was just by making a contact with a colleague in cambridge and uh finding out the name and contact of a developer and that was because you know we collaborate and we share information so you know to me working with other agencies is absolutely essential and having a good collaborative relationship is important whether we share a road whether we share a jurisdiction that's all very fundamental and a lot of the communities i've been in we haven't had our own police department i've been in communities that have but obviously having a relationship with the sheriff's department and the sheriff and his command was kind of essential for us to be able to address a lot of the community policing needs and our own ordinance in enforcement so yeah i i don't see us being very effective without having good relations with our our neighbors and county and other agencies thank you all right question number six in your current or previous roles what is the most difficult decision you've had to make and how did you come to that decision right uh you know sometimes just because our the business requires us to tell somebody they can't do that and tell them no that's sometimes pretty hard but i suppose one of the the probably the most difficult things i've ever done professionally was dealing with condemnation and working uh through the condemnation of property particularly uh when there are people living there right um you know as a city we we we don't want to make somebody homeless but at the same time uh we don't want them to live in unsafe living conditions and so you know those have probably been the hardest um you know i once uh had a condemnation uh where a tenant the the property was so uh in such poor condition that the tenant actually went through the bathroom floor uh like fell through a hole opened up um you know so we had to help him find another place to to live fortunately we were able to do that he was the only tenant in there but that one was difficult i think the probably the hardest uh it was in pine city where we had a property that was already not well managed by its owner and there were delinquent payments for like utilities know so winter coming no heat those type of things so you know we had to work very hard to try to find a way to make sure these folks had you know housing but at the same time addressing the safety concerns i think those those have been the hardest uh issues uh you know arguing with the the gas company to keep the gas on and like well you guys can collect uh your fee but what about us you know so you know we had to figure out solutions and we had to be really creative um because i mean the the the consequences of of not doing it right you know could mean somebody's either not living safe or don't have a home altogether so those were probably the most difficult uh professional things i had to deal with number seven describe a situation that you feel demonstrates your integrity and ethical standards uh i once had an inspector who had to inspect a property owned by a city council member and there were a number of pretty substantial violations that council member came to me and asked me to stop what was happening and i told him that i couldn't and that i wouldn't and that i had to make sure that we followed our ordinance and addressed the issues i told him what i would tell just about anybody else you know let's talk let's work out solutions to getting this done but it was it was quite damaging uh to my relationship with that council member for a while after some time i was able to uh recoup a little bit of that relationship before he he had left the council um but uh i was quick to tell my inspector i would have his back and that i was gonna make sure that you know we were able to proceed with dealing with those inspection violations that was hard but it was the right thing to do you know we don't offer special treatment to people just because of their position we have to try to treat people fairly regardless of that so that that would be one example [Music] number eight what have you done in your current position or previous positions that made a significant difference to the organization oh boy um you know i looking back on it there's a variety of different things that i could probably call back on i think you know i came in uh to one community um fairly recent uh that had a very negative work culture and a very culture of distrust and fear and a lot of grievances and you know what i was pleased is that when i left that community won i had staff who asked me not to leave but two i mean many of them told me that they were happy to come to work again and so that to me meant a great deal i think the other element and i'm just going to add on to this is just you know to see all the development you know to remember that this just started with a conversation i had with this developer and now look all of these units and uh housing that wasn't there before and to see that building become a reality that i mean that's a legacy that i think is is also very impactful thank you thanks i have question nine north st paul has experienced some recent turnover with the city manager position if hired what do you feel needs to be addressed right away well i think the first thing that i need to do is build the confidence that you all will expect of me but also the staff and the community i want to build very good and effective relationships with all of you i want you i want everybody to know that i am here to help and try to solve problems when i can or find where we can get an answer to a problem or how we can address it so that's very important uh is establishing those strong relationships and being as communitive as i can you know communication is just i think an essential thing that i prioritize quite a bit i think the other elements will be to just make sure that i am not letting very critical projects get delayed you know delaying any capital project or development project can be extremely costly and and so i think the other thing is just making sure that we have the continuity that things are continuing to move forward without pause or delay and i think the the other thing is you know just absorbing as much as possible so that i can be as effective as a generalist as possible i will definitely be turning to your management team they've been very they impressed me a great deal and i think you have a very great staff so i think on that front it's going to be it's not going to be an awfully difficult uh thing for me to transition into this position but what will be important is that i identify the gaps that need to be filled that i keep things going that i make sure everybody knows what's going on why should north st paul city council select you as our next city manager well i think one of the things that i would just say is i think i i have the requisite skills sets that you are looking for i can lead i'm not afraid to manage when management is needed i'm good at development and creating relationships to facilitate development i'm also good at helping navigate development and help guide developers through the process well making sure that our interests are not overlooked or underwritten i'm good at being flexible filling the needs and the gaps my entire career has been about doing those sorts of things so i think from my perspective it's that i can be a little bit molded i'm not i don't have sharp corners and um i come in with the open idea of understanding and then i also want to facilitate you know best practice doing things exemplary i want us to be recognized for for the things that we do not so that it's like patting ourselves on the back but so that we know as a team of what we've accomplished so i i think i bring those elements and you know i i do so uh with every investment uh this is not just a career change this is a there's a relocation for me um i'm moving and i want to be a part of this place so that's what i would say great thank you we do have a lot i think it's 450 isn't it any follow-up questions for ken that's a good sign wow okay do you have any questions for us of course um so you know one of the things is i've been doing my research on your community is you know to have a major highway bisect um you know north from south i looked at the comprehensive plan and certainly there was elements of talking about how to to support interconnectivity but my question to you is um do you see this physical divide as somehow breaking the cohesion of our comm of the community does it does north feel different than south or is this just something that isn't an issue here good question i think it used to be we we got a bridge finally because i was always the north side and then the south side where my parents were so that was difficult but it's helpful um we're going through the 36 and 120 deal and that that'll be part of your part on your plate too i don't know if it's gonna happen in my time or our time but um we're on the discussion on that but um have you had any like real