pledge allegiance to the united states of america to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all now jenny will you do the roll call councilmember thorson here councilmember wong here councilmember cole here mayor furlong is absent acting mayor peterson here thank you i had a motion to adopt adopt the agenda so moved okay second okay hi hi consent agenda um we have from a to g items is anybody on the council would like to um turn it on take it or take one off to discuss or is everybody okay with that okay can i have a motion then to accept the senate agenda okay second second okay all in favor say aye aye opposed motion carries bills are paid what the bills are paid the bills are paid okay now we'll get into the city business action items and recommendations selection of a city manager finalist to be interviewed and i will have mark casey adam acting mayor and members of the council my name is mark casey and i'm with david drown associates and i have the privilege and the pleasure to be working on your search for your next city manager in a few minutes i'll be asking for your top four choices and who you'd like to choose to bring in for a live interview just want to remind everyone just to use the numbers and try not to refrain as best possible of any identifying characteristics as much as him or her or the city they may work for or something that would identify that person because these names are non-public now once the finalists are named those names are public we will create bios we'll send those bios to the staff and they can put them on the city's website and if they wish to advertise to the local newspaper or whatever you wish to do but we'll be sending those to you soon once we get the identified when we're all done with the number of candidates if we can have just a discussion about interview day which set for august 31st that's a wednesday and is to kind of need to know when the earliest the council could come in if we could try to kind of look at in the sense of an hour for each finalist from a formal council interview standpoint and then so if we start at four o'clock we're gonna start getting kind of late into the evening depending on how many you have just to make sure we can have their full attention and i know it's kind of a wearing day sometimes so it'd be nice to kind of get a sense when the earliest you can start and then i will put together schedule and send that back to you along with probably a proposed tour and some level of a staff panel too and maybe just a little discussion on that also if we could please and by all means i should have led this off with if there's any questions i can sure answer them now or i can sure answer them throughout the whole process are there any questions from anybody not right now not at this time i had received a phone call from the mayor and he gave me his choices and i have those written down so if you'd like i could just lead off with his four that he has and then we can just maybe work our way to the council if that's okay yes and i got a backup here too to make sure i do it right all right so uh his four were candidate number six candidate number nine candidate number eleven and candidate number twelve so those are excuse me six nine eleven twelve excuse me councilmember cole may i ask you if you're four please uh 3 6 11 12 3 3 6 11 12. council member one eight seven twelve nine eight seven twelve nine yes councilman thurston i had six three eight and five three six eight and five and acting mayor peterson i have five 6 10 and 12. so if the council's okay we can eliminate candidate number one candidate number two candidate number four so those candidates not receive any votes um so candidates number six and twelve each reserve received four votes as the council okay moving them forward with four votes for both candidates number six and number twelve okay so for sure six and 12. then after that everyone is either one or two votes [Music] number five with three okay so we had number five with three so then we had no okay we don't okay i'm still trying so this is what i have then so candidates who's left in the pool would be candidate number three has two candidate number five has two candidate number seven is one candidate number eight has two candidate number nine has two candidate number ten has one and canada number 11 has two yeah so we do a couple things as um we could just redo our votes again based on just how you would vote for one two three four five six there's seven kind of in the running we could see if there's a kind of a natural break after that so if you can only vote for candidates three five seven eight nine ten eleven if you could cast a vote just for them if that makes sense could we come back and then ask what everybody would vote for and we'll see if that creates some kind of a grouping for the second round so a single vote or let's try a single first i think because i think it might get confusing if we try to unless somebody else has another idea but or we could do two votes i mean that's well maybe we should do two votes okay that's a good point councilman cole but since in theory we could have like two slots left if we wanted to do four at least you get to the top four and could you repeat those numbers absolutely candidate number three five seven eight nine ten eleven each one of you would get two votes i would say that the mayor would say just because one was not on his list was candidate number three would have been his fifth choice so i guess he just gets one vote since he's not here that's okay so candidate number three would have one vote so folks are okay canada i'm councilmember cole would you who would be your next who would be your top two of that list left uh 11 and three three okay councilmember wang um can i have another moment too oh absolutely thank you hopefully i'm