All right, good morning, everyone.

I'm gonna call to order this uh August twenty sixth, twenty twenty-five uh special city commission meeting to talk about um the city manager search.

And I will call on our city auditor and clerk for the invocation.

And if Commissioner Aaron Cox would be listening to the flag.

Uh, for everybody.

We may disagree, but we will be respectful to one another.

We will direct all comments to issues.

We will not engage in personal attacks.

All right.

So our first and only agenda item is item um two one.

And it I'm going to call upon Ms.

Griggs and Mr.

Polzak to make the presentation.

Thank you, Mayor.

We're just going to kind of go over a little bit what hopefully like an induction, some possible outcomes, and you know you all can discuss these firms.

I actually provided for you to look at some possible outcomes for you to review.

So just a brief introduction for the public.

This is to review and discuss the city manager search firm proposals at the July 7, 2025 regular city commission meeting, the commission reviewed letters of interest from six executive search firms in conducting the city manager search.

Following the review of the commission set selected three firms, MGT, Slab and Management Consultants, and Sumter Local Government Consulting to submit formal proposals.

The city's original request for proposals, RFP is included, was included in the backup material, along as the firm's response for your consideration.

Some possible outcomes for the commission to consider for today.

One review and discuss the submitted proposals, determine whether the commission is prepared to select a firm to move forward with or not.

Decide if the commission prefers to interview all three firms or narrow down a list before interviews.

So those are just some possible outcomes that we can try to strive to get to in these three hours so we can kind of have a goal set in mind.

And then we'll we'll go from there.

From here.

Mr.

Polzak, do you have anything to add?

Yeah, and we just want to thank uh Renee Hayes and Black Hair McDonald's for helping with this process and uh my operations manager Kevin Stiff for corresponding with these firms.

They each firm put a lot of effort into uh creating the proposals before you today, and we're excited for you to review them.

All right, wonderful.

Thank you.

Okay, we have one person signed up to speak, so we'll we'll uh do that before we do, Commissioner questions.

Martin Hyde.

We don't need to stand terribly on ceremony.

Um I came down to get some breakfast and uh I sent you guys uh an email about this.

And you know, sometimes I come down here to mess with you guys and get inside your heads and stuff like that.

And you know, other times I I try to give you a little bit of insight into things that you couldn't have any insight into.

You you you can't know what you don't know.

And and it's not an attack.

Um the issue per the email if you read it, is that you got three bids there.

Um to hire what is unquestionably the most important job in City Hall.

Somebody not to replace you, but somebody to do your bidding.

Um your wish list.

There are a few profits maybe that will fulfill all of that, but that's about it.

We're talking about human beings.

We're talking about people, and and the single biggest challenge that every municipality, every county has had is that people come in and they start to take a little bit, take a little bit and take a little bit, and before you know it, the proverbial tail is waging the dog.

And and that character trait of somebody that understands the protocols, the procedures.

Somebody can actually add up because that is important.

Nobody saw this financial crisis coming, and I don't get it, um, because regardless of whether I pointed it out or not, it was inevitable.

Um so I do think that should be towards the top of the poll.

The re the reason I sent you an email though is because of this particular folly.

18 grand, which is what two of the bids came in at, is laughably low.

Now that's hard to come from me, right?

But it but it just is.

You know, I sent you a clip of the AI so that you know it's not just my opinion.

It you just can't hire somebody for less than one percent.

Oh, sorry, beg your pardon, less than 10 percent of uh uh of their salary.

And if you take into account what you expect them to do and then what they could reasonably do for 18 grand, they're distinctly different things.

You want them to check their backgrounds.

Each background you check, if you check all the applicants, that would take hours and hours and hours.

So and that's before we get to semi-finalists and all the other bits and pieces.

What I'm saying is that we should be looking for best in class here, and that isn't the same as the lowest price.

I think that you know realistically this should be a 50 or 60 grand job because that's how much work is involved.

And if you think you're going to get it for 18 grand, all you're going to be is back here in three months' time, I guarantee it, because you're going to have the same questions you had last time.

