City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

You ready, Nova?

Let me just double check. Yeah, we're ready to start.

Good afternoon. It's Tuesday, September 1st, 2026. We're at Carmel-by-the-Sea City Hall on an absolutely beautiful day here. If you don't live here, you should come and see what it looks like sometime. And I'd like to call this regular meeting of the Carmel-by-the-Sea City Council to order at 4.30 p.m. City Clerk, could you please call the roll?

Council Member Barron.

Here.

Council Member Booter.

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Dulles.

Here.

Council Member Jamal. Here. Mayor Byrne.

Here.

All are present.

Just so everybody knows, we had a meeting just prior to this at 3.30. It was a special meeting to discuss an issue regarding the city administrator process, which we have on item three on this agenda. So we've been busy a little bit. Some of the people in the room were here for that meeting. But this is a new meeting with a new agenda. And before we begin, a reminder that this is a hybrid meeting. Members of the public may attend in person, participate via Zoom, or if you wish to make a comment on Zoom only. Watch the live stream on the city's YouTube page now or any time in the future. We'll now do the Pledge of Allegiance. Alessandra, would you like to lead us?

Yes, I would. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,

Thank you. If necessary, council will take a 30-minute break around 6.30 p.m. I think we're probably going to need it tonight. We're now going to do our extraordinary business. We have three items. Is somebody from Carmel High School here? I didn't get noticed on that. So we have two items. Hopefully they'll be back soon. They have very entertaining report outs and we enjoy it. So the first item we're going to have tonight is the nonprofit spotlight. Very excited to have Monterey Peninsula College Foundation here. We've been trying to get them on the agenda for a few months now. We keep getting our wires crossed, but we have Rebecca Michael here, and this is a very exciting opportunity. How many people have taken a class at MPC? That's good. Good for you. And those that haven't should. There was a meeting at the Harrison Library a couple of weeks ago. It was lightly attended, but very interesting. And their president, who's in the back of the room, you're going to introduce your teammates, right? Yeah. It was very interesting. they have incredible opportunities there, and there's so many good things that you can do. Just so you know, the Ocean Avenue Median Project would not have happened if I hadn't taken a native plant class at MPC, because that's where I made the connections, and that's how it all came together. So you never know what's going to come out of taking a class at MPC. Go ahead, Rebecca, happy to have you here tonight.

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for the opportunity. I would like to just briefly introduce a couple of my fellow teammates who are here today, including the superintendent president of Monterey Peninsula College, Dr. Marshall Fulbright III, who's joining us in the back. We also have one of our elected trustees, Anita Crawley, who represents this area, Carmel. And a couple of my foundation board members, Linda Yellich and Karen Parker. And I also just want to acknowledge Maria Roos, who helped connect me to your mayor here and to set this up. She's traveling, so she couldn't be here today, but sends her regards.

But she's on the board, correct?

And she's on the board as well, yeah, the foundation. So yeah, thank you for the opportunity. I understand I have five minutes, so I only have 50 slides. You know, Sue, as you said so beautifully, MPC is such a resource for this community. It's such a gem. The reason we have a foundation is to make sure that everybody has access to that gem, that everybody has the ability and the opportunity to attend MPC and to be successful and to have the best experience they could possibly have while they're there. So on that note, I'll look at you when I need to advance. Oh, there's a button. There's a clicker. Look at that. Wonderful. Thank you. So the Monterey Peninsula College is a separate auxiliary foundation connected to a nonprofit connected to the college. And one of the main things we do is we work with generous people in the community to change what's possible for residents of this area. And we do that by providing support to students directly. So far this calendar year, we've awarded just over a million dollars to residents in Monterey County so that they can attend succeed at MPC we've reached 500 students almost and we've awarded 354 scholarships but really scholarships are just the beginning most people are very familiar with that concept but really what it's about is meeting students where they are and some of us you know would be quite surprised to realize some of the circumstances some of the students who are attending MPC are living in The vast majority of them are low income. And while MPC is a phenomenally high quality and affordable option as far as higher education, still really expensive to go to college. You still have to pay your living expenses. You still have to buy your textbooks. You still have to buy other instructional supplies. And oftentimes it means reducing your work hours, right, in order to attend college. So we help students with scholarships pay for whatever living expenses they may have. We help them stay enrolled by providing emergency assistance. So the college has a basic needs center where students can access our Lobo pantry and get other resources that they need. But occasionally something comes up that's unexpected that might derail a student and cause them to have to drop out. And so the foundation comes in and provides that support so that they can stay on track and get to their graduation, reach the goal. And we have other opportunities like the College Incentive Program where high schools and nonprofits that work with youth that are underserved can nominate students to be part of a special program. They get wraparound support as well as financial incentives that are paid to them incrementally during their time at MPC. We have students who come from Big Circus, Shower, Carmel Valley, of course, in your district, or in your city, rather. And so these are all students who are living in challenging circumstances, who just really need that extra opportunity and that extra help to be able to experience MPC. We also pay for students to do internships. If they're doing an internship for a local jurisdiction, nonprofit, or other small startup business that can't yet afford to pay for an intern, We pay for students to get that experience because we know how valuable it is. And actually, I forgot to mention one of our instructors as well is here, Dr. Lindsay Pillman, who manages that scholarship, the internship program and teaches our work experience courses. And so that's another wonderful resource we have. And we also provide grants to our faculty and staff so that they can continue to be excellent at their craft and participate in professional development and implement other innovative ideas in the classroom. We also have a brand new program we just launched called Honor Grants, which I'll talk about now. This is a really special program. We are the first of its kind. We did model it around another community college foundation that's offering low-interest loans to students going into nursing. And we said, well, instead of that, we're going to do these honor grants. And they're for nurses. firefighters and EMTs, we provide up to $30,000 to each student. It is upfront money that they get incrementally during their time while they're studying because these programs are really high demand. You cannot work while you're in the nursing program or fire or EMT. And so while they're in the program, they get financial assistance to us and they pledge to become donors and to start giving back to the program a year after they graduate. So it's a self-perpetuating fund. It's a really neat program. We interviewed, for this last round, 24 students. We awarded 14, just under $300,000. And these are amazing students. And I do want to point out, behind all of these statistics, these are real people. They're really hardworking neighbors, daughters, nieces, nephews, cousins. These are all people that live right here in our community that are working hard and they're going to take care of us someday. These are nurses, firefighters. So Melanie, she's been a CNA since she graduated high school and she's not been able to afford to do the nursing program. But now because she has an honor grant, she can do that. Not only can she do it, she can do it without incurring high interest commercial debt. So we're really proud of her. She's off to a great start and look forward to seeing her graduate in just a couple of years. So really what it's about is helping MPC students succeed, because when they do, all of us benefit from that. And so I've been asked to talk about some of the ways you can help get involved. I mentioned our scholarships. Believe it or not, we receive 1,000 scholarship applications a year. So it takes a pretty big committee to help us read those, score them. and determine who's going to receive which scholarship. So if you're interested in being a reader of scholarship applications, please reach out to me. Of course, you have plenty of opportunities to give in other ways. And just being a champion and help tell the story of MPC, we appreciate that so much. So I think I'm at my five minutes.

You did great. That was a really good presentation.

Oh, thank you. Happy to answer questions if you have time.

I might add. Because there were only three people at the listening session at the gathering room. But it was a very good session. I had no idea how much space you have there, even though I took a class, because you don't see the whole thing.

It's massive.

And they have two brand new buildings that are stunning. One of them, the music dance, that whole dance.

Music building will be opening in the new year, yes.

And then the other one, it was like an admissions office or something.

Yeah, it's a student engagement center. It's currently known as Building 10, but there is a new name coming, we believe. But yeah, Building 10, and it's a resource for students. There is a welcome center inside. The career and transfer center is in there. It's gorgeous, as you said. And that's all thanks to our bond measure, and so we're very grateful to our voters for supporting us.

Things are happening. It's amazing, amazing. Go out there and walk around a little bit and And when you take a class, I had so much fun because I hadn't been to college in a long time. And I got on there, I felt like I was young again, right?

Yeah, we have great intergenerational diversity there. It's a wonderful benefit of being at MPC. It's a really diverse campus.