serious discussion with mndot about oh yeah oh yeah okay yeah it's a lot of talk a lot of talk no money but uh it's an ongoing thing i mean we're at the table right okay well it's good to be engaged yeah i mean i've seen mndot do some things and no bad-mouthing the agency there is very good but slimes it can be disjointed you talk to one person here you hear something from somebody else so it can be sometimes difficult working with them but they're good people there and they're a good agency but um i'd say another question that i have um you know i think one of the things that we focus on a lot just because our job is to to make things better um is that we focus on the negative my curiosity is to you what would if you were to brag about something and i know it it breaks with humility but brag about something that north st paul has accomplished what would that be and and why do you think that's you know worthy oh okay well your first question for the physical divide i i've lived here my whole life and i've lived on both sides of the highway and it's it's a non-issue it was quite the change when the the highway 36 project went in and we had uh you know bridges at margaret and mcknight now but it's not really an issue for me anyway things to brag about north st paul i think our uniqueness and that we have a downtown and that a lot of cities don't have that and are envious of that but also it's it's gone through you know the changes with the mapwood mall and the exodus of businesses just how that all changes and now we're seeing some redevelopment um and a lot of it is residential apartment driven and so there are concerns that you know housing is going to overtake downtown we're going to lose that small town feel and and those drive these businesses out so that's just something to be cognitive of question related to where you're taking this um my curiosity is have we have has there been an effort to undertake like downtown branding trying to make a downtown more of a some sort of destination where people you know find that this is the place to shop or if we not or say we but i'm not not even part of this organization yet but um has there been efforts to try to draw people to downtown and uh you know how has those worked out so i would say that you know the marketing we have kind of done signage you know for the downtown try to get people off the uh i think that i think we do lack that i think it's a kind of a negative negative thing that we do lack uh we just talked about maybe putting a sign down to mcknight you know drawing people to to the downtown uh but i think uh having the restaurant you know we have a new restaurant in town that's going to draw people on the downtown so we're we're heading for that we're heading in the right direction and i think we need we need more help with that councilmember wong i know if you want to add to that or um so for for your first question in regards to the divide from my perspective if i am on a bike or walking it there is a big difference in how i access the other side of the freeway um but my car is fine i would say there's a difference in density and access to resources so you have some of the larger major parks on the north side and then i mean you have some pretty good smaller parks on the south side but there are some differences there and to your second question um can you repeat that again well the question is is if you had something that uh is there something about north st paul that you think is worthy of bragging about i guess would be the question yeah i would i would reiterate that the downtown is something that has so much potential and we're already in that you know um uh going going through it and i think that it's just gonna continue being our biggest asset and all the connections um that you know like the gateway trail can you know really highlight the gateway yes i've done quite a bit of work on gateway just yesterday i was able to i'm sorry i just have to mention this because i'm so excited yesterday i was at the capitol and we were able to secure 2.6 million to do a segment of gateway and scandia so it's exciting to see that that trail get built out so by the way one other thing i'd like to mention i i'm not afraid to go and look for money and i'm not afraid to go to the legislature and try to seek out opportunities and resources i know enough that i'm not always capable of doing it on my own but i have been successfully able to obtain federal funding and state funding a recent example you know for projects and and i hope that i can bring that talent to you guys as well it's a lot of work and it is time investment so it has to be very strategic but i think you know when it when planned out it can be really quite valuable because there's a big return on investment but about one minute left you want to add anything i guess from question number one no i i truly don't see from an interaction of the city standpoint a lot of differences between the north side and the south side um you know a lot of the things that the council member brought up are from accessibility walkability resources from one of the things that i that i would brag about north st paul it's two things is just one community i think everybody that you talk to this president and that stems from just that small town feel from the downtown nice i want to be a part of that i like small towns but i like the convenience that north st paul offers so i'm really hopeful um that you do select me and i am very sincere in my interest in being part of this wonderful community and i i hope you give me some really good thought so thank you very much for all your time thank you and inviting me out here thank you privilege thank you thank you for taking the time to apply oh thank you you break my pencil it's been a while i like the feeling of a graphite pencil i think maybe because i grew up with it like is that very young um we do like introductions the next two people know who we are i just realized okay thank you you hello uh you hmm a half an hour goes fast um hiking no camping okay right around please um do you have like nice that's hard videos never do my chair squeak i know today at the acre view apartments is 33 rentals [Music] [Music] you like cheers when norm had the squeaky shoes no or uh cliff cliff had the squeaky shoes sure 5 10 so it'll be 5 40. all right yeah mr wow okay sorry what no thinking a couple minutes here mr america's council this is the fourth candidate of five this would be miss uh nicole miller and she'll be absolutely interviewing for the city manager position uh there's 30 minutes and she has 10 questions so i've been become compo incumbent upon her to make sure that she gets through them all if there is time at the end then if miss miller wishes to ask any questions she sure can a view of the city council if time permits thank you welcome nicole you just relax and uh we're gonna start the interview by the side of the room and we're gonna work this way and work back so just relax and if you need to take a drink go ahead and take a drink and i'll turn it over to uh council member thorson hello nicole the first question here is please tell us what interests you about this position and highlight key qualifications that make you the best person for this job well thank you to the city council for having me here this is i'm just grateful for the opportunity to interview for the city manager position here i just want to start by telling you a little bit about myself i come from a community that's a cohesive and high functioning team we have a positive culture and so what i would bring to your community here is high level of trust and follow through how i do that is through collaborative communications with the council and staff where both council and staff feel that they can come to me as an information hub currently staff come to me put your hold on one second nicole sorry okay sorry about that that's okay hopefully it works though um here we go let's see how close i can get it right be like a rock star we're good all right so currently staff come to me with potential problems and together as a team we create solutions example of that is every year each department does an annual report they used to be about 20 pages long and together as a team we condensed that down into eight panel brochure for each department which we believe would be easier for the community to digest versus 20 to 30 page paper and one thing i'm really good at is strategic planning i've had the opportunity to be part of an annual goal-setting strategic planning retreat that is a well-run machine and so my direct involvement in that right now is i work with the facilitator to create the agenda and to come up with discussion topics i also work with the department heads to review our prior year accomplishments as well as what's coming up on the radar for them some of the discussion topics we've had revolve around affordable housing we had discussion about communications recently the residential