What about this?

What about that?

What about the other?

It is not realistic or reasonable to expect someone to do that much work for that little money.

Thank you.

All right, Commissioner Questions.

Commissioner Hernkotch.

Thank you.

So I read through all of the uh proposals in the paperwork.

And I do have some some thoughts.

I'm interested to hear what the other commissioners think of the three firms.

There were definitely some good points for all of them.

So and I my question is that um two of the firms sorted sort of had a um a proposal where they were creating a process and um reducing the applicants uh and saying uh you know um that they would receive all the resumes, narrow them down and then give us four or five and things like that, which is um I think something that we don't really want and is also I'm concerned about to the attorney here transparency of them narrowing down the resumes as opposed to us doing that.

Um is that something in here because they very clear phase one, phase two, phase three, phase four, um two of the firms very clearly stated that was part of it.

Can we say no to that?

Yes, and that'll be part of the process is we'll make it clear and that all the resumes that are received in the process of the search, whoever selected, all of them come to you.

Okay.

And there can be assistance with screening from there, but all of them have to come to you.

Okay.

Um so that was very specifically um in for MGT it was on page 38 uh and going forward and phase three, phase four, and phase five, uh, where they were talking about giving us a narrow down them looking at it and giving us a narrow-down list.

In Slavin, it was also in page uh two, two, two, two hundred and twenty-two to two hundred and twenty-four.

Um those were my two areas of concern.

Um for those two firms.

Otherwise, you know, um I thought that the um you know, all three firms have some very positive points.

Two of them, I don't know how the other commissioners feel, two of them sort of rose a little bit higher uh in the pack of three, uh, but I'm pretty much on the fence between two of them.

Um you know, uh I did reach out to some of the references and I did my own phone calls as well to folks.

And um and I didn't find anybody who said anything bad about any of the three of them.

And if I could just add on, Commissioner, to what you're saying, uh you know, with MGD in particular on page 38, it's possible what they meant is that be a collaborative process with the commission on that narrowing.

Okay.

But we'll make that clear.

Yeah, you know.

That's what I just wanted to make sure clear was that they understand, you know, our process has to be completely transparent.

Because I believe they do, and we made that clear in our communications, so that they might have just meant that as a collaborative process.

Okay.

Um we'll just I mean, solving the problem going forward, we'll just make sure that they understand that.

Right.

Um I don't know, Mayor, do we want to talk about how we our our take on each three of them at this point?

But that was my only question.

I was gonna suggest that Mayor, if you guys want to just start and talk one by one to each and then kind of go from there.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

So make the most sense too.

Um so for me, uh MGT, um, I uh, you know, a lot of them, their retention rate was very impressive.

So that was a really good thing.

Um MGT, I liked the team that they presented us with.

They had solid experience in Florida and in the U.S., which was something the Vice Mayor had uh talked about was being important.

Um the the lead person, Mr.

Dinian Dinin, Dinin, uh has experience as a county manager in Florida for 12 years, which I thought was also valuable.

Um I think that they would also source and use the database, which was something that was important for for me.

Um and they've got lots and lots and lots of experience.

And uh they did a one-year guarantee slave-in.

Um but MGT also came in, you know, at 45,000 plus plus plus.

So they had some a la carte items in there that I thought were interesting.

I think if I understood it correctly, it's extra for a community uh event.

Uh it was extra for some other scenarios I thought were were very, very interesting.

Um, who was the one with the, I think they've been around for four years with the least experience, but they did have some good um in their process, they had some good suggestions of you know how they would handle that whole process.

Uh I was concerned, I'm a little concerned about Sumpner just because of their you know only being around for four years.

I did reach out to the mayor black uh in Date City that just went through the process, and he said they ended up by going with their deputy city manager, hiring their deputy city manager, but had a good experience with them.

So um, but they don't have a whole lot of experience in at this.

So that was one sort of hesitation on my side.

Um and then Slavin uh as well, you know, they um lots of experience, 95% retention rate for five years, which I think is really impressive.

Um they gave a two-year guarantee.