And it's low cost. It's fantastic. All right, thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, the next spotlight is the Childhood Cancer Awareness Month Proclamation, and Councilperson Dramoff has offered to read the proclamation, and I think you've done this before, right?

Yes, correct.

This is something special for you, so go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor. This is from the City of Carmel-by-the-Sea Council proclamation honoring Jacob's Heart Children's Cancer Support Services and declaring September 2026 as Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Whereas the character of our community is revealed in how we treat our most vulnerable, and whereas each year 19.2 in every 100,000 children in our community will be diagnosed with cancer, Whereas cancer remains the leading cause of death by disease among children more than asthma, diabetes, cystic fibrosis, congenital anomalies, and AIDS combined, and whereas Jacob's Heart has been keeping medically fragile children and families housed, fed, and emotionally supported by steadfastly adhering to the following commitments. Parents of children with cancer and other serious illnesses will be relieved of financial fears and be able to focus attention on their children. No child undergoing intensive treatment in our community will be homeless. Families of seriously ill children will not experience food insecurity. And no seriously ill child in our community will ever miss a medical appointment because of a lack of transportation. Whereas Jacob's Heart holds the memories and honors legacies of hundreds of children from our local community who have been lost to cancer, ensuring that their memories will never be forgotten. whereas the Oncology Department at Lucille Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford has worked closely with Jacob's Heart for the past 28 years as a trusted community partner in providing family-centered care that addresses the emotional, practical, and financial struggles of families and children with cancer in the city of Carmel-by-the-Sea. and whereas it is important for all Carmel by the Sea residents to recognize the impact of pediatric cancer on families within our community and honor the children in our community whose lives have been cut short by this cancer. Therefore, be it proclaimed on behalf of Dale Byrne, Mayor of Carmel by the Sea, On behalf of the City Council and the citizens of Carmel, we proclaim September 2026 as Childhood Cancer Awareness Month in the City of Carmel-by-the-Sea and do hereby honor Jacobs Heart Children's Cancer Support Services for their outstanding support to our community and acknowledge the organization's contributions to Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. And if there's somebody in the audience from the organization, come on up and I will present this to you.

Would you like to say a couple words?

If that's okay.

Yeah, go ahead.

Well, hi everyone. My name is Alyssa and I'm the outreach specialist here at Jacobs Heart. On behalf of Jacob's Heart and the kiddos and our families that we serve, I'd like to thank you all for recognizing September as Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. I just want to say firsthand, I've been working with these families almost five years and seeing the support that we can give these families is phenomenal. I like to say we're not make a wish, but I like to make wishes happen. So whatever we can do, I try to make happen, whether that's getting them to Monster Jam out at the Salinas Complex or maybe it's a Giants game, you know, providing those little moments because you really never know what's next. And so if we can provide just little moments of joy, just memories that families can take forever. That's what we love to do. We are currently serving 400 and 41 families, which comes out to over 1,900 individuals. Salinas alone is our biggest service area, which makes up Monterey County. So Monterey County is our biggest service area that we serve. We do things like transportation, groceries delivered to your door every Tuesday and Thursday. Maybe you're just coming in to hang out with your social worker. Maybe you're getting a counseling therapy session going. Maybe you're just there to hang out with us. It's endless. Sometimes we have to turn off the lights and say, hey, we're all leaving now, time to go home. Because it really is just one of those places for the families. That place is there for community and having a community like you recognizing this month is really important. So thank you so much for all your support.

Thank you. And thank you for reaching out. And you look like you're having a lot of fun with this.

Yes. And I'm not native to this area, so it is beautiful coming here.

How do we help you? How do we support you?

So there are so many things that you guys have done. So the community itself, so a lot of the Rotary, a lot of like the Lions Clubs have all come together to really support Jacob's Heart, whether it's been volunteer work, whether it's been financial or in kind donations, you guys, this community has really helped in so many ways. And we can't do what we do without this kind of support, whether it's donating your clothes. So if any of you guys are clearing out your closet in spring cleaning or winter cleaning, please bring that stuff to Jacob's Heart. We'll even come and pick it up from you. We have a little area that families can go and grab what they need, no questions asked. So all sizes from babies to grandparents to uncles and aunties, everybody.

All right. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

All right, we're now gonna go into public appearances. Nova, could you read the regular meeting public appearance notice?

Members of the public are entitled to speak on matters of municipal concern, not on the agenda during public appearances. Each person's comments shall be limited to three minutes or as otherwise established by the chair. While stating your name is optional, it helps to identify speakers in the meeting minutes. Under the Brown Act, public comments for matters on the agenda must relate to that agenda item and public comments for matters not on the agenda must relate to the subject matter jurisdiction of this legislative body. Remote or in-person participants who do not comply with the requirements of the Brown Act will be muted.

Thank you. How many people plan on speaking tonight? Just a couple. Three. And we have one online. All right. So come on up. Three minutes.

Good afternoon, mayor, council, city staff. My name is Cindy Lloyd. I just want to let you know that I too went to MPC. When I graduated from Carmel High School in 59, we were a little bit snobbish. And the idea of setting your big toe on MPC was kind of a de rigueur. So I went to UC Davis. And years later, 13 years later, being a single mother of two children, I went to MPC to take nursing courses, pre-nursing courses, all my prerequisites. And they were tough. I learned how to respect the professors there. They were fabulous. They were so good. And I worked my... fingers to the bone to make sure that I got good grades so that I would get accepted into Hartnell's nursing program, which I did. And I graduated from there as valedictorian. But the classes that I took that I really had fun at were ornamental horticulture. And I took plant propagation. And I think I've become a compulsive propagator. I know I have. And that was just a wonderful, wonderful introduction to MPC. And so I fully support it. I would never put it down. I encourage people to go there because it's local. It's there. It's available for all of us. So thank you, MPC, if they've gone home. Thank you.

They also have a lot of parking. Serious lot of parking.

Hi, Council. Tasha Witt, full-time resident. Did you say that today was sunny? And it's usually not, Mr. Byrne. I like it when it's foggy. I think it's romantic.

It was especially spectacular today. It was. It really was.

I got to paddleboard on River Beach the other day. I would just wanted to talk, I wanted to give support to measures M and N, both my husband and I support those. It's been wonderful seeing our businesses thrive after COVID. I don't think that our city maintenance has been as quick at recovery to where it was, and maybe it always needed more help. We used to have regular street sweeping before COVID. I'd like to see that return. And the quicker beach repairs. The sand used to be infilled and cleaned up. So there's a lot of sea kelp and flies that people are stepping over and squamps that happen at certain times with algae, with kids and dogs waiting in it. I recently learned, and I need to see if this needs to be verified, that Pebble Beach Beach Club is lopping off sea kelp plants because of their boat rudders, and that is floating onto our beach. So that could be the increase, but it would be interesting to know that because that doesn't sound like it should be happening. And then, okay, so then also, The seawall repair concerns me a lot. And we just have so much that needs to be contributed to our general fund. So I really do support those measures. And that is pretty much what I came here today for. Thank you.

Thank you. Nice to see you here.

Hi there. So what happened to Chip retiring to spend more time with his family? He's out of retirement, no more family. I mean, I knew it was a ruse at the time. And if you had told me the day that I went down there to face that paramilitary organization alone what would have happened over the next six years, I wouldn't have believed it. And why do I keep bringing it up? Because none of you have atoned for it. In fact, you, Alessandra, after we showed you what Chip did and read off his comments verbatim and that he had that tourist attacked, you voted to give him more money. You did too. So what happened? I beat the three criminal charges with our attorney. You guys did it again two months later. So glad to see you're awake. This was like your blockhead predecessors made Carmel Beach your private kingdom. It belongs to all of God's children, not just you guys. Opened up the beach a couple of months later. Figured out that both of your partners in your firms failed to become attorneys of record. Then they forgot to get licensed to practice law in that court. Then the same day that they pulled him out of that case, they replaced him with an associate that did the same thing. I got the entire firm investigated. I got that attorney investigated. I don't think that you guys have any idea of the wrath that you incurred from the force out there that I have no control over. And what you made me do, I was seething when your officers thought that they could take my purse off my shoulder, start digging through it, and running their hands all over me. It has still not been atoned for. You guys kissed his ass on the way out there. You know what? I don't care who hates me in here. I don't care. I don't care if you guys hate seeing me walk up to the podium. At some point, you're going to say you're sorry. I tried to warn you. Chip didn't believe me. And your officers had to find out who I was. Don't ever, ever do it. AGAIN. THANK YOU.