not going to a card here that's a lot a lot to do crain i i don't want to make this too fast my original numbers councilman thurston do you know who two you'd like yeah i'll go with three and five okay five and eleven okay [Music] you um eight and seven alrighty so to recap candidate number three has three votes five has two seven has one eight has one eleven has two so maybe we could eliminate if everybody's okay if we eliminated uh see here seven and eight nine nine excuse me nine and nine and ten because they did not receive any votes is that okay for nine and ten is eliminated yeah okay so now it leaves active is three five seven eight eleven would there be consensus well okay consensus on candidate number three had three votes would the council feel comfortable moving candidate number three forward i do i do as well and i and i will okay council number one um can we share the other numbers before moving them forward or sure whatever you but my thought i guess would be if we lock in another one and then we could have a discussion on that fourth slot sure um i'd be okay with that okay so right now we have three finalists identified candidate number three candidate number six and candidate number 12. now the question would be is what candidate would be that that fourth slot i would recommend if that's okay if we do one more round of voting and you're voting for one vote for either candidate see you're candidate five candidate seven candidate eight or candidate eleven if that makes sense so we got candidate five seven eight eleven and in one vote are we okay with this so far okay councilmember cole 11. councilmember wang eight uh council uh councilman thurston i'll go of five okay and council number five five okay so as right now we have two votes for candidate five one for eight and one for eleven so i guess the question would be in front of the council would be the council feel comfortable moving candidate number five forward as a fourth finalist they had they received two votes versus one for eight and one for eleven yes was there a priority in there from the mayor um not affecting these okay candidates no no it was not for the the candidates some double check real quick here candidate the mayor had a vote one of his original votes was for candidate number 11. but that he already kind of used that up in the first round good sense so what we have then it would be our four finalists would be candidate number three candidate number five candidate number six and candidate number 12. okay can i propose something yeah so i think last time when we we narrow did we come up with five or did we have six can't finalists and then two of them pulled out didn't they yeah i double checked we had um i thought we had four then there's two people we said if they then we added them in afterwards like they were like on the bench so that's where what i propose is that we widen the finalist pool maybe by these last two candidates that we're kind of close on which would be was it eight and seven or was it 11 and eleven and eight eleven and eight and then instead of doing it all in one day we split it up and have two days of interviews and then that way it gives more flexibility to the candidates to choose a day or you know or if maybe you know that because i you know looking back i think that was one of the reasons why one of the finalists dropped out because they couldn't meet the day that we changed and then we didn't we have two didn't we interview over two days instead two separate and we accommodated the ones that dropped the one that could not make it use that schedule because like you say you know sitting here for four hours i mean it's it's doable but work for um if i want to make sure i hear we say would you like to have six finalists six finalists three a day i know it's it's two extra hours but it's split up over two days and personally i'd i prefer to interview more than less and and then that gives us kind of a buffer if someone decides to drop out like has happened in the past whatever the wishes of the council would be what do you think that the date of the 31st was advertised in the posting but we can figure that out and that's not the what's today what's the data it's a wednesday wednesday correct a potential another option just for you to consider would be is if you went with four and one of them dropped out if you had your next preferred candidate we could bring that person into the pool and then and have that as number five it's not saying what you're saying but i just there's another alternative would be is if you did if you wanted to if you feel comfortable with four and then we had one drop out you could have your preferred is four typically the number that you shoot for when you're doing for finalists or do i guess we do three whatever but i'd like four personally in case somebody does drop out okay so if you do three unfortunately someone drops out then you're down to two and that just never feels right so i always prefer i had at least have three and that fourth but um well maybe is it just one more candidate that we're kind of i mean i hate to just limit it to four people sure if someone else has a candidate that they're strong for it sounds like 11 was brought up multiple times but just never mean i'm i'm okay with adding number 11 um or two more i mean whatever i think you know someone's got a top candidate that they want to get into i'd hate to just say well we're not going to do it because we we're only going to do four i'm comfortable adding a candidate or two to interview i mean you know that's what happened last time i think we lost we lost one i guess my question to you is i'm let me repeat that i'm making an assumption that you will contact the candidates tonight or tomorrow after this concludes and so if someone drops out the individual that you may have