Bloomington City Council Special Session – Hiring Committee Establishment (February 27, 2026)
Bloomington City Council Special Session – Hiring Committee Establishment (February 27, 2026)
This special session of the Bloomington City Council was held on February 27, 2026 (though the transcript repeatedly states it is Wednesday, February 25; a discrepancy exists between the provided date and the transcript). The council met to discuss and approve a draft charge for an ad hoc hiring committee responsible for recruiting and recommending candidates to fill vacant council legal and administrative roles, and to appoint members to that committee.
Discussion Items
- Draft Charge Overview: Council President presented a draft charge outlining the committee's scope: evaluate and recommend a new office structure (e.g., whether to separate attorney and administrator roles), draft job descriptions, manage recruiting, and present at least two qualified candidates per open role to the full council. The charge also included provisions for council-wide engagement and record-keeping.
- Scope of Hiring: Councilmember Stasberg argued that the committee should only hire the supervising attorney, not all positions, because council lacks detailed knowledge of staff duties. Councilmember Flarity noted that under item three, job descriptions would be subject to full council approval, so the committee could not unilaterally expand hiring. The President confirmed this intent.
- Supervision of Current Staff: Councilmember Piedmont Smith raised concerns that under the draft, current staff (two fellows and a part-time researcher) would report to the committee – a public body. The President agreed this was problematic and suggested designating a single liaison (e.g., the committee chair) instead. Councilmember Stasberg cautioned that one person could be overburdened. Clerk Bolden offered that her office could temporarily help supervise staff, as done previously, to ensure continuity.
- Use of a Consulting Firm: Councilmember Rosenbarger proposed hiring an external consultant with expertise in organizational structure to lead the process, noting the complexity. The President agreed this could be brought as an option under the first deliverable.
- Confidentiality Concerns: Councilmember Rosenbarger expressed worry about leaks of confidential information (e.g., resumes) given the lack of trust among members. The President acknowledged this and committed to providing data protection training for the committee.
Key Outcomes
- Motion and Vote: Councilmember Stasberg moved to authorize the ad hoc hiring committee to complete items 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 7 of the draft charge (excluding the supervision item and authority/limitations), and to research and bring a recommendation for temporary or external legal support. The motion was seconded by Councilmember Daly and passed unanimously (all present voting yes).
- Committee Appointments: The President appointed Councilmembers Piedmont Smith, Zulik, herself, and Rollo to the committee. A separate vote on these four appointments passed 6-2 (Councilmembers Piedmont Smith and Rosenbarger voted no).
- Liaison to Current Staff: The proposed appointment of Councilmember Daly as the liaison to current staff was postponed for a vote at the next meeting.
- Next Steps: The President will chair the committee temporarily, circulate revisions to the charge, and schedule an executive session next Wednesday (either 5:30 or 6 PM) before the regular council meeting.
Note on Date: The user-provided meeting date is February 27, 2026; however, the transcript repeatedly references "Wednesday 25th" and a 5 PM start time. This discrepancy is flagged for accuracy.
Meeting Transcript
Given our our um time constraints, if it's okay, um we have uh quorum. I know one member is um on their way, um, but we're just gonna uh call this meeting um to order. Um we have a uh this is a special session of the um Bloomington City Council on um Wednesday 25th, and the time is 5 p.m. Um will the who's serving as the wonderful clerk? Okay, um Clerk Bolden, will you please call the roll? Councilmember Clarity? Here Stasberg? Here. Pete Montsmith, here, Zulik. Present. Sorry. Here. Daily? Yes. Rahlo? Here. Oh, I don't understand. Ralph? Okay, here. And Rosenberger. Here. Thank you. Um I hope I hope you did did you all have time? I know we had very uh limited um uh uh turnaround here. Um, but have you all had time to review um the draft charge that was that was put online? Uh if you haven't, okay, that's fine. So um I'm I'm gonna just ask that we do one um small adjustment if it's okay um with the body um to amend the agenda to first go over um the charge and then we can make um appointments to um the committee. So changing uh point A and point B. Um is there anybody opposed to doing that? Okay, excellent. Um just going over the charge. So um we're we're here for the general public' uh uh perspective, uh so that you are uh read in. We are um authorizing a hiring committee um to lead and coordinate the council's processes for recruiting and recommending candidates to fill vacant council legal and administrative roles and to ensure continuity of council operations during the transition and advise council on the appropriate long-term structures of these positions. Um and so I I wrote up a charge in in hopes of um really outlining what it is that we want this committee um to do, how we want them to report back to us as a body, um, and what limits um they they should have. I think most of these are fairly um fairly straightforward. Um but um would it be helpful if I've read it just for for to bring everybody up to speed or any would anybody want your summary? Or a summary? Okay, so in in terms of the summary, um the the way that I've just drafted this up, um, but this is up for discussion here is is that the um the the scope of of the work is obviously to evaluate whether um it's just is to is to get us get this position posted um and eventually to present candidates um to the council um to vote on and to do all of the administrative work that's required to um between between sort of this moment um and that outcome. Um one of the things that I've added that's maybe outside of um of our of our sort of standard operating procedures is that the first deliverable um of this committee is to consider um the structure um of our council office um to make recommendations to the broader body on whether or not we should continue with the current structure that we have, which is two attorneys and um one legal researcher, um, and whether we should, for example, explore separating the role of attorney and council administrator, but then most importantly, figuring out how we might do that. And so I'm recommending to the body um uh some options of ways that we might go about doing that so that we all can vote and approve on that. Um and then moving from there, um, allowing um then uh starting the process of allowing us all to give comments on the job descriptions, um, then working with HR to get those posted. Um the second thing that's sort of outside maybe of how uh we've uh we were forced to uh run this process in the past, and I emphasize that we were forced to do it this way because the last time that we had a committee it fell during council recess um and it was quite difficult, I think, to put everybody together. Um and uh our council president at the time did a valiant effort um then um but uh the other side of this is is sort of creating a council-wide engagement structure to make sure that everybody has um multiple opportunities to engage at each stage um here, um, including uh, for example, opportunities to meet candidates um before um we present them to um a vote. Um other than that, I think everything's um fairly straightforward, some some some ideas about record keeping and documentation. Um but um did we have any thoughts or things that we wanted to add? Um Councilmember P. Mm-Smith Yes, thank you for um drafting this to get us started. Um thing that you didn't mention in your summary was I believe uh the intention to have the committee be the entity that our current the employees that will still be in the council office would report to the committee. Good point, yeah. Which I find problematic for uh employees to report to a committee, especially because the committee meetings will be um public meetings.
openpublica.com