I DIDN'T RAISE MY HAND. ALL RIGHT, COME ON UP. LINDA CALIFIORI, RESIDENT. BUT I HAVE TO COMMENT. WE'VE HEARD THE LAST SPEAKER A NUMBER OF TIMES. I DON'T ENJOY HEARING YOUR COMMENTS, AND MANY OF THE PEOPLE IN THIS ROOM DON'T EITHER. AND THEN I WANTED TO TALK ABOUT TRANSPARENCY I think that this council does an amazing job about going over things and reading things, first reading, second reading, third readings of all kinds of things that are decided. So when I hear people complain about not being informed, I think it's their own fault. Thank you. And in response to the last speaker, I can't wait to get my COVID chat. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else here? Seeing none. Victoria had her hand up. Do you want to speak? Put your hand up if you do. Otherwise, we're going to be pulling it back. Maybe she's going to speak later. All right. Anybody else online want to speak? All right. I'm going to close public comment. And we're going to go to the next item, which is Announcements. City administrator, acting city administrator, do we have any announcements from you?

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have a couple of announcements. As I mentioned last night in the meeting, I wanted to give a short update on some of the beach efforts that are going on. First and foremost, the erosion down at the bottom of 11th. I'm happy to tell everybody that the design is done for the interim work. We are sourcing the riprap, or fancy way of saying big rocks, sourcing those this week. We're working on getting quotes. We already have one quote for the work to be done. As a reminder, the scope of that really is a little bit more excavation to clean up the opening, installing a fabric mat, placing those stones. And again, it's not just going down and throwing a bunch of rocks in there. They're engineered, they're placed in place, they're locked in place by the way that they're actually shaped. and then covering it back over with sand like you do with pavers to lock it in place finally. So that is happening. We expect to have that done before the end of October. this year. We've also done some work on the eighth ramp. We pushed sand up last month. We have planned to push some more sand in September. As you know, we also pushed sand up onto the revetments, a program that had taken a break for many years, but we are back on to now. So we'll be doing that once again before the winter comes. The important thing to tell everybody is that next month in October, we will be coming back. So myself, in partnership with the Public Works team, will be giving a more formal presentation on an update on the CIP, where we're at so far this year with CIP projects that have been done or underway. a conversation about El Nino prep. As we all have heard, this is going to be a super El Nino this year. That's what people are expecting. And we'll be talking about in a little bit more detail, some more of these beach projects, timelines, and beach readiness. All of those, all those three items go together because they all work in the world of CIP. So we're excited to come back to you in October to share that. So that's my first announcement. My second announcement sticking in the world of public works, actually, I'm going to shift to human resources and I'll go back to public works. So I'm excited to let you know that we did give a conditional offer letter to a new community planning and building director. They have accepted that conditional offer letter. So we are going through the normal process of background checks, reference checks and all those things. But assuming all that pans out, which it normally does, we expect to have that person joining us September 30th. So by the end of this month, we're very excited about that. Once we have the final offer letter in place and that's all finished, we will share with everybody who that person is. But I will tell you that Marissa and I are very excited about it. And sticking with the personnel realm, but going back to Public Works, I want to introduce you to our new Public Works Director. But before I say anything about him or invite him up here to speak with you, I would like to ask everybody to join me in please thanking and recognizing Shari Carlette for her time as the acting Public Works Director. She brought her amazing attitude, expertise, and incredible humor. If you don't know, it's really dry. She will confuse you sometimes. And you'll think she's making fun of you, which I felt a few times. But she's actually being very funny. She has an incredible sense of humor. So if you all would please join me in recognizing Shari. So Shari will actually be transitioning to her new job, which is a promotion to CIP manager. So if you remember in our budget this year, you created a new position, CIP manager that manages our two project managers. So Shari is going back to a management position with the city, which is also well-deserved. And so without further ado, I would like to introduce you to our new public works director, Mr. Yanni Dimitri, who's going to be coming up here. Come on up, Yanni. He's joining us. He was formerly the public works director in Culver City, professional engineer, human lightning bolt, and wonderful human being. I hope you took my advice and didn't drink any caffeinated beverages today, so you're a little bit more subdued for that. I don't need any caffeine. Exactly. He's human caffeine. So Mr. Dimitri, please introduce yourself and say hello to everybody.

Thank you so much, Brandon, for this nice introduction. Mayor, council members, and everybody in the audience tonight, it's truly a great privilege and a pleasure to be with all of you. My name is Yanni Dimitri. I graduated Cal State Los Angeles in 1999 and immediately moved up to the San Francisco Bay Area. I lived in San Ramon for 11 years and had the opportunity to work for great organizations in the Bay Area. I was in the county of Alameda Public Works for about six years. Then I went to, as a land development engineer, then I went to the city of Napa for several years as a traffic engineer. until in 2010, February 2010, I moved back to Southern California to work for the beautiful city of Santa Monica for six years as a construction engineer. I delivered a lot of projects from a simple $30,000 traffic signal upgrade project all the way up to the $1.5 billion Expo light rail, which connected Culver City to Santa Monica. It opened on May 19, 2016. Mayor Eric Garcetti was there to cut the ribbon. I got a very nice thank you letter from Metro for delivering the project. It was funded by Metro. From Santa Monica, I went to the rich and famous city of West Hollywood as the city engineer for another five years. From West Hollywood, I went to my hometown where we lived my wife and I and the kids for 11 years, and that is Culver City. That was my last job before I came to this incredibly beautiful town. I was the director of public works in Culver City for another five years. I am truly grateful for this opportunity for a lot of reasons. This is one of the most beautiful towns in America, not just in California. The second reason is that my wife is native to the Bay Area, Marin County to be exact. And the family lives all over the Bay Area as far south as Santa Cruz. So this job brings me and my wife and kids closer to the relatives. Over the past 20, 70 years of my career, I received outstanding performance evaluations everywhere I went. I am a licensed civil engineer in the state of California. I'm a licensed traffic engineer in the state of California. In addition to my bachelor's degree from Cal State Los Angeles, I enrolled myself at San Jose State University in the evening while I was working for the city of Napa as a traffic engineer. I drove from Napa to San Jose twice a week, 70 miles one way, three years in a row to get a master's degree in traffic engineering. But all the hard work that I have done over the past 27 years is what brought me here today. And I hope to put all that knowledge and expertise and good positive energy to good use for this incredibly beautiful town. Once again, I'm very grateful and I look forward to getting to know all of you over the coming weeks and months. Thank you. Thank you once again for this opportunity.

I have no more announcements. Wow. That's a mic drop. I'm going to end on that one. That was a lot. Yeah.

Thank you. Thank you.

And he gives people's pens back. He gives people's pens back. That is a real human skill right there. So many people steal pens. That's pretty amazing.

City Attorney, it's your turn. Do you have any announcements?

Yeah, no announcements tonight, Mayor.

That's pretty normal. Okay. Council people. Jeff, you have a comment? Bob? I do not. Alessandra?

I do. Thank you, Mayor.

I knew you would.

Of course. Thank you, Brandon, first of all for the beach update and we certainly look forward to the more thorough expanded update next month. Shari, thank you for your work and service and congratulations to your promotion and Yanni, welcome aboard. We look forward to working with you. So just two quick announcements really quick. I wanted to thank our police chief, our officers, all of our public works crews for all the work that they did. during car week that was a tremendous effort and you all did a wonderful job so thank you for that and speaking of car week many of you know but just a reminder and info for some of you that don't know the chief will be holding a listening session on car week good bad anything you want to say and share with him um that's on saturday september 26th at 10 in the morning at carpenter hall in sunset center And the other announcement I have is the 63rd Annual Great Sandcastle Contest is coming up. That's going to be on Carmel Beach on Saturday, September 19th. And I'm going to be a judge this year, so it should be really fun. It's sponsored by the city and the American Institute of Architects, the Monterey Bay Region. Registration is free. And so if you come to participate or just to walk around and see the creations, it's a lot of fun. I have childhood memories of just walking around and seeing everything. And it's really quite a tremendous job that people do in putting together these things. They take it seriously. So like I said, it's a lot of fun and hope to see you there. Thank you.