Um they had a nice team uh that they were proposing that was a mix of folks, which I thought was also interesting.

Lots of experience in Florida in the US.

Um I think if I'm uh if I have to narrow it down, I would narrow it down to MGT and Slavin.

Um I also reached out to some uh uh city managers who've gone through this process and had uh this person, the city manager said to me, MGT and Slavon, and it's not our interim city manager over here.

Although I did talk to him, but I'm not referencing him.

This city manager said MGT and Slavon are are in the industry are well known, well respected, and they do have, you know, as far as the sourcing ability and the database facility, they're pretty solid.

So if I had to narrow it down to to two, those would be my two MGT and Slaven.

Although really impressed with the some innovative things from Sumpner.

So it's it's not a slam dunk for me on any of these.

I don't know if that's helpful or not.

Those are my thoughts.

All right.

Uh Commissioner Ulrich.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh first of all, I'd like to say I think the packet we sent to the three companies was outstanding.

Thank you for that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um to me, two companies rose to the surface as well.

Um I thought for MGT it was the largest of the companies.

And I thought their nationwide network of contacts would be really helpful to us.

Identify good potential candidates.

To me, that was an asset.

Uh I thought the organization layout and format of their proposal made it very interesting and easy to understand.

They're located in Tampa as their home base, which is right down the road.

A fee of 45,000 seemed, you know, within a ballpark to me, an appropriate ballpark, uh, plus travel, plus accommodations for candidates, plus plus.

Uh I was not convinced that any community of event would be an additional cost if it was in the 12 hours of meeting time that they identified in their proposal.

Uh, their time frame uh three to four months seems reasonable to me.

Slavin, um I noted that they wrote in that they helped write the ICMA code of ethics.

Um they've been in business for a very long time, starting in 1967.

To me, their proposal was not easy to follow and had some inconsistencies.

Time frame was one area of inconsistency.

Sumter, I did notice like Commissioner Ahern Koch, that they've been in business for a short period of time, and they're a much smaller company than MGT in particular.

They I thought had highly qualified people on their team.

Their proposal was well done and easy to follow with a time frame of about two months.

They're located in Georgia, which is further than Tampa from Sarasota.

Yeah.

And their fee of $18,000 plus expenses.

I wondered about that.

I thought it was low.

And I thought maybe they made it low because they're just starting in the business and they want clients.

If I were to choose two out of three, I would pick MGT and Sumter.

I know.

And why would I pick Sumter?

Because I thought their team was highly qualified, and that they're trying to get clients, they might have more time for us.

Vice Mary Trice.

Interestingly, first of all, in terms of the quote, I think we're looking at apples and oranges.

It's hard to know what is included in any of their numbers, and I believe that it was Slavin that their number, their initial number was just the personnel costs, and then they gave an estimate of expenses, and then they said, but also if you want to do this, that'll cost more.

If you want to do that, it'll cost more.

So I I think and then looking at Sumter, I fully appreciate they really uh underestimated.

I I just did a quick calculation, and it was like, okay, you're gonna spend five hours a week on this.

So, you know, and my other concern about Sumter is yeah, maybe they are young and hungry and will go overboard to get us a good city manager, but what's their reputation?

And if you look at the cities that they have already completed searches for, they were all significantly smaller than Sarasota, so maybe Sarasota would be too large, too complex for them to really handle adequately.

And I have a question for um Ms.

Griggs and Mr.

Polzak.

If a search firm approached someone like you, I'm not gonna say you, would you take into consideration the size and reputation of the search firm is to whether or not you'd even think about that opportunity.

That's a good question.

That's a good question.

That's a really good question.

I mean, I think I for me personally, I would look at the quality of the firm.

Do they seem squared away professional and of course take into account um who who their client is and has been in the past?

Not necessarily their their tenure or their size, but more their quality for me.

I would agree with that.

Um I I I don't know if I would care about the tenure size either, but I would agree with that as well.

Thanks.

So I was just uncomfortable with Sumter.

Um MGT being the first one in the packet had an advantage.

