Personnel and Public Employees Committee Meeting - March 9, 2021
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Personnel and Public Employees Committee Meeting - March 9, 2021
The Personnel and Public Employees Committee (P&PE) met on Tuesday, March 9, 2021, beginning at 5:38 p.m. after a lengthy council meeting, and adjourned at 6:52 p.m. The meeting was held via teleconference due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The committee conducted interviews and made nominations for several city boards and commissions, including the Civil Service Board, Measure U Community Advisory Committee, Planning and Design Commission, and Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Commission. The Animal Care Services Citizens Advisory Committee interviews were postponed to a future meeting. No public comments were received on agenda items or matters not on the agenda.
Discussion Items
Item 1 – Interviews for the Civil Service Board The committee interviewed three applicants for Seats D and E (citizen members). Applicant Mr. Wooten had to leave before his interview. Staff recommended Kathryn Meola and Shalinee Hunter based on their subject matter expertise in personnel rules and employment law. The committee also considered Joy Gonzalez-Cabatic and Mr. Wooten, encouraging them to reapply for future openings.
Item 2 – Interviews for the Measure U Community Advisory Committee Interviews were conducted for Seats J (taxpayer organization representative), L (age 16–24), N (professional experience with community trauma, mental health, or crime reduction), and O (professional experience with youth-focused, adult education, public health, or environmental justice organizations). Seven applicants were on the call; two withdrew, and one (Jose Goris, Jr.) had to leave but remained interested. The committee interviewed Tracy Thomas, Davon Brandon Thomas, Khalil Ferguson, Marjorie Dickinson (also a current member from District 2, already appointed by Councilmember Loloee), Bishop Chris Baker, Debra Oto-Kent, and Noel Mora. The committee decided to complete nominations at this meeting rather than continue to the next meeting.
Item 3 – Interviews for the Animal Care Services Citizens Advisory Committee Approximately 25 applicants were waiting. Due to the late start and the large number of candidates, the committee unanimously agreed to postpone the item in its entirety to a future meeting, with apologies to those who had waited.
Item 4 – Nominations for the Planning and Design Commission The committee considered nominations for Seats J (master planning/land use experience), K (licensed architect), and M (licensed architect). Staff confirmed that Robert Chase had been appointed to Seat B by District 2 earlier. The committee debated between reappointing incumbents Alix Ogilvie and Jia Wang-Connelly (both highly qualified) and bringing in new candidates to improve district representation. After several votes, Barry Boyd (District 8) was nominated for Seat J, Jordan Ollanik for Seat K, and Jia Wang-Connelly for Seat M.
Item 5 – Nominations for the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Commission Staff recommended Emmanuel Amanfor and Jose Goris, Jr. (who had also been nominated for Measure U). The committee opted for a backup candidate, Marisha Schumacher-Hodge, for Seat D, and approved Emmanuel Amanfor for Seat B with a 3–1 vote (Councilmember Harris dissenting).
Key Outcomes
- Civil Service Board: Motion passed 4–0 to nominate Kathryn Meola to Seat D and Shalinee Hunter to Seat E.
- Measure U Community Advisory Committee: Motion passed 4–0 to nominate Jose Goris, Jr. to Seat J, Davon Brandon Thomas to Seat L, Debra Oto-Kent to Seat N, and Noel Mora to Seat O.
- Animal Care Services Citizens Advisory Committee: No action taken; item continued to the next meeting.
- Planning and Design Commission:
- Seat J: Barry Boyd nominated (4–0).
- Seat K: Jordan Ollanik nominated (3–1, Vice Chair Valenzuela dissenting).
- Seat M: Jia Wang-Connelly nominated (4–0).
- Failed motions: Alix Ogilvie for both K and M (2–2 tie on each), Pram Dhillon for M (2–2 tie).
- Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Commission: Motion passed 3–1 to nominate Emmanuel Amanfor to Seat B and Marisha Schumacher-Hodge to Seat D (Councilmember Harris dissenting).
- All nominations will be forwarded to the City Council for final appointment.
Meeting Transcript
Chair Ashby, all committee members are online and your 30 seconds is done. Okay, great. And your volume is much better. Thank you so much for getting us started. This is the uh PMPE committee meeting. Let me just start by saying we are sorry, our council meeting ran long. We normally put PMPE before the council meetings, and now you know why we do that. So we will do the best we can here. I am gonna just let you know that these council members have been uh sitting in front of a Zoom since before two o'clock today. So we'll see how much we can get in here. We'll try to get through as much as we can, and we may end up having to delay some of this because there are a tremendous number of people who want to interview. And for for folks who are interviewing, please be as succinct as possible and know that we have your applications. We will look through them. We will not be making appointments today to the items that are here just for interview only, and we will be trying to get to the items that are unfortunately at the end of the agenda that need our attention for appointments. So we'll see. See what we can do here, madam clerk. Uh, please make your your comments that you need to make and get us started. Okay, so we will call roll. Um, member Lilowy here, member Harris here, Vice Chair Valenzuela, Chair Ashby. Also here. So if you're a member of the public wanting to make a comment, please see the agenda for the phone queue assignments. And candidates, when you hear your name called, please unmute and turn on your video. You'll have two minutes to address the committee. All right, we do not have a consent calendar, so we can move straight to the discussion calendar. Item one is the interviews for the civil service board. Madam Clerk, you want to call the first person, please? Sure. And I do have an announcement. I do have an announcement. Madam Chair, just a quick question, considering that the extent of the interview is going to be fairly long. Do we want to let some of the callers know how far we're gonna go? Because I would hate for individuals to be on the phone for an hour or two and not be heard. Yeah, it's a great, it's a great question. Why don't we talk about it, members? Because first of all, I've gotten a couple notes from people who have waited this entire time since four o'clock, so they're going on an hour and a half of waiting. I also got some notes from people who had unfortunately work in the evening and unfortunately had to leave and now we're not available for calls. And so I really it would have been my preference actually to reschedule this meeting given the fact that we are so far off the mark, but unfortunately that's difficult to do in the middle of a council meeting that you don't know how long it's gonna take. Please just unmute yourselves, Jeff and Katie and Sean, and help me think this one through. What do you guys think we should do? So do you think we should take the action items first? Um it's just a thought because we need to get that resolved. And then as far as interviews go, unfortunately, if we had to reschedule, it's not quite as critical. It's true, and really the animal services one is the one that I just I don't know how we get through it, you know. Uh it's a lot of interviews, which is why we had set it for earlier in a day because we knew it was gonna take a couple of hours. So I feel very badly. Uh Mindy, are you on there? You have some input for us here? Yes, Chad. I think the will of my colleagues is to be clear with the people on the phone, is what I'm hearing. Maybe that we need to take the action items first because for one thing, both of those committees have been waiting for us to make an appointment now for more than two months.
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