Are you up for bribes? but I know that that's.

I've heard that that's part of the procedure.

I was wondering who signed up to be the judge. Congratulations. That's pretty good. I have a quick announcement. At yesterday's special council meeting, council approved two appointments to the building appeals board and approved moving one ADA member to the core group. That solidifies what has now become an important board these days and also means that all 37 positions on our boards and commissions are filled. I think that deserves a round of applause. I want to thank everyone who volunteers. And these are complete volunteers. We're sort of volunteers, but we get paid a little bit, not much. But these are all volunteers. And like the Planning Commission, they have 1,000 page packets. I mean, it is a lot of work. All the commissions and boards are a lot of work. And I just really appreciate everybody that's volunteered and thank you so much. And just remember that that's the entry position to end up here someday. So if any of you have your eyes on something, there are term limits and they rotate every couple of years. So keep your eyes open because there will be openings and the next council will be appointing them. So thank you very much. I just thought that was great news. So now we're going to go to public hearings. We have two public hearings tonight. The first one is revised fiscal year 2026-2027 fee schedule. This is for resolution 2026-066, adopting the revised fiscal year 2026-27 fee schedule for citywide services. It looks like Jamie's going to give us a staff report.

Good afternoon, mayor and city council. Today is the second review of the revised fee schedule for the 26-27 fiscal year. When the council approved the updated fee schedule in May, we discussed bringing back potential revisions. The purpose of today's meeting is for the council to approve the revised schedule so that it can become effective in October. Previous actions included the existing fee schedule, which was approved in May, and the revised fee schedule that we talked about in August 4th, and then tonight. Since August 4th, we made a couple of changes based on the discussion the last time. We removed the language for waiving of fees. We created a new encroachment permit for power washing. and we looked at some cleanup of words that happened to come up. There was also a discussion of wanting to do some changes for landscaping, but we did not come back with those. And let me talk a little bit on this. What we do when we do this, the fees, is we have a study of what our costs are. We look at the actual time that we spend. And so when we went back and did an analysis, we found that indeed, as was suggested, we do spend less time doing power washing. There's certain steps that we don't have to do. So the fee we put into the schedule for approval tonight includes cutting out the extra time that we don't have to do for those particular actions for power washing. So I think, and like I said, there's some word changes. So tonight what we're looking for is a recommendation of the adoption of the fee schedule and citations as amended and presented. Are there any questions?

Anybody have a question? I have sort of a comment slash question. And I don't mean this to be cynical. I don't know what the right word is. But I saw the response to the request for more flexibility in landscape plan fees was basically telling people just go buy the plants and put them in. um which i think is great i just want to make sure that that's really okay i'm doing more than that on my project and i did not ask for a refund because mine is a bigger project but i have seen situations where people wanted to do that and they ended up getting in trouble for it so if it's true that if you wanted to like take all your plants in your front yard and change them from roses and stuff to native plants i'm doing more than that but if that's all i wanted to do is it true and maybe the The Forest and Beach Commission and Justin Ono should be here.

What I can say is that when I interviewed each of these groups, we talked through it, and I said, you know, can I quantify it? Can I describe it? How can we say this is small? Don't worry. So I think if you're doing something, go ahead and ask. When in doubt, talk to them. And you probably get a little bit of advice and guidance, but not have to pay for a fee. So the fee really is for... There's these plans. There's lots of work. They describe it as a one-ton truck is pulling up out front. But when in doubt, go ahead and ask. Absolutely. Better to do that than to make assumptions.

But it sounds like there's a fair amount of flexibility with that subject.

Yeah. Is that true? Yeah. We have a lot of knowledge and can just help.

Okay. So I just want to encourage people, don't be afraid to do things. Come in and talk. Is it the front desk here? Do you have to call up the forestry department?

No, just come right up to the planning department over here on the right. That's the best place to start and then they'll coordinate.

Okay, good. Keep an eye on my front yard. We'll see how it comes out. All right, good. And I appreciate the flexibility that you've had in changing some of these, not just this time, but the last time. And I've heard very positive comments from contractors who've really helped get more projects going. Thank you so much.

Good, good, good.

The other thing I wanted to ask about is I had mentioned large construction projects and the fee schedule on that because it hasn't been looked at in a long time. IS THAT SOMETHING IN THE FUTURE THAT YOU MIGHT TAKE A LOOK AT I THINK WHAT WE HAD TALKED ABOUT LAST TIME MY REACTION IS WE'RE GOING TO BRING THAT FORWARD NEXT YEAR WHEN WE DO THE BUDGET OKAY THAT'S A MUCH BIGGER DISCUSSION CHANGING OUR RUBRIC FOR ASSESSING BUILDING VALUATION VERSUS TOWERS OKAY VERY GOOD SO I THINK WE'RE READY WE HAVE TO DO A READING DO YOU WANT TO TAKE US INTO THAT PUBLIC PUBLIC COMMENT DO WE HAVE ANY COMMENTS ON THIS

Do we have public comment?

Yeah, fee scheduled. Good, Nancy, I'm sorry about that. That's why I keep all these people up here, to keep me on schedule here.

Nancy Toomey, thank you for everything that everybody does for the city. I appreciate it. So I did send an email in advance just tagging the power washing line item. that in past years, from what I recall, it's pre-COVID, the power washing of the city, the core of downtown was done by the city. And that's a more grossly, more efficient approach to this rather than having each business owner get an encroachment permit, doing what's in front of their space and disrupting that and going through the process, the labor and otherwise to do that. So I would like to seriously recommend, as you do all of the magic that you do with budgets, and I know you're squeezing blood out of the turnip out of everything, but it just does not make sense for me to have each business owner do their own sidewalk cleaning. And we've got all these wonderful four-legged friends. that add stuff to our downtown area. And it's essential that it really be done and done routinely and by the city and the budget. If there's some way to recoup those dollars, somehow the costs for the businesses, that would be great. I don't know. It's not a showstopper. You should approve this as presented, but I did want to call that out because the approach now makes no sense. Thank you.

Thank you. Our new public works director is here and he's listening. Any other comments? I'd like to make a comment back to you, Nancy, on that. This isn't just sidewalks. There are lots of courtyards like Anton and Michelle's courtyard. I know they hire pressure washers to go and clean their private areas that are in the commercial buildings. So it is very useful to them to keep their private property clean as well. But thank you for the comment. Anybody else? All right, bring it back here. Anybody have a comment about any of this? Ready to make a motion? Second reading?

This is first reading? It's a resolution.

It's a resolution, okay. Yeah, I'll make. Go ahead.

First of all, I actually completely agree with Nancy. Brandon, does the city do any power washing downtown? We don't.

So last year, last year's we have had like, so I think it's like 20 or $25,000 we put in as like an ops line item for pressure washing. We didn't have that in the budget this year. It was just one of the cuts that we made. We certainly could. We don't own the equipment to do it. We would contract it with the company that has the correct equipment for collecting the water. What we used to have, what the city used to have, and I wasn't here pre-COVID, but even after COVID, what we did for a couple of years, we had one of those things you see sometimes in a mall where people kind of push behind it as some little scrubbers under and it sucks the water up. It's really ineffective. It can only hold so much water. It doesn't do that great of a job. So we had one of those for a while, and we abandoned that thing. But the city certainly could. If this council wanted to put that money into the budget, make some sort of adjustment, we can do it for sure. We have the capability to do it.

One time with Carmel Cares, I got funding from the businesses, and we managed doing most of downtown.

Yeah, I think it would be interesting to have staff come back at some point with just a quick analysis of is there some way, what's the best way to get a contribution from the businesses? But to Nancy's point, have the efficiency of having the city do it. And then also, if we did add it to the budget, maybe think about like some offsets, some options for that so that it's not a budget buster.

Great idea. Anything else? Anybody want to make a motion? Jeff, you were going to.

I'll make a motion to adopt resolution 2027-066, adopting revised fiscal year 2026-2027 fee schedule for citywide services.

Second.

Councilmember Barron?

Yes.

Councilmember Booter?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Delves? Yes. Councilmember Dramaw? Yes. Mayor Byrne?

Yes.

Motion carries.