Um, but I also wonder about Mr.

Denin, considering he is a consultant, an independent consultant.

He is not really a permanent part of the company.

Um so I don't know whether that's a pro or a con, but you know, I did note that.

Um as far as Slavin was concerned, um, I it it sometimes there was some things that were open to interpretation, and the way I read the narrowing down of semi-finalists to finalists, was that their process is they came here, they worked with us, they consulted with us, and they basically let us decide how to cut down from the semifinalist to the finalists, as opposed to them doing that, you know, decision.

So it it's you know a question of interpreting.

Um the negative I had about Slavin, and again it's pros and cons.

Um, their proposal wasn't pretty.

It was really dense reading, and it was the last one, so it was difficult to get through.

Um, but so you could say, oh, are their materials that go out to the potential uh uh applicants going to be pretty and attractive, and then the other thought is oh, well, they're not wasting that much time and energy making the proposals to us as pretty, they're gonna spend it on making it pretty for, you know.

They're gonna spend it on making it pretty for, you know, so uh those were some of the thoughts I I just uh would re would not include uh Sumter.

Uh I I just think that they are not capable of doing what we need them to do.

And uh I you know my first choice at this point would be Slavin, but MGT is very close to that, but I also wonder if that's because I read them first and they had a prettier proposal.

All right.

Uh Commissioner Batti.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

Um pretty much everything's been said, but yeah, and I didn't really, you know, care where they were, you know, in order, but to me it MGT seemed to be the one with the more comprehensive proposal and whatnot, you know, what been around since what's uh 76 or somewhere like that, 51 years in the business.

Um over 1200, you know, consultants.

Um was it Mr.

Dean and Dennin or Denin or what have you, you know, having been a county administrator with Velocia uh County, um and uh, you know, you know, to the commissioner's point regarding it be con being a kind of a la carte or whatever, but uh you know, and I think they they did a pretty good job of uh of um giving us what it is we asked for and especially when you looked at the the the the cities and counties that they work with um in the states.

They've been what like about 45 states in in you know in the in the country um w was it ninety-four percent retention rate as of the ninety-five somewhere like that.

Um and uh w what was the uh oh yeah and when you you know talking about um Sumter, you know, I thought they did, you know, for them being a you know a a relatively young, you know, company in the in the business did a pretty you know, gave a pretty good um proposal and uh presentation or what have you.

Slab and I was kind of like, you know, taking it back kind of look like they just kind of put it together or whatever, although, you know, their their experience in the business, their longevity in the business, you know, everything that they that they bring, you know, speaks volumes or what have you.

So it's kind of like, okay, we're the you know, we're a champion and whatnot, we don't have to whatever, but you know, but um MGT I just thought was a bit more um you know thorough, you know, and and comprehensive of whatever, even if they were the last one to, you know, in the proposals.

But the one thing that really caught my eye was the population, and they varied from like a little over 2,000 all the way to the millions of, you know, in in terms of populations of of uh, you know, getting these candidates, you know, to these um varying um municipalities, you know, across the the nation.

You know, and uh so I so that was one thing that's uh stood out to me is that they presented that, oh the you know, these are the the counties in which we we work with, the cities that we work with, these are the populations or whatever that that that really stood out to me, you know.

So um I thought that that MGT in my book or what have you, you know, uh you know, for me of whatever thing.

And that the so the price didn't didn't really, you know, play a play a huge role in it.

I mean it's night day when you're talking about them and Sumter, you know, 18 to 40 45 or whatever.

So that's my thought.

Okay.

Well, I I've been um taking notes about or a little bit about how everybody felt about everything.

And and I too thought MGT was uh superior in terms of their experience.

I I like that they're based in Tampa because then they, you know, have a more understanding of Florida politics and you know what what we need in this in this area and their experience and all of the people that they've recruited around the country, um, which gives them a a big database of people to potentially reach out to.

So um, you know, I I didn't understand why they were so much more than the other two firms and the other two firms, you know, everybody says good, you know is is impressive in their in their um presentations about what they will do.