contacted and said sorry now gets a call back correct what's the likelihood that they'd even be interested knowing they didn't make the first cut i think they'd they'd still be interested and just make sure we clarify we we had two people one person couldn't make it and so we accommodated that person when we changed the date the other person we lost just pulled out of the um pull out of it and decided not to they dropped out of the hope the whole thing not because of scheduling they decided they just weren't interested in the position yeah he picked 11 in his first round i would say i think that's a good assumption that the mayor probably would have picked number 11 if he picked them once they're not on the list so i guess maybe one thing i'd potentially propose and it's a little bit different than council member thurston i want to be respectful of what you were saying but if you went with your if you picked a fifth person as for in case somebody drops out and then if somebody drops out after i call everybody tonight and i the first question is to confirm that they can make the interview day and they're still interested in the position and then you know for some reason if they didn't or they dropped out in the short term we could call back that person and whoever that last person the fifth person is and i also can be known that you're the first one to be called back if somebody drops out but by all means if you wish to bring in five or whatever your wishes are but i'd be okay with it i don't have a strong preference either way though yeah i'm i'm on board with what you just want to bring in one do we want to bring in two well who were the it was eleven was one eleven and eight is what it was down to why don't we just invite why don't we include those two in there and then try to do two-day interview instead of one okay is that yeah that's fine does that sound like your plan and then every availability is there yeah if and then if one if we end up with five candidates if one of them drops out then maybe we can look at doing it all in one day i know it's but you know whatever whatever is going to work for scheduling so we got 3 6 12 5 eleven and eight three three five six twelve for the original four and then adding eight and eleven okay and would the councils be able to commit to uh a dates when i call people what would be the next date that for the second day of interviews september first either the night before the night after would so that it's fresh yeah we don't want to go farther out my other amazing my other question is can we shorten the interview length i felt that some of the interviewing the i thought that we don't need 45 minutes okay my opinion 15 questions can you curate the questions can we curate the questions um and see if we can get it down 30 35 minutes um it just it's i don't know anybody else's comfort level but well i earlier i had emailed some questions about you know maybe changing the process a bit and do you want to just go over that for for everyone sure so um councilman uh thurston emailed gary who was here who's my boss whatever and who kind of handled the process in the beginning and i think some of if i articulate this correctly you're asking a little bit about a couple things on the question one would be um you guys bringing you know having your own questions to come in and by all means if you have questions we can i'm sure entertain them we have to make sure that they they kind of fit and they're appropriate not to say it would be intentions not to have them appropriate um but maybe it might be trying to read the notes maybe might be better comes more thirsty if you wanted this kind of yeah okay so the the and this is just my opinion on interviewing you know someone can interview really well and then that it does not translate to being a good manager right and people like train to interview so maybe in devising our own questions we can kind of cater more towards north st paul and how we are and i know not maybe specific but maybe some way of making the questions kind of more geared towards north st paul in some way shape or form um [Music] my laptop just died and i had the email up in front of me also now i'm trying to remember but and then some of it was maybe getting more input from staff in their interactions because it seemed like each candidate excuse me had like a city tour and they were they were showed around the city and i don't know if it was the same person that did it the whole time or if it was two people but they got to interact i mean that's how i kind of wish the interview would go you you kind of go around with a person for the day and you get to know them and but we just don't have the time and the capability to do that um yeah sitting down and grilling someone for an hour with these questions it is i mean it is what it is but i mean if we could i'd be all for shortening them up a bit too and just maybe you know if we can instead of i think was 45 minutes wasn't it kind of you know but you don't want to do it too short so maybe half an hour maybe we get rid of what do we have 15 questions last time or was it higher than that was in the 17. okay so maybe maybe we we eliminate like you know five questions or something um but the responses back were you know made sense and you know you don't want to ask staff to give an opinion on someone they just met because it's putting them in a uncomfortable position if that person were to get hired and maybe they they didn't give them a recommendation and now you know and likewise up here you know i think one of your comments was it it does make sense if we can all be in consensus with the final candidate so they're coming into a you know an environment that you know oh yes we're all unanimous but you know i think part of that was part of the problem last time maybe we just had limited