Very good. So number two, urgency ordinance establishing interim home hardening regulation citywide. Go ahead, Brandon.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, council. So we are back. As you recall, we had a meeting last month to talk about some recommendations for an urgency ordinance for home hardening. If you recall, this was a recommendation coming out of the Wildfire Prevention Committee. They suggested some immediate measures and some measures that then would be deferred to the design guidelines that were more design-focused. You had your meeting on the 4th of August and provided the policy guidance and directed staff to proceed with the ordinance. The ordinance would become effective immediately. It does require a four-fifths vote and would remain until the adoption of the revised design guidelines, which would make the ordinance go away immediately. This slide you've seen before, this is just a retelling of the four measures we're talking about here. Gravel adjacent to structures, what this is essentially within the zone zero area, five feet of the structure. Gravel would not be counted as site coverage. Right now the issue is that gravel counts as site coverage just like concrete. And so to put a non-combustible landscaping area around your house, you get dinged and you can't have the same amount of site coverage. Number two, the storage of firewood and combustible materials is just applying more stringent rules. The rules that already exist in our high fire hazard zones and WUI areas, this would be applying those all over town. Number three is the ember resistant vents. This is another one that is already in place and required by the building code in the mapped fire hazard zones and the wildland urban interface area, or WUI. This would make that requirement across the entire city. These are just more fire resistant vents. And then the last one has to do with windows. This takes a standard, once again, that is already required in the mapped hazard zones and WUI areas. and requires that to take place across the entire city. All of the other rules pertaining to windows, the distance between property lines, where they can be, the penetrations, all that, that all stays in place. This really just changes what the glass is made of. A couple of important caveats on these four things. They apply afterwards. They're not immediate retrofits. We're not asking for people to go retroactively. It's just when you're replacing or altering these components. And there's another exception when strict compliance, especially thinking about things like windows, when strict compliance would conflict with the Secretary of Interior standards for the treatment of historic properties, then there would be an exception for that. As I mentioned, there are some future measures that are not included in this urgency ordinance, but we are very much aware of. Things like wood shake roofing, the eaves, rafters, the material that decks are made out of, materials that fences are made out of, and their proximity to the main dwelling. The current drafting of the design guidelines contemplates many of these things, all of these things. And the group that has been working on that has taken steps to address that within the language of the design guidelines. So that will be coming future with the adoption of the design guidelines. So with that, staff's recommendation is for you to motion to adopt the urgency ordinance 2026-004, establishing these interim home hardening regulations citywide. And I'm available for questions. Excellent report.

Thank you. Any questions? This is the second time we've seen this, so probably not. Public comment?

I'll just move in over here. Nancy Toomey. So my only question is having to do with the future items and should I spend less time in city council meetings and in front of my computer doing what I do? And we, to do some of the upgrades to our home. I'm assuming we just come to the planning desk and have a conversation and embrace as much of this future direction as makes any logical sense. So that would be the process for the things that are in the future bucket. If we wanted to move ahead of when design traditions was ready for a thumbs up. Is that correct? is my question.

Thank you. Yes. Thank you for your comment. Okay. After everybody talks, you've got notes of that. Next. Anybody else? It's an important topic. Nobody online? Oh, yes. Come on up.

That is an important topic, but I heard Brandon say it's not retroactive. It's for new builds. And then should somebody want to do something like decompose granite and you would just apply for a permit would be my question for people that would like to comply or if they have a window replaced, I'm assuming the same thing. Those are my questions. Thanks.

All right. Thank you. Nobody online? WE'LL BRING IT BACK FOR COUNCIL DISCUSSION.

TO NANCY'S QUESTION, IF YOU WANTED TO GET AHEAD OF THE GAME, WHICH NANCY DOESN'T SURPRISE ME THAT'S WHERE YOU'RE AT, ANYTHING THAT REQUIRES A PERMIT, YOU SHOULD COME AND GET A PERMIT FOR. And by all means, please come and talk to us before you start making purchases or paying anything. Just come and sit and have a chat with us and we'll be happy to help you. That's here at the planning and building desk at City Hall. And then to Tasha's really good question. Yes, all of the things are not retroactive. So if you have a house right now, not in the WUI or high fire hazard zone districts, it has noncompliant vents. Tomorrow, you don't have to go and rip all the vents off of your house. If you realize that a vent is rusty and has a hole in it and you don't want to get rats in your attic and you decide to replace that vent, you will need to go get a compliant vent just for that vent. You will not have to go around your entire house and do all the vents on your house. Same logic applies to all the other items that we're talking about. If what you're doing is something that requires a permit, like replacing your windows, you will still need to get a permit. Replacing a vent on your house does not require a permit. So the regular rules apply with regard to permitting if something does or doesn't need a permit. I hope that answers your question. Great.

I have a question related to Tasha's comment. She mentioned DG. Oh, thank you. Does DG qualify along with gravel within the close proximity of the house?

So the way that the ordinance is written is that the... the gravel component, the gravel is permeable. So if the DG was permeable, we could treat it as gravel. We just we still have to process it as a design study. So like we wouldn't approve hot pink gravel. You know what I mean? Whatever your service, treat it like a landscaping improvement. We still have to look at it. It still has to be earth tone, has to be muted, has to be natural, all those things. So we would look at that on a case by case basis. Okay. All right. Thank you.

I think we we need to take action.

I'll make a motion to approve urgency ordinance number 2026-004, establishing interim home hardening regulations applicable citywide.

I'll second it.

Any further comments?

Council Member Barron.

Yes.

Council Member Booter.

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Delves.

Yes.

Council Member Jaramillo. Yes. Mayor Byrne.

Yes.

Motion carries.

And that takes effect immediately, correct? It is effective right now. Yes. Thank you. I love those. All right. Orders of business. We've got A big one. Number three, city administrator recruitment update and salary range.

Do you want to take a bio break?

All right, we're going to take 10 minutes.

And Mayor, I'm going to step down from this one as I have been for these topics because I think it's more appropriate for you all to work with your city attorney on this one.

And Wendy. It's 525. We'll be back at 535.

Thank you.

OK, everybody, we're going to get going. We're back in session at 535. Okay, we're on item three, city administrator recruitment update and salary range. Item three is to receive an update regarding the status of the city administrator recruitment, provide direction to staff regarding the recruitment process, schedule and next steps and consider adoption of resolution 2026067, establishing a revised salary range for the city administrator position. Are you gonna kick this off and then have Wendy take over? And city attorney, do you want to recount what happened in our special meeting to get us level set on where we're at at this point?

Yeah, I could just mention.

Might be a good idea.

Yeah.

Sorry, not giving you a heads up on that. Yeah, let me check my notes. No hurry. Just take your time.

Yes, earlier today the council approved a motion to confirming that the draft recruiting brochure for the city administrator position and the drafting Recruiting timeline will be subject to revisions during deliberations by the City Council following public input during the regular City Council meeting is scheduled on September 1 2026 In addition there was in addition to the recommendations that were in the staff report there was another motion that was made by Councilmember Pewter, to set aside the brochure and the timeline and to provide for further discussion of that, of those topics this evening and also at the meeting on September, or at the community engagement that is scheduled for September 4th.

All right.

So that's kind of a shorthand version of it.

Basically we go back and start over, if you might say. Similarly, yes. From the prior two closed meetings. And we have Wendy Brown from WBCP, our recruiter that we hired. And it's been doing a great job. And we appreciate you being here tonight to lead us through this discussion.

Sure. Is it all right if I share my screen?

It is. Great. We can see you. You're up on the big screen here. All right. Fantastic.

Can you see my PowerPoint? We can. Fantastic. Fantastic. All right, so I'm gonna walk through a few different things. Hold on. Here we go. So the agenda is to go through the timeline. So we're going to review three different options and we can make adjustments to those options. We could come up with an option for. We're going to review, we're going to have salary discussion. We're going to review a salary survey as well as additional information regarding salary recommendations and have a discussion around that. and then we're going to hopefully approve the recruitment brochure but that's that's the plan although it might be more discussion about edits or how we want to go through that process and that may depend on the the choices of our timeline as well so this is the order of how i was going to do things mayor unless there was a different interest in order of discussion that's good i just want to make sure that you remember

We want you to take us back how you started the discussion with us. So our comments can be heard and then we'll sort of work our way back to the current time by you layering in some of the information that you have. And we're going to also give you information here tonight. So then we can rebuild to something that may look like what we have and may not. So we'll see.