So it seemed very strange that there was such a big gap in the difference in so I appreciate uh Mr.

Hyde's um suggestion that you know it should be at least that much because the other ones are are too low.

So um I I think the you know talking about the presentation was slavin.

I think that if you aren't gonna do a good presentation when you're trying to get the job, then um what are you gonna do once you have the job and what kind of face are you gonna present to the ultimate candidates?

Because I think uh uh Vice Mayor Trice's um question about well, how would you feel if you were being recruited by one of these firms, and I think that is huge.

Um if they don't come across as professional or um that they have experience in what they're doing, it's going to make you think twice about getting involved in in their process.

So I think overall, you know, I would be in favor of MGT.

Commissioner Ulrich.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I'd be in favor of MGT as well.

I'd also support um interviewing um via Zoom, not in person, but um I'd be in favor of uh interviewing MGT and Sumter.

Uh minus that I'd pick Sumpt uh MGT.

Uh I have a lot of questions for each of the companies that would uh give me clarity on some of the information they included in their proposal to us.

Um and I also think that we should do what Commissioner Aher and Kotch did, and that is on behalf of the commission, have an official person contact somebody who was who utilize the services of each of these companies and get an official statement for a record.

All right, Commissioner Ehamkoutch.

Um I would be comfortable with doing you know, interviewing two of the three, uh, but um I would pick MGT and Slavin uh uh over Sumter.

Um it for me the experience of those two companies um speaks to their uh being able to get to the end point for us in a much more streamlined way uh in this field, I think it the experience is important, although I do have to say I was still impressed with Sumpner.

I mean I'm I'm not sure which commissioner said that you know for a young firm, they they really had some innovative ideas that I thought were also pretty darn interesting um of you know how they would um go through the process and different interview techniques and things like that.

So um I guess I I guess we we um narrow it down to two that we would interview.

Is that probably the next process?

It's your your decision, but that seems like a logical one.

Because I too have questions, detailed questions, especially for me the most important thing is um their process of actually getting down through this.

Um I have some experience questions to ask them, but mostly about their process, keeping in mind that we don't want them whittling down resumes that we want everything done openly, transparently and to be involved in in seeing everything.

So if that's what the commission wants to go is to do an interview of two firms I would pick uh MTT and so and Slavin.

And and I I agree their their presentation was the least um polished of the three.

Um and it was hardy to get through it.

Hardy to get through it.

Um and there were really important words um that were sort of buried in here.

You had to really read everything to get to it, like inviting, you know, they would do their they would reach out and invite people to apply, which was something that was important to me, and you know, you had to really read everything to find that.

Um couldn't gloss and sort of breeze through it.

But their words were important.

And I agree with the commissioner about the you know the the prices.

I do think once we sort of add in some of the they have a base price, then you add in, I mean Slavin did say a total top price of $25,722 and 25 cents.

So maybe we could, you know, talk to them about that 25 cents.

But um I I did see though that you know those those could they could all sort of a la carte get higher if we went extended or did extra things um that they you know posed to us were were possibilities.

So I think they're all probably in the same price range at the end of the day, with MGT probably being um the most expensive if we um and I didn't see where did you see Commissioner Albrecht that they included that community in their pricing?

No, um what they said is 12 hours of meetings were built into this fee.

And in my mind, unless they say it does not include a community meeting, then we could include a community meeting in those 12 hours if we choose.

Okay.

I think maybe what I was looking at was the community survey can be conducted.

That's what they said was a community survey can be conducted for $3,500.

Community forums are conducted as an optional service, is what it says here.

It's on page 37.

Right.

I read that too, but their other statement about what is included in the 45,000 dollars did not exclude community workshops or community forums.

Um it's how you do things, you know, that we could get it included in 45,000.

Well, it sounds like we we all are impressed with MGT and another.

Um so maybe in the if we interview them, then would that can be part of the questioning.

Be very specific about what's included in that.

And MGT, I was also impressed with their um their list here.

It's on page 26, and they listed, you know, all the cities in Florida where they've hired, you know, city manager, city manager, assistant city manager, and the populations that was mentioned earlier in the year.