conversations and people weren't hesitant to share their thoughts um but uh i don't know i i mean i guess i'm i'll you know whatever we decide to do is is fine with me but i i would agree with maybe possibly shortening it up a little bit um i think definitely on the point in regards to getting more staff input i think it does put the staff in a really awkward and difficult position to get good honest feedback because those people they're talking about may potentially be their boss but isn't there a way we can do that anonymously i mean isn't there because like we had staff write stuff down and then they came and one time they didn't bring the sheets up because it kind of felt like we were rushed i mean we interviewed for 45 minutes they brought the stuff up we had 15 minutes kind of in between and and from my recollection some of the the input wasn't it wasn't very helpful you know um if they could but again there they had limited time too with each candidate so it's just kind of like an initial feeling like oh they were a nice person okay i would think so anyone coming in here is going to be nice and if they weren't then you know no one would want to be kind but um staff feedback forms are intended to be anonymous as they're put in there but we could sure build in more time in regards to but if the goal is to hopefully try to get a little bit more honest feedback from the staff i think that will always be a challenge sure back to the point i guess of knowing that this could be their boss at some time and are they going to how that what's that can do that potential relationship if they're the ones that were being critical of them i it's something it's difficult to be able to get that how much how how many staff were doing that filling out those sheets the department heads that were part of the interview process of the department head panel so as your fire chief police chief public works director electric director and finance director in regards to i guess shortening by all means making sure the one thing i would say on that a little bit is is that as is being probably the most important decisions you ever make as a council and if you want to kind of try to bring in and cast that net a little bit wider you know i don't know if 15 minutes less on each candidate is going to move the needle too much and if that's where you want to move the needle or not i i don't know but that's just my i will do whatever the council wishes me to do and the number of questions and we can make them at any length um another option i don't know if this would be something that the council would be interested in if we did it over two days we could do a rotating one-on-one with the council members and do kind of a speed dating where you do you have a one-on-one with the candidate for 15 minutes and just an opportunity to do and rotate that around if so if you did that over two days we could do something we can bring that in and there's a little bit more opportunity i mean it's not a lot but it does provide a little bit of a less formal atmosphere and with that then would you have to would everyone be tied to asking the same question or yeah so then it's just kind of yep okay i actually like that idea a little better to try to get a feel for someone but i know it might be a little more difficult to do though i've done it in other communities and his work if if the council's willing to for the time and you know and put that time and realize that it's you know those are traditionally kind of a two-day interview time but um yes we could we could do that and i guess from from a time standpoint um i guess i would if we could recommend maybe september 1st sure the next day same time at five or four o'clock um that's the second i apologize i'm just kind of just trying to find my schedule here or what i've already scheduled actually august 30th would be i do i see i do have an appointment on september 1st in the evening august 30th yeah august 30th and if the council was interested in kind of a one-on-one or not i mean i just don't know what your availability is during the day so and how late you want to go into the evening would that be something that maybe um would be a pr have you ever done it before would it be appropriate if maybe the one-on-one portion is it's up to us to call the candidate and say hey expect a call from the council members um you know and they're just looking for 15 minutes of maybe you know over the phone or if people can if people can't meet in person or is that i don't know i'm just trying to think if it'd be more flexible for the candidates and the council um i've never done that way i'm just trying to think the logistics of five separate phone calls at different times and maybe i don't i mean i guess if they're interested in the position you know i mean that's maybe it comes to the territory but um the past communities when we did the one-on-ones it was kind of incorporated into an interview day okay or days i think for myself i would prefer you know sorry oh i'm sorry yeah i would i prefer maybe um having it all together sure a bit cleaner my preference is a panel panel interview not the one that one's correct okay yeah i i don't whatever they you know whatever people want to do i'm well that's what we're trying to figure out so uh i'm i'm i support the two-day interview and i like the idea of the opportunity for one-on-one interviews for you know whatever it is 10-15 minutes it sounds like kind of what i'm hearing is i'm hearing um councilmember thorson in favor of what he just reiterated and maybe council member cole of just a a panel uh one time and then is there a consensus yet those kind of ideas that are out there is your consensus on where people want to land on the numbers is six still where you want to be i'm comfortable with six okay okay so now it's so if we got