single-family zoning and all of this helps us to create our goals for the rest of that year north st paul has real meaning to me i'm a north high grad i participate in the community events over over many years the car show fall roundup parade i was sharing with your staff i remember the tour de north st paul 5k pancake breakfast mostly enjoyed the pancakes after the walk run i had the opportunity to be part of your fire department where i saw the community pull together and serve the rest of their community with professionalism and pride and so this is a community i'd be honored to work for yeah welcome nicole question number two describe how you would build trust with the city council and staff building relationships so i would focus on finding out what the priorities are of the council and then also how they want to be communicated with and also building those relationships with staff to see how i can help them to be successful as well as getting information from staff hoping while as i'm building that relationship where they are coming to me to keep me informed so that i can come to you to keep you informed number three describe a time when you made a mistake at work how did you deal with this situation and what was the outcome probably the most recent mistake i made i've made many we're not perfect and i own them so part of a code review committee with other staff and my role is to update our city code after our code changes have been implemented at one of our meetings i saw on the agenda what that one of the items was city code updates missed or something to that effect and so instantly i said hey that's me that's me what did i what did i miss and so the group explained that there were some um recent updates that weren't in the code and so i said let them all know that they can just come to me at any time say hey nicole you missed this so what i've learned to do after that is after i make changes then i will close the document and then reopen it to make sure it's there thank you thank you welcome nicole question four how would you reach or serve diverse groups or traditionally underserved populations within our community let's see think of this situation for a second um currently i'm involved in many collaborations with outside organizations and i nurture those relationships to make sure they're solid so that we can support each other some of the projects that i've worked on involve right now is with our kiwanis organization we had initiative to welcome new residents that we partnered with kiwanis to do i'm currently working with them to branch out to our multi-family new residents and what the welcoming packet includes is information on how to navigate the community as well as resources for them probably take the same approach as i have when i led our complete count committee for the census is really taking the approach of people trust and will listen to people that they're familiar with so building those relationships first and then hopefully those organizations if it's faith groups or the school or whatever can disseminate that information to their members and because they have that trusting relationship it will maybe be more effective but i'm always every interaction i have with resident or contractor is really just to be respectful and to listen to them and i think that's most important is that people want to be listened to and at the end of the day the best thing that can come from it is that i've created kind of a ambassador for the city that's great because then they can go tell people that they know what they learned from the city as well thank you nicole welcome uh describe your experience working collaboratively with other units of government or or organizations then describe how building these types of relationships benefited the community or organization you worked for sure kind of to piggyback off off the last question as well so some of the outside collaborations that i lead i'm the point person for are with the counties for elections and environmental health and we recently i was able to secure some technical assistance from ramsey county to help us along with project humbling going from our organized collection for waste haulers going down from three to a single waste holler so i was able to do that the all these different relationships that we have really just give us additional tools in our toolbox to help our residents out as well thank you we're on question number six in your current or previous role what has been the most difficult decision you've had to make and how did you come to that decision in my current role our community experienced a police officer-involved shooting which left the community hurting what i did to help support our team is to create a positive space where staff and my supervisor could come and express how they were feeling and just just to be an open door policy i also noticed during that time that our front office staff were feeling left out of some communications so because there is not a playbook that we could go by to to deal with this tragedy that happened so i went out there and i could try and give them information as i as i could and also to listen to how they were feeling sometime later my supervisor told me what an important leadership role that i provided in keeping the team cohesive during this difficult time so it didn't definitely wasn't really a decision i knew i was making a time but that i just showed up and you just you just um are there for your community and we were pulled together and did the best i could number seven describe a situation that you feel demonstrates your integrity and ethical standards um probably piggyback of our the last situation i would say that i'm always very transparent and honest with everyone even when their perceptions might differ from me and so i wasn't alone in this but a lot of staff you know we were dealing with a hurting community so we had to field a lot of calls from people that were angry and even if i didn't agree with what they were saying i understood how important it was to just listen number eight what have you done in your current position or previous positions that made a significant difference to the organization currently in my role i oversee several areas of communications and it's a heavy workload so our council was supportive and allowed us to hire a communications coordinator which then could focus on the day-to-day communications while i focus on more strategic planning for communications as a result of that i was able to complete a comprehensive communications plan for our community two website redesigns that went through increased social media presence for our administration department i also lead monthly meetings with regarding communications for all of our departments and say most importantly is a project i'm working on right now which is a community engagement project that came out of our strategic planning session this year and it's a i'm leading a livability survey for the community which is focusing on 10 key facets of livability in the communities some areas are public safety health wellness parks those type of things those results will be available later this year and then we will use that at our next goal setting to figure out how we can best utilize those results and so i feel very proud of that but what i think that i would what i would want um to be remembered by or like what i think i made the biggest impact in in the community i'm at right now is just being a positive and contributing member of the team and so it's not just projects i've completed but how i've been a part of their team all right thank you i have question nine so north st paul has experienced some recent turnover with the city manager position if hired what do you feel needs to be dressed addressed right away yes i'm aware i'm aware of that and what i share with your staff as well is the reason i'm here is because of the staff is because of all the good things i've heard about them as well as yourselves but i mostly hear about the staff and so i just want to make sure that we can i can help them addressing any staffing issues they have but also taking a look at any holes that we have with staffing i also have experience with having the opportunity when different positions have opened up in our community to reevaluate and to look at what the current needs are of of the city with staff's input because they know what they're doing as well so that would definitely be a priority of mine thank you why should north st paul city council select you as our next city manager hopefully i've demonstrated that the city is near and dear to me it does mean something to me on top of that i'm a strong project leader i've been told by my team members that they come to me when if they know they know i will see a project through to completion i'm detail orientated and i am a great collabor collaborator how i lead the projects that i'm currently working on is i hear the goals and objectives from the stakeholders