Okay. So, to go backwards and kind of talk about where we've been, we had a discussion about an ideal candidate. I also had one-on-ones with each of you to kind of pull together that information. We also have a survey, a community survey out. And we also have a community meeting that we have set up for Friday for people who would prefer to have an in-person touch point with myself to hear what they're looking for, both in technical as well as interpersonal strengths and what their desired ideal candidate is. That information, I recommended that we have all of that information from the surveys and the community meetings be pulled together and shared when we get to our shortlist meeting, which we're going to talk about what that means, but basically later on in the recruitment process right before the council or during the meeting at the council when you actually select candidates to move forward to an interview. We'll pull all of that stakeholder engagement information together so it's fresh in mind before we, you know, look at ideal candidates. My experience over 20 years is that the ideal candidate profile doesn't change much. Might be some emphasis on, you know, people's personal interest or a personal lens that they have coming from a community member. But in general, what I hear from the community is very aligned with council, but if it's not, pulling all that information together at the very end and having that fresh in your minds before we start looking at candidate information is what we'll be doing at the closed session, shortlist meeting that we have, which is about, you know, two weeks after the recruitment closes. So that was the plan. I know we might end up deciding to think about putting, there's been some thoughts about having the community meeting at least. We won't have the surveys completed, you know, beforehand, but, and that information could influence the brochure. So those have been some discussions. We also had some discussions around salary and a salary range. So we're going to talk about the information we shared during that closed session to come up with a suggested salary range that we're going to be sharing and discussing in open session tonight so we can make a decision on what that salary range could look like. And then we're also going to summarize the ideal candidate profile in the brochure and talk a little bit about the brochure, make sure that we're all in alignment. If there's any changes that need to be made or if we decide to put off making a final decision on the recruitment brochure, we can do that as well. The timeline is something that's been moving It is very difficult to get council's calendar because council is going to be involved in a whole day of interviewing processes from 8 to 6 or 630, depending on the candidates we have. It's a long day. So, you know, 10 hours on one day and possibly another six to seven hours on another day. It's hard to find that much time on elected officials calendars that all align as well as my busy calendar. So we're all struggling with trying to find the best timeline. that meets everybody's needs with you know holidays in november and december as well so we're going to be looking at three different options of that today so mayor i think that kind of summarizes where we've been so far unless there's anything else you talk about or share or I'M GOOD WITH THAT.

JUST SINCE YOU'RE NOT HERE AND YOU'RE SPEAKING TO A GROUP, THERE ARE FOUR PEOPLE ONLINE AND THERE ARE SEVEN PEOPLE IN THE AUDIENCE HERE, JUST SO YOU KNOW THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE THAT ARE POSSIBLY GOING TO PARTICIPATE IN PUBLIC COMMENTS. AND COUNCIL, DO YOU HAVE ANY OTHER COMMENTS FOR WENDY BEFORE WE GET STARTED?

My only comment was, you know, Wendy, we're trying to sort of thread an interesting needle here, but I think the thrust of the motion we made in the special meeting before this meeting was if you could, so instead of like approving the brochure, if you could basically I think that's kind of... I think that's kind of what we're going for here tonight. Does that make sense? And then you can go back and decide, hey, what should my brochure look like? And it might wind up looking very similar, and there may be some changes, but that's the idea.

That's very helpful. Would it be helpful if I had like a visual and talked about the brochure and kind of maybe highlighted the brochure as a visual as I was talking, as I kind of walked through what I was asking for and how the information was collected and shared, at least at the place where we're at right now? Or would you like me to just go ahead and take you back through the entire conversation that we had then?

Take us back to the conversation, please.

Okay. All right. Let me stop my screen then, because I think that would be more helpful. So going back to the conversation, you know, we spent a lot of time on the timeline because of the busy calendars we just talked about. So let's talk a little bit about the timeline first. There might be more helpful to have a visual on this because I know we had a visual in front of you last time with at least kind of like a framework, but I'll go through that. So, the framework of the recruitment is about a four-week open. And usually, if you call the week that we open up a recruitment week one, usually by week six, we're in at least a shortlist meeting. And I'll explain what a shortlist meeting is. So we've done a great job at recruiting and advertising. We talked a lot about advertising campaign. We're going to do a national recruitment. So, we have that four-week open where we do, you know, print, online advertising, headhunting, phone calls, screening candidates. So, there's a virtual screening process that the candidates will go through with me before they're presented to counsel. I anticipate somewhere between 50 and 100 applicants. Usually about 20% of those are going to be screened by me in a little bit more detail beyond paper screen. That will help me bring forward those candidates that we'll be recommending you to consider for a shortlist meeting. Sure, shortlist meeting in a perfect world is when you, I bring forward twice as many people as you'll actually have time to actually interview in a day. So we talked a little earlier about what that day might look like. So if we start at eight o'clock with a briefing, we have a lunch and we have a debriefing process that can be a 10 hour day. So from eight to six is usually with a full slate of candidates of seven candidates, that's potentially what we're looking at. So, when we come to the short list meeting, which is going to be like, let's just say, on that week six, if we've been successful in bringing forward a strong candidate group, we potentially could be reviewing 15-plus applicants that have now, I'm considering candidates, that I have now screened virtually to be able to identify how well they're matching your ideal candidate profile. So, what is your ideal candidate profile? We're going to talk a little bit more about that. That's the technical and interpersonal strengths that you're looking for in an ideal candidate, right? So, if an ideal candidate, job background, experience, you know, what education should they have? What background should they have? Should they be a current city manager? Should they have that experience? Are you open to considering people? That would be stretch candidates that could step into that role. Are you open to considering candidates outside of California? That might be other city or county administrators. So, those are the questions that I posed to you. And we'll, I'll talk a little bit about the summary of that information in a minute, but those were all the things that we posed in a group meeting. And then I had deeper conversations with you one-on-one to be able to pull together that ideal candidate. So getting back to that shortlist meeting, what I've done is now measured those people against those interpersonal and technical strengths, but I'm not the decision maker you are. And so my job is to bring it down to a shorter list than 100, but then provide you a list that you need to bring down to a shorter list as well. So during that shortlist meeting, it's going to be a two hour meeting. I'll spend a little bit of time talking about other things. I mentioned earlier that we'll have the survey results by then, and we'll have remind you of what the community meeting, you know, said that they were looking for. And we're also, so the two surveys that we have right now are going to be a community survey as well as a staff survey. And I'll be able to share that information with you at that meeting. We'll also be talking about what we've been through, how many people applied, how many people I phone screened, all the efforts that we took to get those candidates in that applicant pool. And then we'll get into talking about the ideal candidate. remind everybody what I heard you all say that you were looking for, both technically and interpersonally. And then I will be going through the candidates. I usually spend about two to three minutes on each candidate, sharing what I thought was really strong and also where I feel their gaps are. I'll open it up to questions from each of you, and then you make a decision on who you'd like to move forward. There's a process that we'll go through to be able to do that. We don't need to go into the details right now, but there's a process that the Council will go through, so it's a majority rules process. At the end of that day, I'm hoping to have somewhere between five and seven candidates that you've identified that you want to move forward to an interview. So that's the shortlist meeting. A couple of other things happen in the shortlist meeting. We'll be reviewing potential questions that you want to ask and deciding how we want to pull those questions together for that next round of interview, for that first round of interviews with council. So after the shortlist meeting, we have our either virtual or in-person. So the next thing we talked about, Mayor, was we talked about, do we want to do virtual? or in-person interviews. I mentioned that a lot of times elected officials will like to do back-to-back first and second day interviews in person. However, that also can be a challenge for candidates, especially with the holidays coming up and with our interviews potentially being close to the holidays. If we do back-to-back first and second day interviews, those can either be typically on a Thursday, Friday, usually on the front end of a weekend or the back end of a weekend. So either a Thursday, Friday is recommended. a Monday, Tuesday, or Tuesdays are tough because sometimes those are council meetings and also board meetings for other cities. A lot of times they're on a Tuesday. So I recommended Thursday, Friday, or if you preferred, we could even do a weekend, either a Friday, Saturday, or Saturday, Sunday, if you wanted to do back-to-back first and second day interviews. So the pros of that is you can get through the interview process fairly quickly. if you're on a tight timeline and you want to get through that. The cons are if you have candidates that are coming from lots of locations that are already city administrators or city managers, that it's hard for people to take three days off. They're fighting fires, a fire breaks out, an emergency breaks out. They get volunteered to be someplace or voluntold to be someplace or something else happens. It's hard for somebody to find three days out of their very busy lives to be able to make it. So sometimes we have candidates dropping out when they have to find three days when they know they're one of seven. So it was recommended that we potentially could look at our first round of interviews as virtual and then a second round in person. So those were some conversations that we had around that. The benefit of a virtual is the opposite. Obviously, they only have to find one hour. So the benefit is it's very easy for the candidates to be able to make that and find opportunities to be there, even if they do have a challenging situation that comes up in their hometown or where they're currently working. And the cons of that is it's hard sometimes, as you see me on the screen, it's hard sometimes to really get a sense of who somebody completely is when you don't have them in person. So there's some benefits and some negatives to that. So the other benefit to that is it's more affordable. Cities do have to pay for it. I shouldn't say have to. It's highly recommended. It happens most of the time that cities and counties pay at least a portion of the travel for candidates. If you have candidates, seven candidates, potentially coming out from other areas. I recommend to counsel if they're coming out from more than 100 miles that you participate in travel reimbursement. That usually will mean however many the hotel as well as main form of transportation over 100 miles. So whether that be mileage reimbursement or airfare. And then I think that candidates should have skin in the game. So we usually recommend that candidates pay for their meals and incidentals. So it is more affordable to do a virtual. Then when we are done with the virtual, we are hopefully bringing that down to a smaller group of candidates. And I know I'm talking for a long time and I can keep going, but I want to take a break for a minute and see if there's any questions or if you need me to slow down or.