ourselves on the number and we got consensus on that now a question of do we do incorporate we could do six in one day probably but for sure if we did a one-on-ones that would be no problematic so as is um councilmember colin wong in regards to availability during the day for a second day is that something that i'm assuming councilman thurston it works for you i'll make it work whatever we decide to do and i don't can't i guess i don't know if anybody else can speak for the mayor i don't know what his work schedule is like and availability probably flexible he's pretty flexible is he okay so i guess maybe the next question then would be would uh if in fact there was wishes for the council to go to a two-day interview the day before on the 30th that works for me uh 30th i'm not available i'm available on first or the first i'm sorry i'm available on the first i'm not on the 30th i just have appointment on the first at 7 30 so p.m so if we did on the first we'd have to be done by six or what time yeah i'd say about six would be okay 6 30. first also works for me um and any time during the day or whatever so councilman wong and cole would during the day on the first work what time frame i'm just spitballing here right now but i'm i would say if i start like uh noonish or something maybe no midday i was if we did the one-on-ones i mean if we have six candidates 15 minutes each couple hours doing that and we agreed to do one-on-ones or are we doing panel have we have we we're not sorry we haven't decided that referenced that that's why i asked great great question and i i was presumptuous i didn't mean to say that i guess trying to we know for sure if you do a panel half hour 45 minutes or whatever that panel with you probably want a little bit of so it's i would say you're probably in a pretty close you know if it's one day or three three hours a little bit of a room to do a panel interview three and a half maybe or something just to make sure you have enough and if you want some time for deliberation so um i would so back to the time i guess noon no i can make myself available after three o'clock eight o'clock okay um on the first i can make it after three as well okay um the 31st as well i mean i'm available both days after three three o'clock right now look good so maybe that allows you some flexibility where if it works on august 31st to start at three and we get four people in one day and maybe two on the first you know whatever however you want to schedule them in yes does the council have a suggestion on how you wish to deal with uh the the decision and or the how to resolve the question about if you want to do one-on-ones or not i mean we i don't know for sure how you wish to make that decision as a council if you want to formally bring that to a vote or to be able to get consensus on so it sounds like we have consensus on six people it sounds like we have consensus on having the interviews on the 31st and the first start the council portion at 3 pm i'm okay with the panel i would prefer a panel so would i perfect okay all right great no one-on-ones then that's that's all we're looking for right the answer correct you're great perfect make sure i'm 100 on the same page the interviews will be both on the there will be six candidates interviews on the 31st and the first beginning at 3 o'clock on both days for a formal council panel and it'd be the wishes of the council to have those panels half hour long 30 minutes yeah okay okay um another question i guess would be is of your let's go double check here a couple of your candidates will be traveling some distance last time the council chose not to look at any kind of reimbursement and against like lodging or mileage or anything like that just want to reiterate just to see if that is something if the council once again has interest in that councils are all over the board on that some will just do a flat number some will do none some will just um you know some level of reimbursement or something based on receipts i'm just going to double check on your candidates candidate number three will be coming from onalaska wisconsin oops look at that are you screwed it up i apologize i identify and characteristic i did exactly what i asked you guys well i guess it's a finalist so but still though i probably shouldn't have said the city apologize and you said last time we we opted not to i i and the feedback i got was that the council was not interested um just bear with me all your other candidates are coming from metro yeah just want to double check make sure i didn't screw that up yes all your other candidates are coming from the metropolitan area so you just have one from a couple hours away so i mean i personally i don't i think we just say you know stay consistent and say it's not something we're gonna do sure i mean it'd be different if our six candidates were all out of state and then i think we would need to consider you know reimbursement because i think what happens might be they once they find that out they'll say well if you're not going to cover my travel expenses i'm not interested right okay consensus and okay all right um i guess the last question would be in regards to the staff panel the mayor had a suggestion about including uh dr craig waldron as part of the staff panel and to see if that's something that would be acceptable by u4 i'm not for sure he's available or not but i could sure reach out to him and see if that's something that he may potentially be interested in i'd be open to it so long as he provides some you know if he's just going to agree with what albert our department heads say i don't really see the value it brings because we're you know we're have to it's a contracted position right um and i think you know i trust our department heads that we have and the judgment that they have so i mean i don't