such as yourselves and meet with our subject matter experts which are staff to come up with potential projects that will meet your meet your goals i communicate very openly about timelines and any potential issues we have and collaboration is key along with communications to me if i see that communications are going awry i immediately call our team together and have a conversation so we can get back on track an example of a current project that i'm currently leading that's almost completed is again the single hauler rfp thank you do we have any follow-up questions for nicole i am none do you have any questions for us i do i do thank you first that's the hard part for us i'm sure you've been asked this um um what are the few major priorities of the city manager that you would expect right away peterson what are our priorities right now well just to keep the momentum going with the redevelopment i don't want to stall that out keeping our community engaged and you know listening to them and not forgetting other voices and then that highway 36 and 120 is a big issue keeping informed on that and at the table because that will affect us down the road thanks one thing that i have done too is to attend community events and to be the face of the city during non-business hours so i think it's really important for community engagement as well we'll just go right down we'll answer the question and i think stability in the management position here i mean that having that turnover and that turmoil it creates a trickle-down effect and so you know hopefully our goal is we find someone who's who's here for long term and can provide leadership and that this isn't just like a building block for their career and then just to focus on our capital improvement plan in our infrastructure that's aging and needs to be addressed and i agree with with what's been said and you know i believe building the relationship between the community relationship like you say you know you're the face of the city so you're out in the community i think that's you know very positive uh being the face of the uh uh internal of the organization you know building those relationships i think that's that's really important yeah again it would echo everything here and um yeah i think relationships particularly internal i think will be super vital at this point um for the city manager and then subsequently other other relationships whether that be with like our new legislators or new community members coming in and that they're involved and that you know their voices are at the table and reflect the changes that are happening here in north st palm stability in the role is is key for me one of the other ones that i that i haven't heard is just finding alternative uh ways to generate funding uh you know whether that be grants whether that be other you know other things that we haven't been able to take advantage of as a city sure that could potentially be a goal-setting topic that you might want to delve deeper into with maybe a subject matter expert from some area that could help figure that out what i did share with your staff is the same thing that you guys are addressing right now or bringing up a stability i am here because of the staff and the positive feedback that i've received about them and so if chosen for the city manager position i'm going to come here and it's not a stepping stone it's a very similar type of organization where i currently come from so i feel very comfortable stepping into that role but i don't have any plans to go anywhere else i mean it means something to me to be here anything else for if i do have time [Music] what are the biggest challenges that the city manager will face it probably maybe is some of the same same things um we've already discussed but maybe can i just ask um how do you see the city manager being involved in the onboarding process for the new council members turn over to councilmember thorson so the biggest challenges that the manager may face will be i think dealing with staffing issues that's always a challenge and how how you deal with those challenges as they come up um and then just the capital improvement plan and redevelopment on some of these projects they can get very complicated um and then how you interact with staff and our contractors um but the onboarding for new council members um you know i'm trying to think back when i first got elected i got a phone call from one council member who i was replacing and met with him got a phone call from the mayor met with him and then other than that the city manager had a phone call at some point after some meetings and just kind of you know gave me some tips and resources and and the commission i was appointed so it's kind of up to the manager and how they see fit but i would envision you being a very active role in reaching out and being proactive and rather than having people kind of you know wondering what what do i do how do i get the how do i get into the building how does my email get set up those sorts of things that just you know be upfront and communicate immediately with those people so they feel comfortable coming in here and they're not like an outsider you know i skipped you so i wanted to go to councilmember peterson changing it up no made a mistake oh no i i piggyback on councilmember thorson um you know you're looking at probably some new people here and then you've got those those guys there and they're they're not they're new but they're they're old i mean so it could be you know a big big changeover so i like the idea of being more welcoming and they don't there's not really a handbook for this job either you learn as you go and so i figure you'd be willing to do that and yes i actually have um some great resources for onboarding yeah i would be able to utilize in this role as well right also it's important again we talk about relationships but also um i think it's important for the council members to develop that relationship and to see each other as um real people and humans so hopefully help facilitate that as well like a retreat or something yeah and i would agree that you know that's important that you know the freshman coming in it's like it's just like high school you know it's freshmen coming in and they don't know a whole lot and they look up to the seniors not necessarily age seniors but the seniors and in the high school and you know the mentors the mentors it could be the department heads you know so you all got to work together and to build that relationship as a newer council member i think one thing that i found particularly useful was the league of minnesota city's course that they have for new elected i found that valuable and especially when coming up to budget time and things like that so from a practical standpoint well again being lost living last um uh from from challenges i've really got two staffing is one um and making sure that you keep everybody's staff balanced and and you know they're they're definitely all their plates are full and the other one is from your specific role keeping all the plates spinning um there's a lot of plates on sticks spinning right now and we can't have anything wobble um and some of those might keep you up at night so there's those those would be a couple of the big the big challenges that i see but from an onboarding standpoint communication from your role uh communication collaboration with with what sits up here on council um there are additional resources available lisa addressed league of minnesota cities i think had a phenomenal one legal provided some great staffing some some definite direction as what some of the rules are that we may or may not have thought of just as well as other department heads with within to help better understand what's going on are you referring to the open meeting law by chance i'd never refer to an open meeting with more than three people i am pretty familiar with that myself and i am comfortable and currently manage a lot of different projects all at once so um i like to be involved and but i also know when my plate gets too full to see the opportunities to delegate different duties to staff so they can take ownership of it as well but i would look forward to being part of the onboarding process and i know that coming in you know that there could be some turnover but i think it's exciting too so well thank you unless you have something else for us if that was all my questions right good thank you and thank you for taking the time to apply for the position and you know we look forward to trying to make a decision a little bit here so thank you thank you oh no that's new um yeah i just want to clarify that was my mistake i get it i get it i get it sometimes carrie will just like crank my mic up and it scares me to hear my own voice that one um one more one more i had a schedule this is awesome what no you guys stick around you gotta stick around [Music] sure enjoy the rest of your day yeah you should go see it um yeah we have no