I think you're doing great, Wendy.

Okay. We have a lot of heads on the dais.

Okay. Yes, you're doing it. All right. Great. All right. So now we are to the first round of interviews, potentially virtual or in-person. Both, whether it be virtual or in-person, are going to be at the end of that day trying to get down to a smaller group of candidates. I would say 80 to 90 percent of the time, it's three candidates if we have a strong applicant pool. Sometimes two, no more than four. I've never seen more than four move forward to advance to a second round of interviews. Second round of interviews will be either the next day if it's in person, or it will usually be about a week or two weeks moving out from there. Two weeks provides a little bit more time for us to have affordable airfare if people are traveling. And so that's something else to consider. Two weeks also potentially, if somebody wants to do references, although it's not usually recommended that we do references at that point because we've got three potential candidates that are moving forward and we can talk about the pros and cons of that. But that is one of the options we'll be talking about a little further. We could do a couple of references. We won't be able to do a full round of references in a two-week period between the first and second round of interviews. But if that was an interest, we certainly could talk about that and that gives us a little bit more time to be able to do maybe two references on each of the candidates moving forward. We'll dive into that a little deeper when we talk about the timelines, because that is one of the features of one of the timeline options we're going to be talking about a little bit later. So let's talk, let's get to the second round of interviews. Second round of interviews is you've already had a chance to really dive deep into hopefully typical questions. Why this job? Why now? What's your background? Tell us a little bit about your leadership strengths, interpersonal skills that you've told me that you're looking for. We've decided to ask those questions around technical background and ability. And when have they done that, right? Asking behavior-based interview questions that really dive deep into the ideal candidate background that have gotten us down to a smaller group. That second day is also partly for the candidate too. It's pretty one-sided in the first round of interviews. The second day of interviews is really more of a two-way street because we want to make sure candidates also are making the right decision for them and they get to ask you questions as well. We are going to have follow-up questions from the first round or asking questions that might be of interest that we didn't get a chance to ask the first day. That will definitely be in person no matter whether we go with a, you know, with either option, virtual slash in person or in person, in person. The second round will definitely be in person and hopefully get a better sense of the candidates as well. So, after that, we have a lot more work to do. Unfortunately, there's a lot of other things that have to happen. We have to make a decision on the final candidate. And we can't do that without doing a background reference checks. In California, we can't do background unless we actually make a conditional offer. We can't do a criminal background anyways. So if we have to provide a conditional offer, the condition is that they satisfactorily pass a reference and background check. So the conditional offer kicks off the conversation and negotiations of, hey, this is the initial salary we're offering you. These are your typical benefits. The condition is you're going to pass your background reference checks. That gives me the green light to start the background and reference checks while we're also negotiating salary. benefits, start time, those kinds of things. So it will depend on conversations we have later on in the process, who will actually be negotiating those terms. Sometimes it's the recruiter, sometimes it's the attorney, sometimes there's an ad hoc committee. of the council that will actually form together. Usually that's two. In this group it would be two or sometimes it's just one. And they will be the person that could potentially work also with the recruiter or the attorney. There's lots of different ways you can bake it to negotiate those terms. And now you're not just negotiating salary, you're negotiating contract terms. Most city managers will have their attorney looking at the contract. and wanting to make adjustments. And counsel has to make some decisions before we, you know, leave that room. How, you know, what, how far are you willing to negotiate on salary? You know, what terms are you willing to negotiate before you have to come back and actually have those meetings in person again to, you know, to open that ceiling? So, so lots of, lots of conversations, lots of negotiations, background reference checks take about two weeks. And so we also have Brown Act rules that say we can't have those discussions about salary in a non-regular meeting. So you're going to find that the timeline is going to have some challenges because you meet once a month and that's putting some challenges in the timeline that's creating, you know, to meet Brown Act rules that we can only have closed session discussions at a regular meeting around salary. So you'll see where we have some restraints on the timeline regarding that too. So that's everything for the timeline we talked about. And then we wanna talk about the ideal candidate conversation we had prior on when I was there initially to kind of hear what I was looking for from you for the ideal candidate. Are you ready to move off the timeline?

Yeah, why don't we actually have a discussion about each of these as we go? So we don't get too far removed. It's a lot of information.

YEAH, THAT'S A LOT.

I KNOW SOME OF THE COUNCIL PEOPLE HAVE SOME IDEAS ON TIMELINES THAT THEY'VE BEEN SPENDING TIME ON, AND THEY'D PROBABLY LIKE TO PRESENT THEIR IDEAS. ALL RIGHT, GREAT. THE QUESTION IS, WE NEED TO GO BACK TO YOUR INITIAL SUGGESTIONS TO US, IF YOU HAVE SOMETHING AS SIMILAR AS YOU CAN TO THAT.

I WILL. Yeah, I'll do that, Mayor. So community meeting, we talked about just the opening the recruitment. These are basically the five areas of discussion just talked about. Opening the recruitment, closing the recruitment, shortlist meeting, interviews, and then selection and contracts. So that's kind of the five areas just to kind of highlight where we just went with the timeline. and the five phases. These are the options. I would say option three is probably the closest that we had from our original discussion. was certainly the last time we had a meeting together was option three um there were i'd like to start off there does that make sense that we start off there and talk about okay so if you look over to the left here um you'll see community meetings here that's designed for um for the fourth um we were planning on opening the inter the recruitment on september 2nd So, one of the things that we really wanted to do was make sure that we get all four weeks of the recruitment process. Keeping the recruitment open four weeks, or we have 29 days, which is close enough, is important for us to make sure that we're getting the best out of our advertising campaign. So, just to give a quick highlight on that. Advertising campaign includes print, online advertising, phone calls. We're using lots of different tools, reaching out to candidates. Sometimes it takes a week or two for us to finally get connected. Once we make a phone call, they call back, they have a discussion with their family, they update their resume, they get it over to us. That can take three weeks. Print, if it goes out the first week, it's usually in people's inbox by week one or two, usually week two. If they are considering it, they stopped with their resume together, that'll be week three. Sending it in by week four is important that we have a four week open. So that's one of the challenges that we're also trying to make sure that we get the best out of our advertising time is making sure we have a four week open. So we were hoping to open it on September 2nd, with the September 4th being our community meeting, and the surveys are currently already out. This would be a close on September 30th. We have that shortlist meeting, which would be on October 16th, would be two hours to go through those candidates. October 27th is going to be the virtual from 8 to 6. We are going to have an in-person on October, sorry, Reference checks, okay. Potentially, this was not discussed. This was an add-on, potentially doing a quick reference check between the 27th and 6th. That was not part of the last discussion. That was something that I added here because it was added in option one. And I thought, well, if we have a little bit of time, we might as well go ahead and add it in here. So we have virtual interviews on the 27th, in-person interviews on November 6th, And then if we go from November 6th, we've already passed your November 3rd council meeting. So we cannot have a discussion about salary. So that's why this one wasn't the most ideal after we had a conversation about that and how that does not align with the Brown Act. So, we have references twice. You'll see reference check here, mini, and then background and reference checks here. I mentioned that we can't do a background unless a conditional offer is given. So, if we did the virtual on the 27th, then there was some interest in maybe doing a couple of references on each of this, let's just say three candidates that move forward or whatever number that is. That does, it is very difficult to get people's calendars, call them, get the reference checks done and get it turned back around. So this is barely making it, but we might be able to get a couple of references done. The challenge with doing references at that point, we have to be very careful. They don't want their current employer to know. It's going to be a reference that they want to give versus references that we want. So it's still a nice thing to be able to add in if we can get it done. So I did add that in here. um the uh after the second round of interviews if we identify a candidate i did add this in too this was newly added i have that in here that we'd have an ad hoc committee in order for us to be able to start doing the negotiations we can do an ad hoc committee i understand from my understanding i'll let council chime in if there's some disagreement there that we could do the background and reference checks and during that period of time also have an ad hoc committee having a conversation with and negotiating salary if that was authorized by the full council for the ad hoc committee to be able to do that so they can negotiate salary and contract negotiations. They will be negotiating, not making a final decision, but then bringing that back to a regular meeting on December 8th. And then that December 8th would be a closed session where you would then, the ad hoc committee would then present the results of the negotiations and hopefully make a formal final decision with it being reported out on December 8th. So that's a lot. So should we take a pause there or do you want me to go through option two and one just so you can see the differences?