I mean, those are some, you know, and you know, we as commissioners can reach out to those folks and say, how is your experience if we want to do that individually?

Okay, uh Vice Mayor Trice.

Okay.

One of the questions that I was going to be asking about our process is does it include uh the city reaching out to the references that were provided in the proposals to find out, you know, to get input in that.

100%.

I just think we want to you all to kind of come to a clear understanding of where we were going and who we wanted to talk to first before we did that, but 100% we could do that.

So um and you know, I'm very eager to move our process forward, you know, as expeditiously as possible.

Um if this commission had said, oh yeah, we're 100% behind one of them, I would have said, fine.

I've got two that, you know, in my opinion are fairly evenly balanced.

Uh the reason I would want to interview either of them is obviously I've got some outstanding questions about how they would be doing certain things in our search.

But beyond that, in search 1.0, we came up with some things that we wanted to do that included um uh for the finalists uh meeting with the community, having like an open house town hall kind of thing with a community could meet them.

So I've got questions along those lines for our search firm candidates about their opinion of doing that sort of thing.

You know, would they advise that yeah, go ahead, that's it more, you know, useful, or do they have reasons to say no, that might not be a good idea.

But in any event, once we have expressed these are the things we would like included in our process, maybe above and beyond what they normally do, they're gonna give us another price tag.

So I think that's an important thing.

So I would opt to interview, whether it's in person or via video, um MGT and Slavin to get those things answered.

I really could not see my way clear to include Sumter in a search of this importance to Sarasota.

I thought they're a nice scrappy firm, and maybe for a different position, I could see hiring them, but not for city manager of the city of Sarasota.

So you have a preference.

Uh yeah.

Um, you know, like uh the one thing about you know Slavin was the kind of um allowing for commission to have you know more, you know, input or what have you and hands-on approach.

Uh but you know I lean more toward uh uh MGT because uh as I said, you know, like they're they're very you know thorough and uh uh comprehensive approach to what it was we know we were asking for.

And um and you know, I don't have an issue so much with uh Sumter and you know and and their sort of um lack of uh time um in the in the business or in the industry.

Um I thought they went, you know, above and beyond uh w with their presentation and what it was they presented to us in their pro uh um proposal.

So you know if if if if if it were seems like Slavin kind of falls in between the the two of them.

But uh I pretty much lean toward uh MGT and uh and bless you and uh Sumter or who have you, you know, give them a shot at a title.

All right.

Um what it looks like to me is t two commissioners say Sumter as the second, two commissioners say Slavin as the second.

I think we probably should do all three.

Um Commissioner Ulrich.

Right.

Um and so let's do that quickly.

I'm okay with interviewing all three.

Uh for me, um the main reason for interviewing them now is finding the fit who fits best with us.

And the um commenting on uh Vice Mayor's comment about the community meeting, my reason for wanting a community meeting would be to have commissioners be able to be there and observe the interaction between the candidate and the community again to determine fit.

Yeah, I think that's I mean I think that's huge.

I mean, I I I know I've been interviewing um marketing companies for my firm, and they all pretty much say the same thing, but the person you're interacting with is makes a huge difference.

It tells you more about who they are.

So I think that I think that makes sense.

Exactly.

So um do we have a consensus to select um move forward with all three firms in an interview process?

Yes, I think we do.

Okay.

Um next to kind of push this along on the structure of these interviews, our our thought, because we're trying to keep it all transparent, is have public interview meetings with all three firms.

Um the structure of this in our thought process, and you guys can tell us if you don't want this or not, was to be have them give you a brief presentation and then have question and answer interview question period for you all for each firm.

Um we would try to like to do this in a special meeting, so if you guys can provide direction and give us direction.

Um, but that is our thought on this, and you guys can tell me how you feel about that.

I like that format.

Okay.

Um the question uh we haven't answered is in person or by electronic means.

Um we can provide them the ability to pre to um present in Zoom, but we will still have a it will be a publicly noticed commission meeting, but it's interviews.