recycling for cans upstairs a couple times oh oh there's no recycling in the there's a recycling on the parking lot door aluminum in the kitchen oh i didn't check there yeah i think in the hallway and stuff so it's just well at the park when i had my class reunion they had the recycling and all the cans went in there it was very organized yeah yeah we need one of those here now what i'm telling you is and then when you see brian in a suit i know it looks nice so are we zooming back at six i would assume yeah no why are we starting at 6 because brian's already done his panel interview is he done yeah he did at 1 30. the lights are off in the room yeah he did his at 1 30. with this he probably doesn't know he can come up earlier maybe that's what sandy's doing hmm did you shoot brian and how to head you keep looking at your phone look at the clock so i figured something's going on you the police john do you order the fair absolutely not crowds um right across from the golf course i was going to the transit center they did they didn't they did five bucks each way or something or something two or six dollars something like that the transit center at maplewood in the past and so i learned real quick that the transits charged but you go down to the spot on 61 the church down there council member thorson all right first question please tell us what interests you about this position and highlight key qualifications that make you the best person for this job well i feel i'm pretty heavily invested into this city i've worked for the city of north st paul for 23 years um you know i started off as a lineman got into management after being here about a year and then advanced into the director management position this is just a wonderful place to work on so many levels uh we have a wonderful downtown where a unique city that we have our own downtown um we have great people that work here i i couldn't promote that enough actually but we have it on every level we have it on the employees that are out there on the front lines doing the work we have directors that do their job well and that shows in the work and the output that they have but we also are fortunate to have a city council that backs um these employees you know last year i came to you guys uh middle of the year wasn't even the budget time um we had a situation with the pd and you know trying to get a full staff for them and asked you guys for an employee an officer and a cso and you turned around and gave us two csos and an officer so that kind of backing is invaluable it's just so important it goes a long ways it helps the morale of the city and i hope i can bring that stability to the employees as well which i think i can um so not only have i been fortunate enough to uh do some city manager work i got to do city manager work here for the city of north st paul so it's been about nine months now um it's been a great experience uh like i said the employees everybody's always asked you know if there's anything you need uh is there anything i can help with we just we have so many good things going on we've seen development here that we haven't seen in probably 50 years it keeps moving forward in a positive manner i love to keep steering it down that path i think it's just a great place to work and i would love to be in that position until i retired question number two brian describe how you would build the trust with the city council and staff [Music] well i think one of the hardest things that a city manager has to do if they're moving around is to build that relationship you know with with council first and foremost but also the employees and knowing their employees knowing how they operate what they need the guidance they need as a manager but you know some of this just it just takes more time of course we are familiar with each other um but we've been able to work closer here for the nine months i was doing the interim position um you know we know the the wants and the needs and i don't think that that's too difficult when you're doing the job you're being transparent you're being forward with the information you know following out the uh requests that you guys have for whatever operations that we're having um so i just think that builds over time but i think we uh are fortunate to have a leg up on that with the history i have with the city describe a time when you made a mistake at work how did you deal with the situation and what was the outcome oh gosh you know early on when uh i went from being a lineman into management it was probably my first taste at being a management and well i thought well you're a manager all you have to do is tell people what to do and they're just going to do it i couldn't disagree with that more at this point you know you have to put out there the positive attitude the knowledge that you're backing the employees having a positive attitude with the employees so you know and asking or telling somebody to do this job you know that person thankfully they spoke up said you know i mean that was pretty rude or whatever the situation was and it really humbled me and i was really glad it happened and um it was an early on mistake uh i believe i really learned from that but i learned from that every day actually with uh the different employees that we have the personalities that we have um it's just an ongoing learning process dealing with our employees but we're pretty fortunate with the ones that we do have thank you welcome brian um i have question four how would you reach or serve diverse groups or traditionally underserved populations within our community seriously i would continue on with what we're doing uh so you know phil since he's been here uh they've started a community policing program um to where they actually had those areas of the city that they know that those police officers are working in they have that frontline communication asking for the needs and concerns of the residents you know just that open communication that we have with our public whether or not when we go out and we ask for what were the different needs and wants of the community center you know in an open public forum we got to listen to what people thought and you know having their kids have some place to go after school and before the time the parents get off of work um you know whether or not it's a a boys club or uh you know part of the working with the school district where we could do some kind of joint planning another thing that we have that is really nice is that called civic ready so we have the software that translate the languages into languages uh the different languages that we have out there in our community you know we just did it today notifying people that their garbage day might change with the holiday coming up you know it's been used with uh phil and his community um policing program um so take advantage of what we already have and just build and learn on that from there but open ourselves up to what the needs are and i think we have a special uh i don't know a chance to do that with our student build housing program as well you know more affordable housing that we might have an option for the for those people but there's all sorts of ways that we can do it and take advantage of what we already have thank you brian welcome thank you uh describe your experience in working collaboratively with other units of government or organizations then describe how building these types of relationships benefit the community or organization you work for sure um this is a very common thing that we do uh so most recently with our you know we're talking about the highway 120 um you know redevelopment so i know they've started that project south of 94. um they've gotten a good jump on that there's nine communities that they're working with north of 94 all the way to 694. we were working with different counties we're working with the state i think there's a lot of collaborative efforts that we can do you know and the last time i was in rome i saw the benefits of having those contacts and relationships with whether or not at state representatives or state senators grant programs that might be available for housing or business improvements i think there's a lot to be gained by having those relationships you know even with uh our conservation improvement program that we have in our electric department to where you know we spend money on ways to have energy savings have sustainable energy you know i partnered with the school district and we gave out many thousands of eco kits that we gave to the kids that they were able to bring home to their parents but you know we also made it interesting for the younger kids it was an elementary school so whether or not it was a coloring book or you know something to get that point across as well so there are a lot of agencies that we can benefit from and that can benefit from us and i think we do that on a regular basis i think that really does help and build our community it keeps us plugged in to the