envision what angle he's going to bring um [Music] he's experienced i mean around for a long time and i i sorry at least i jumped a gun sorry are you done i just think i've seen him in a public setting we had the discussion about the community center and he did a really nice job that night yeah i would i would welcome his um presence for that okay councilman call is that okay yeah i'm i'm comfortable with dr waldron um i guess i would like to even um expand on it a little bit there are multiple department heads who may have a conflict of interest in sitting on the internal panel so who do we ask who do we ask them to recuse themselves do they um yeah i would see that uh and do we look to maybe expanding the outside panel sure maybe to answer the first question i guess what i would envision for the panel would be is your police chief fire chief public works director and your finance director of those department heads would be who i would recommend that's what i would envision would be in that role and then it'd be the fifth member if you wish to have would be dr craig waldron as a staff panel so i'm not aware of any conflict of interest in regards to those five members on that panel but um it could be if the wishes of the council not to have that that would be i guess would be traditionally kind of your department heads in a sense would be on that um but if everybody else is comfortable with it i'm i'm i'm fine i just don't want you know there's of that list there's two still still two potential conflicts in that group but they also need to have a say in who the next when the city manager is going to be so if i'm the only one that's a little uncomfortable with it i'm i'm comfortable with being the only one so you guys you guys make the call well yeah we don't know what the mayor thinks i'm okay with it i'm okay with the department heads and i don't you know i don't think we need to have hire dr waldron to be a part of it yeah i'm in support of having the pan the um department heads and dr waldron okay i'm the department heads and dr alder are fine with me okay sounds like there's consensus there with that great and then can i just go back and build on a a comment that council member thorson started and that's the information that we receive from the internal interview panel can we ask them to force rank can we you're going to see the notes you can run the tally sheets so there's nobody looking at you know i recognize somebody's handwriting or i i mean can we get better direction from them than what we had last go around i guess would be my question a couple thoughts if i can speak freely one would be is i don't know back to how many staff feel comfortable in that position of ranking if they know if there's any chance that that would get out i think that puts the staff in a tough position i would say if i am free to say philosophically and maybe don't care how i feel about that but i just like to say it anyways i think that i feel like that's the role of the council as a representative form of government and what you're appointed to do is that that is your decision to make and i would you know of all the searches that we do not to say we're doing it the right or somebody's doing it wrong we do not have the staff rank that the candidates we leave that up to the role the council but like like yourself and many councils they want to have input from the staff because they know that the staff has to work with these folks and they know that and that was the intent of the kind of the fit questions in a sense do you think this person would be a good fit or not how do you think this person would fit into the community and they give their and into the staff and into the council's vision and wishes and things like that so that's where we're hopefully able to get that gleaned that kind of information from the um from the staff but ultimately it would and that's we try to make that very clear to the staff that this decision is up to the council but they'd like to hear your input okay yeah that makes sense what um information is staff provided if any at all or is it mostly just conversation absolutely so they'll get a packet similar to some of the information they have so they would see the candidate's resume cover letter and the bio job description profile that would be the materials that they would receive but no video correct okay nor the intellectual profile or the uh personality index or the or the background check or the reference you're referencing that that's stuff that you guys see but okay thank you you bet and they also part of the discussion guide that you received about questions that can and cannot be asked they receive that information and a ranking or not a ranking but uh the feedback forms for them to be able to formulate their their thought process it sounds like what i'm hearing it maybe not enough time so that's we can build some more time if the council wishes to be able to kind of ruminate our process a little bit we can try to build in as much as we can with that too and then traditionally try to provide some level of a tour for the non-internal candidates but the tour and the staff interview can be done prior to three o'clock so that does not makes a long day for the candidates but it doesn't interfere with the the end times and encroach into your times well i think we uh have consensus i believe to move forward i will contact all uh 12 if anybody uh does say they're not interested which i i i doubt but it'd be well we'll see i guess we'll guarantee that that all and then we'll start picking the dates i guess to see uh we can make sure we lock them in both on the 31st and the first thank you for your thanks thank you okay um make a motion to adjourn so i moved second okay all in favor aye aye okay and the next regular scheduled city council meeting will be august you