So we will still be here.

Um but if they want to come via Zoom, that is up to you.

If one of you couldn't be here, you needed to be also different, but that's a separate topic.

But so if we do by Zoom, I'd like all of them to utilize the same format, not have somebody here and others by Zoom because there's an advantage.

I get that.

Okay.

Yeah.

That's fair.

I think you know, by personally, by by not that it wouldn't be nice to have them come, but then who pays the expenses we do.

Or that.

Yeah.

So I I think via Zoom.

Okay.

Would Yeah, I think that's a good question.

You could get a feel for a person on Zoom.

Right.

Okay.

Yep.

Easy.

Okay, Vice Mayor.

Yeah.

Um in terms of interview questions.

I was going to suggest that we at least have a list of questions that will be directed to each of them.

And my thought was for each of us to come up with questions that we would like asked and pass them along to Ms.

Griggs and Mr.

Polzak, and they could consolidate, possibly reword, so that at least as a baseline, we have asked all of the firms some consistent questions, and then I know that when we have the actual uh interviews, we're each gonna have some follow-up questions, but I was thinking about having you know at least some consistent baseline questions for all of them.

That they could answer ahead of time.

No, you're saying is that that's I I meant actually m on on the public interview.

So you're saying give them the questions ahead of time, or just saying have a compiled set of questions for have you compile a set of questions that we've passed along.

And how does that fit with our goal of being transparent?

Well, it will it will be transparent because if you're gonna send it to us, it's gonna be an email, so that's transparency.

But what we can do is compile it and put the interview questions as part of the backup.

Like I don't I mean, I don't know what you're doing.

Then the only the firms would have advanced notice what those questions are versus I don't know if you want to I don't I don't uh I just wanted to make sure that we didn't give softballs to one firm and hard questions to another firm that so you want to keep the questions standard for each each firm.

Yeah.

And and but then we could ask follow-up questions depending on how they answered.

We ask them questions like right here.

Yes, it's so so if that's the situation, you know, I don't see the need to compile questions to to give them because I mean we pretty much do that like right here, you know, at the dice anyway, and to okay that question has been asked, so I'm not gonna ask it or whatever.

So I just you know think that um, you know, each commissioner can have their their set of questions that they want to ask them or what have you in uh in this in real time as opposed to sort of giving them you know the opportunity to sort of say what we want to hear or or whatever, you know.

Um I just like it, you know, boom, right by here in front of us in front of everyone is more transparent.

And uh, you know, that's not innocuous as you say in my own.

Yeah, I just wanted to make sure that we didn't miss any questions and that you know we we got this answers to critical things from all of them.

I mean, we can I could also um me and Mr.

Polzak could also ooh.

I don't know.

Did you all see that out of the I didn't know if I was like losing some water something going on if it's me?

Um we could also get with um HR.

I don't know, you know, there's some sort of standard type of questions as well.

I don't know if they had a set of questions.

I I don't know.

I'm just we're not we're not HR, so we also want to make sure we're asking the appropriate type of questions and we're not asking anything inappropriate.

So I just want to make sure we're doing the right thing on that aspect as well.

Um the other thing to consider is you did each get a copy of the uh guide where there were suggested questions in there that they've already answered.

Um so you may want your questions to be more random in the context of these interviews where they haven't prepared for questions that are posted in the agenda.

That's up to you.

Yeah, I mean I think one thing that you know that can accomplish kind of what Vice Mayor Trice is saying is that you know, the questions you that you think are important, you make sure you ask out every day.

Right.

Commissioner Ulrich, you're working.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I think during an interview like this, the spontaneity of asking and answering questions can be very revealing.

And I would support Commissioner Betty's suggestion.

Um yet that also gives us the opportunity to ask the important questions and maybe uh reaching out to HR would help us make sure we have the answers to all the important questions from all of them.

Yeah.

Yeah, I have some unique questions for each company based on their proposal to us.

Yeah.

Well, and it didn't preclude, you know, having unique questions, because that you know goes without saying, but Commissioner Herncot.