wants and needs of people that's how we get that feedback i think relationships are just an incredibly critical part of this job and to keep going with that and build on what i already have for relationships not only in the city but with the community all right question number six in your current or previous roles what is the most difficult decision you've had to make and how did you come to that decision it's one i think about all the time actually at uh of course when you're dealing with hr issues not to get in any kind of depth or detail but you know this this person was not just a colleague they were a dear friend and it got to a point where the functions of the job could not be accomplished you know you feel like you do it you can with those friendships you know you cover for them you try to make up that difference you know but you step back a minute and you look at the bigger picture and what messages that send to the other employees that are here that if you can't perform the duties of your job and you're still around i mean incredibly gut-wrenching situation it was extremely difficult but we did have conversations uh understood where we were coming from and what the city's needs were and how they weren't getting met and the person did end up moving on just very difficult hr situations can be very heart strings can be pulled on those it can be tough a situation that you feel that demonstrates your integrity in a way i could bring up that same situation um you know is is it ethical to allow somebody to keep working that can't do their functions of the job but you know they're friends of the people that you're working with uh you know that that's pretty difficult but you know being ethical i think is that's almost a daily uh thing that you deal with i mean you you're expected to do what other people do as well there it's not uh do as i say not um as i do um you have to live that and you have to walk that line and you have to be able to show people that you're one of the group you have to follow the same rules everybody else has to follow so i think that's a pretty good ethical path that really helps morale and helps relationships in the city it really helps for a positive attitude with the with all the employees what have you done in your current position or previous positions that made a significant difference to the organization i don't know i've never been afraid to step up and um you know take on the additional tasks of what is needed i've actually would say that that is one of the things i really love about this job we're a small community so we get to wear many hats the variety to me is wonderful i i really enjoy that um you're working for a bigger utility you're only doing one thing you're only doing overhead work or underground work and we really get to branch out and that's no different than this position as well um so just repeat the question one more time what have you done in your current position or previous positions that made a significant difference to the organization so even last time i think that example i brought up earlier of um you know coming to you guys and seeing a need that we had um i think the the pd was in a tough spot i mean they come june they had already used up all of their overtime people were getting burned out um that's not um not a healthy situation for anybody to be burned out in you know saw the need came to you and and you guys helped out with it that was no different than even in public works to where you know we saw the need um after we had um done some rearranging and management previously and i think we kind of found out that uh like the public works they they really did need that superintendent back in that position and i know that meant uh the world to ron it allowed him to do his job at a better level it helps create with succession planning as well um so listening to the the needs of the employees um open communication and you know we do what we can to give the employees the tools and the training and education that they need to do their job to the best that they can thank you all right i have question nine north st paul has experienced recent turnover with the city manager position if hired what do you feel needs to be addressed right away stability i don't even have to think about that the i tell you that that drove me to want to do this uh you know especially for employees that have been here for eight years or so that turnover is difficult and i've seen what it does to morale you know it it keeps a damper on i think what your potential can be when you don't have that stability in your job you don't know you know what's going to happen next uh i can bring that um and for the sake that i've had the feedback from the employees that have asked me to do it i remember we're in a staff meeting and collectively they brought it up i didn't about this position and they said what do you think about that and i said well you know if i was thinking about it this is actually where i would start that conversation is in that meeting with the directors to know that i have their backing and that they feel that i could do a good job for them as well as they could do a good job for the city so thank you why should north saint paul city council select you as our next city manager well it's not to say that people can't learn uh the you know the intrinsic relationships that we have but that foundation has already been set um i have a long-running relationship with the employees i know what is important to you guys the communication the transparency the um you know following out your directives um you know having a a well-run budget you know for for the city to making sure we're not going over budget there's many aspects to this job that i've already done and i think i have a pretty good feel for what your guys's needs are but i also love learning new things that's another thing that drove me to this position there's always something new to learn and i look forward to the challenges and i would love to be the city manager to do that for you any follow-up for brian i have nothing do you have any questions for us well i guess you know when i have questions i usually come to you pretty fast i know to what the answer is just try to stay on top of things but um i'm sure it's a common question but like you said we've had uh you know turnover in our city management what are you looking for for key characteristics for that position to be held in a healthy manner that is good for all parties involved peterson um i'm i'm sorry i was what was your question i was just curious um so with the turnover we've had with city managers what do you feel in seeing that changeover is an important you know characteristic or uh function of the job that you guys would like to see whether or not it's different than what was done before or better or do you think anything was missing before that is critical for you guys yeah there was some things missing i think i thought you brought a lot of stability back you know i know people like you here and that's important to me because i'm not your well i'm your boss but i'm not i don't work under you or what i'm not here every day so um just you know be the leader you are and um you know people like your leadership style i think because you're pretty low key i've never seen you get upset maybe that'll change you know we get higher but i just um i i took you've been growing in this position and i i've i've i've seen the positivity and i like it thanks yeah i think you touched on and we've mentioned this in a similar question and it's stability having this revolving door in this position it has a definite trickle-down effect and it also you know we're in a fishbowl here with how we operate or we should be we're very transparent and people know what goes on and where it travels fast so it can also have negative impacts on the type of people you bring in you know maybe people don't want to apply for a job here because they they've heard things and see things so bringing stability um to the position you know is probably key for me i agree with both of them uh to me it's uh also uh understanding the community you have to understand the community to understand the needs and the wants and everything and [Music] internally you know the the people that work under you you have to understand them so again it goes back to relationships and knowing what makes north saint paul north saint paul because we have a long history and understanding that i think is very beneficial i would expand on that or agree and agree with that um in terms of relationships obviously internal super important in this role um as well as external from residents to our other elected officials to businesses etc so having those relationships i think is really critical in moving um and leveraging our resources to do the things that we want here um i would think i would add um one thing that um would be helpful that i from our experience prior was probably some um hard conversations and accountability thank you for me it's just stability within the role uh internal trust and accessibility from council and i wholeheartedly piggyback on on councilmember wong's last comment we have such a great community here um i just feel really fortunate to be part of it it i've always enjoyed coming to work um the people that we have here are second to none every time there's an issue people step up if they don't know the answers they know where to find it and they get it done we're lucky you're lucky to have such a great crew that we have here and employees that we have here and how much they actually care about what happens day to day here and to see that it was really nice and interesting i mean i had an idea of what everybody's job was but i think i got to see it more firsthand coming up as an interim and and seeing the inside workings of that and how people are willing to step up and do what it takes to get that job done and you know working for the public um you know if it's a small need or a large need i mean they were there they do the follow-up um i just can't say enough about the people that are here which makes this job uh a lot easier anything else any other questions for us just thank you for having trust in me and do the interim position and i appreciate you know interviewing today so thank you good thank you brian and wish you luck and thank you for applying for the position thank you we're done now what no includes the uh the interviews and now next would be for your individual deliberation we have uh feedback forms that are supplied by the staff during their staff panel and i'll be handing those out shortly and then reconvening at seven o'clock for the deliberate for your action hopefully appointing the next city manager do we need to reconvene at seven or can it be six forty five give us our open hour we could probably ask them visual person to put that on the the screen on on tv to say that reconvene at 6 45. is that acceptable to the council great mr av person could do that too appreciate it thumbs up from them thumbs up all right sounds good 6 45 then mary could reconvene the meeting we'll get those do you have them yet or okay thank you brian thank you thanks brian you look good in a suit [Music] [Music] okay i think we're set uh so we've all had time to go through and and decide we'll pick one we'll pick one person do you want to you want to do the introduction maybe and uh sure absolutely mr mayor members council um now we're at to the deliberation point after the candidates had an opportunity to do a tour of the city with the tour guide they had a panel interview with the staff panel and of course the formal interview with you as a council and after you had an opportunity to see some reflection from the staff feedback forms from the staff panel during your half hour deliberation period now would be the time to actually hopefully make a motion moving forward with a city manager that you'd like to see i would recommend maybe each council member could state who they would like and then if you wish to offer any uh any comments or whatever that may be that you feel would be of value to your fellow council members and then maybe we'll hopefully be able to find some consensus and then i guess that would be sent into a formal motion that we would have in your agenda that was on there and then this would a deployment agreement would need to be then ratified at a future city council meeting to make it all official okay so why don't i go ahead and start the way i did the uh initial uh questions comments to the uh candidates so i'll start with council member peterson okay my choice for number one is brian frandl council member or you want to no i just we've had some good candidates i just think he's the guy that we need at this time so thanks remember thorson my number one can is nicole miller and you know i think looking at are all the candidates they're all qualified i think we'd be well served with any of them but to me she stood out as someone who's got the education and the well-rounded background she's lived in this community she graduated high school here she was a former member of the fire department i think she knows the community and that she can bring that stability and the professionalism and that that background that's needed because we've seen in prior you know people in this position who have not had the education experience and the struggles they've had and then also in the last city manager we hired it was kind of a just singular experience in one area that didn't necessarily translate to this wide scope of this position i you know i i respect brian and and the work he's done and filling in as an interim but that is it's a distinctly different role being an interim versus having the job and my fear is that you know his background is so ex so focused on the electric department that we're going to have a similar situation like what we had with john stark that he's gonna get into this role and really feel the pressure and be overwhelmed and then we're gonna be back well the council will be back at a position and then we'll be out an electric superintendent i think he's doing such a great job in that department i'd hate to lose him there um but you know i think nicole she um like i said her work experience working at um city of uh what is it yeah saint anthony village she's done great work over there colleagues and people have nothing but great things to say um and i think that we would be very well served to hire her as our next city manager and i think she will bring that long-term stability to the position councilmember [Music] actually it's me if we're going in the same room do you want to go yeah i'll i'll we'll do the same order uh my candidate uh would also be uh brian frandl i think it uh i think he's proven that he can do the job uh as being interim it is still pretty much in the same as a as a city manager he does have the ability to learn he knows the he knows our culture here uh he's been here for you know many years understands the uh the community and understands uh the department's department heads and and how and how things work uh within the uh within the system uh all good candidates you know i it's it's a hard it's a hard decision but i i you know nicole is also a very good candidate uh the other ones were also too but i think at this time you know the first thing that came out of out of our mouse uh when the question was asked you know what's the most important thing from uh the city manager and that's stability and it's been proven that uh brian has offered that stability part of i know it's only you know it's only part of what uh you know what uh is expected of him but i believe that's a big part that we need as a city right now is that stability within uh within the community so that's that's my choice i'll go to councilmember wang thank you yeah i would um like to say that all the candidates had so many different attributes and assets that it made it kind of a difficult decision in a lot of regards they all brought so many different talents for me i i have selected nicole miller as the um for my vote for city manager and also i want to say that brian frandl has done an amazing job that is no slight to him he has been incredible um i also believe that nicole brings an urban perspective which is unique amongst the candidates to a certain degree and and also the education piece so i would agree that there is a little bit more of a well-rounded um candidate so thank you sucks to go last now [Laughter] first off mark i want to thank you um for doing this yet again for the city of north st paul it's greatly appreciated um sincerely appreciate you making this tough decision um i think you brought us some great candidates to to take a look at um and and sincerely sincerely appreciate all of that so when i took a look through the resume process the um online interviews you know the their own their own filming of answering questions um the face-to-face interviews my rankings changed quite quite a bit throughout the process and really the thing i'm looking for is stability experience and in the interview process just the their overall the way they present themselves is that does that feel like it's a fit for north st paul um because we do have a tight-knit community we have a for the most part a senior team um who's very entrenched um and i did take a look at the the feedback from um the the other group that interviewed as well um and it made it very difficult um and i my pick is brian frandl um and the reasoning for that is the the onboarding time he's he's ready and prepared to step in we aren't going to have um some of the onboarding that we had that we experienced with with our last city manager um already has developed the trust of his peers and staff and and i believe that of council counsel so that learning curve has already been removed as well 22 years in the city has proven stability uh and just lots of great comments on on fit and