Um I'm hearing two different things here, and I don't know why we can't do both.

Uh I don't know why we can't submit like we did at the beginning of these packets, which I found very helpful that they all answered the same questions that we provided to them, you know, talk about these things, how much da-da-da-da-ed were important for them to answer.

But then they also were able to add information that we didn't necessarily ask for in their packet.

So in this context, I would say we could do both.

We could have a set of standard questions that we make sure we ask all three of them to make sure we're comparing apples to apples.

And then in the spontaneity in the moment, of course, not preclude us asking questions that come to mind at at that time.

So uh I would support us doing both.

Um if we have questions we think are important, we submit those to uh Miss Griggs and then she can compile those and make sure we ask three or four or five standard questions of all of them, and then in the moment ask what we think is important.

But if if if we do that, um, you know, and and I'm not saying that that's not uh a good way to do it, then if we're timing everybody's got a certain amount of time, who's gonna be the one that eats into their time with the standard questions, or would we have have Ms.

Griggs or Mr.

Polzak ask the standard questions and then uh you know the rest of our questions can be spontaneous.

I mean, that's that's a thought.

Yeah, yeah, that might be uh uh a way to do that.

And then personally, like I said, if you have a question, your questions that you really think you want answered that you want to make sure you ask each each one that and then you would have specific questions for each um each candidate.

Or we could to expand on that, Mayor, if you know, have direct them to answer these questions in their presentation.

So they come be prepared to answer the common questions in their presentation.

And then have that that might save a lot of time.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's okay.

Commission or Vice Mayor Trice.

And then another alternative on that is when we set up the schedule with them, also provide them these questions and say, you know, you can respond to those in writing the way you responded in the proposal.

Well, we would do that because we would try to make that a part of the backup material.

So um that would be the goal.

We would reach out and get that done.

So um yeah, I actually like that suggestion.

Which one?

What?

Put it in the presentation, the questions, um, and make it a part of the.

And then they can explain.

They can explain them.

Their answers to those common questions.

So I think what we'll do is I will email you all to formally email you about this, asking for questions to respond back to me and Mr.

Poles Act, and we can compile it and we'll go from there.

Um I think we have a good on everybody okay with that process.

I feel yeah, I I I am Commissioner Baptiste though has yeah, one to comment.

No, I mean, I just wanted to, you know, clarify my reason for you know, proposing what I did what I did is because this is an interview process and when I and the applying um interviewing for a job and with any job that you know you isn't real time.

You know, we have you, you know, they don't you go into an interview, uh they don't um sort of just have questions for you that that you've like an open book test that you've like answered and and so on and so forth, they ask you this and you know, right there, you know, to your face and they can see your reaction to them.

They you know they whether you're nervous or whatever, you know um your proclivities are and so on so um so yeah, so that that was my my reason for for proposing what it is I did.

Okay, Vice Mayor Trice, you have one more comment.

Yeah, I was just thinking about time frame of when we are aiming to set this up.

That was gonna be my next topic once we once we we finalize this.

Um so we do have a workshop in September.

I believe that is the ninth.

Um if the city manager didn't have any topics for that workshop, I might try to steal that date.

Um we'll see if not, then we'll have to schedule it and I would change it from a workshop to a special.

Um but if we can't get that date and he needs that date for a workshop, then we will have to get some scheduled meetings, ASAP.

Um I would we would get with Christina and look at everybody's calendars and try to get that done as soon as possible and also contact these firms to make sure that they're available as well.

But our goal is to try to push this forward as quickly as possible to get these scheduled.

So that's kind of where we are right now.

Sounds good.

Okay.

Sounds good.

All right.

Mr.

Interim City Manager, you have anything we we take all you've been doing this for a long time, so the interim city manager places the hiring of a permanent city manager as the highest priority.

All right.

All right.

Um did uh anybody else have anything to add?

Any of our administrative officers, charter officials, nothing.

We thank you.

We have the direction we need and we appreciate it.

Thank you.

All right.

Good job.

We're adjourned.

Let's end in it.