leadership from from the rest uh it makes it tough because nicole's my number two um and i i truly believe she's an awesome awesome rock star um just it's it's that it it's tough it's a really tough call so i don't want to ever go last again [Laughter] so i um it sounds like we do have a consensus uh not a full consensus but a consensus and so the motion would be to uh take formal action or the motion is to offer the position of the north saint paul city manager to and negotiate the terms of employment with brian frandl uh so there's a motion motion or prove so moved by councilmember peterson second by council member wong any other discussion if not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye opposed nay motion carries uh so at this time are we able to negotiate uh maybe his salary at this time or absolutely i know in the past you we had two council members talk with you but we i believe we know if brian's kind of his wage right now and where he would sit with the city manager yes so i had a chance to look that up so currently right now mr frandl is at 136 000 in 11 as electric director as the interim he was compensated at a hundred and fifty thousand dollars was what his interim wage would be um what is position was posted at from 124 113 to 155.06 155 106 would be the top range and uh mr mr stark was at a hundred and fifty thousand and what at 150 000 was mr stark there really isn't probably much discussion on benefits and things like that because you know mr fonda would already be into the system with years of service and things like that from calculation of sick and leave and vacation and does it differ because of being unioned or not unioned it would be a non-union position right correct so would there be a switch in being unioned and then becoming not union yeah you'd lose his collective bargaining and some of those things that would go with a union position but in theory i mean the years of service would carry over those union years of service would be kind of no different than a non-union he just would lose some of that but they also has the ability then to negotiate his own contract which he would not be part of a collective bargaining group thank you any thoughts on uh tibetan go ahead council member i'm sorry terry council member call to build on lisa's comment i guess question is comparing what our prior city manager came on board at compared to where um [Music] brian currently is from vacation pay dude i mean where is he on on vacation pay does it does it carry over is it greater to the last position that we had is it less than the last what we offered i don't have those that information but i would have the i would just buy his i don't know i can't remember if you guys are pto or are you sick in vacation but either way you'd have an accrual rate that you would have that accrual rate in theory should not really change in a sense if you're in the union or non-union in a sense so i i would not see uh mr fennell going backwards per se but i don't see him also i i see that i guess as a basically a wash from what he would have if he had 23 years of service you'd have 23 years of service he's probably topped out in a sense of what the maximum accrual would be on that so being somebody that's been here that long i can't imagine your step system having something over 23 years in it tops out like 20 years or something i would imagine but and what is that when it tops out at 20 years is it four weeks is it five weeks i'm sorry i i do not know that but if the if the point is would it matter if he's um in in the union or not in the union anymore i mean it just it is what it would be in a sense as if he wasn't in the union you're out of the union doesn't matter to me what matters to me is how many vacation days does he currently have and what did john stark have when we brought him on board that's that those are the i apologize i misunderstood your question yeah union non-union doesn't matter i'm just trying to figure out i apologize it was um mr stark was given uh 20 years 20 years of vacation 20 years 20 years of vacation i was given credit for 20 years of experience for calculating that so that equated to um i i don't have the uh i don't have your scale in front of you but john was given basically 20 years of experience coming in so i guess what i would recommend a lot of not a lot of difference not a lot of difference i would say then the contractors be given credit for what's existing right what he has existing right now which would be 23 years perfect thank you yeah sorry i misunderstood your question do we have all the information to be able to make that decision tonight um i guess depends what other information you would need you you um and i'm not trying to rush this by zero means but you do have a council packet going out tomorrow and if mr uh frankl was open to the terms of the contract you could have this at your next council meeting otherwise you could just wait for your next council meeting after that and that's the caveat that you know mr fandles is it's basically just the same contract as mr stark this is dark had besides the wage is what we're trying to figure out yeah basically it would be exactly what he has now in a sense accrual so he'd be credited for 23 years of service so he'd be credited for his existing that he's built up so far so then another discussion would be i guess is the salary component of it traditionally and not to say this is not every city is different traditionally there's a minimum of five percent separation between the positions so in other words if you brought somebody else on it's if you're the in sense that the the top of the the organizational chart it's kind of hard to supervise people that are making more money than you so mr frandl if he was not in the position you know he was at 136 11 so if you did five percent above that that bring at 142 812 142 812 would be a five percent separation can you repeat the interim sure and the interim was 150 one five zero so you brought basically from my understanding mr stark i mean where mr stark left at was what you paid mr frankl to be your interim in my mind it was like 146. my god ten thousand dollar increase from his 136. you're right around that 146 would it be kind of weird that he went backwards from the interim because the interim to me is kind of it's still interim i mean it's not like that's 150 year round i mean it's interim while you're doing that job so you could i guess you could look at it multiple ways i don't think there's anything that's if we do the 146 and then if he kind of blocks at that we can always negotiate he's at 150 in his interim role the pride the predecessor was at 150. he's aware of that i would ask for 150 that's a 10 bump from where he currently is today i i would i would just keep it at at 150 and not not yeah same okay okay that'd be correct so what the next step would be is i will i'll contact mr frandl let him know that he was selected at that wage along with all the uh his current uh sick leave all those years of service being carried over and then from the if he's in a position of making a decision we can get this as early as tomorrow get that on the um the council agenda i will email him out tonight uh draft of the agreement that was used for mr stark that the attorney did look at in the past and then this would be at your next council meeting and if mr frandl needs more time i'll communicate that to all of you and then this would have to wait to a future meeting and also we'll make sure i will also personally call all the other candidates to let them know so so that is correct as councilman thurston said then the next action would actually be at the uh either your next council meeting the council meeting afterwards if we can get the terms of the agreement into a document that can be forwarded for you you work with the city attorney yeah yeah i will send it to him also he he was the one that did the final okay and things on the last one so i don't know if anything's changed between now and then but by all means any contract i'll send to him just for his making sure that nothing has changed since the last time okay thank you for your work thank you all thank you mark and thank you council for getting through this again and hopefully hopefully we won't have to see mark again so does this one year go another year then somebody actually asked that and i said hopefully we don't even want to create a self-fulfilling prophecy because it won't happen but in the rare event it did we just have to sit down and have a conversation because there's nothing that we have to really work from but i'm not anticipating that and unfortunately you had to experience it but um you know and you want all this stuff i'll take that and we just said we keep it on file okay all right so uh any other nothing else motion to adjourn moved by councilmember peterson take it by councilmember wong any discussion if not all those in favor signify saying aye aye oppose we are adjourned you