Yeah, so Councilperson Booter, I think on his own, has spent a lot of time thinking through this. He's pretty good at this sort of detailed stuff. Yeah. So I think I'm going to turn it over to him first. and then we can get comments from other council people. And then what I'd like to do is after we've had our discussion up here, we're going to go out to the public because if we go too far into these three different things you're doing, we're going to forget. So we'll get public comment on each of these as we go and then have our discussion again and then move on to the second item.

Council Member Booter, do you want me to go through option one? Because I think that's really where you and I have spent some time together putting some other ideas together.

Yeah, I have a quick slide that I think might might be helpful. And then we can go back to your slide in a second.

Sure, let me stop sharing.

And for the public standpoint, this was not a discussion as a group. We basically now are back to what you presented to us at our first meeting. And we had some discussions, but really not much came of it in terms of firm discussions. And I think Hans has been thinking about it ever since. So go ahead.

Yeah, I mean, so as As Wendy mentioned, one of the problems, just to frame this, that came up that Jeff did a great job of highlighting was that if we're going to have salary discussions with a potential, you know, with a potential candidate, it has to, those discussions have to occur even if it's a closed session, it has to occur on the date of a regular meeting. And so if We're aiming for December 8th as the date to approve a contract. If we wanted to provide any meaningful feedback on salary, other contract points, et cetera, that would have to happen at the month before November meeting, right? Because we only have regular meetings month to month in Carmel. And so that, you know, was a great insight by Jeff. Upon reflection, again, trying to square the circle, my thought was going back to how we negotiated our contract with Brandon for the acting city administrator role was we used a council ad hoc committee. And my thought was that that might obviate the need to have this meeting on November 3rd, which would really open up and let the schedule breathe more. And so the, I believe this was in the staff report, at least it's what was emailed to the council, the one on the left, which we can go back and cross-reference with which one of Wendy's current numbers it is. But basically the original plan was what's represented on the left-hand side. And the community meeting would happen basically, the recruitment would open, then you'd have the community meeting two days later, you'd have a 29 day Then you'd have your shortlist meeting a couple weeks later to narrow it down from 50 to 100 down to about 15 candidates. I'm sorry, that's what Wendy would do. Then she'd bring us the 15 candidates. In the shortlist meeting, we'd go from about 15 to about seven for the first round interviews, which at least what was presented to us the last time I saw this was we would have back-to-back in-person meetings. partly I think driven by this compression with trying to hit November 3rd, where on November 3rd, you would then basically between October 24th or October 23rd and November 3rd, you'd be starting this background check reference check process on your preferred candidate. And it would give you that chance to talk about salary in a session, a closed session with the council, because it's the date of a regular meeting. And so it's all pretty tight. And so if you go to the alternative, if you relax that condition of having to meet on November 3rd, it really opens it up. No, if you could just go to the next slide. You know, I, Wendy, after our conversation, I was speaking to Alessandra up here, either before or after our last meeting, and she mentioned that I think it was September 7th, Labor Day. Is that true?

Yeah, it is.

So I moved this to the 8th because of that. I also added a row, which was something we started to talk about in our last meeting, and the decision was to punt. But basically, this would start with the community meeting on Friday. And then my thought was it would be helpful for the council to like actually meet and just approve whatever the final brochure that Wendy sends out is. And maybe we could meet on, I think this is a Tuesday. Alessandra said she was available. And then maybe, you know, we open the recruitment as soon as you're able to turn it around, Wendy, right? Like what, based on whatever feedback, if we just say, hey, it looks good, you could just send it out on the 8th, but maybe shoot for the 9th. And then, so one benefit of this schedule obviously is that the brochure is published after the community meeting, right? Which I think is beneficial. And then if we could just go to the next slide. The other one is, you know, it's about a week longer to have the recruitment open. It's a couple days shorter than my initial schedule, but we have Labor Day and this potential meeting to approve the brochure. If we could skip one more time. And then the other advantage of this schedule is instead of having these back-to-back in-person meetings, in-person interviews, we could potentially have up to 14 days between the first and the second interview, which I think is helpful because it provides some time for reflections or turning over in your mind what you just heard from this person, thinking about what questions you want to ask of these people in the follow-up meeting. But also critically, It would allow us time to do reference checks. You know, the original version of this schedule has no reference checks on the finalist interviewer, the finalist candidates, right? That's the original version. There's no references done on them. It's only the single person that you select at the end that you do references on. this version will allow us to do references on the three or so finalists between the date that you select those three people and whittle it down from seven to three gives you a chance to call some of the references they provided to you over a two-week period and then have that help inform your final round interviews. So Nova, if you go to the next one. And again, just like I said before, the basic point is you leverage this council ad hoc, you get rid of this whole November 3rd meeting, and you could do a closed session. We picked a specific date, Wendy and I looked at a specific date here that could work, but technically you could pick kind of any date in here that might work for people. And the basic point is, You could talk about the references. You could talk about the background check. You could talk about contract points that are not related to salary or benefits, right? So because you're only allowed to talk about those things on the date of a regular meeting. So there's some level of like having some faith in an ad hoc committee to do some of those negotiations, but honestly, we just did that recently. So anyway, let's move to the next slide. And then this is the last one. Basically the idea is they both end at the same time, right? So we allow all this additional room to breathe and all of these benefits, but we still wind up at the same date at the end of the day, which is the December 8th meeting. Ideally we're approving a contract for our preferred candidate.

So.

So one of the main differences is having the ad hoc committee to do work. Yeah, which we did very successfully the last time, I thought.

Okay. Yeah, I think that's great. And I think that those benefits are really important. Do you want me to finish sharing the other option? Because the one that you were sharing actually was option two to your option one. So the one that you were saying all the benefits just for the audience is this option one here. Although you did move this date out to the 8th or 9th. So that would be the biggest difference. Option 2 is the one I think you were referencing in your PowerPoint. So I just want to make sure that we talk about where this came from. So after our last meeting, we were here. And there was a little bit of pushback with regards to, of course, the January 3rd meeting, trying to figure that out. So I had an aha moment and said, well, let's try and see if we can put something together. We have back-to-back first and second day interviews, which is what you were just talking about. You can see the difference between where we were before virtual interviews on the 27th with in-person on the 6th. I recommended, this is before your option one council member, but this was the one I was floating around individually to each of you is doing, you know, an open on the 4th, closing in on the 29th or the 30th. The shortlist would be the same, but instead of spreading out, which I see you see the benefit for, and potentially doing some reference checks is having a back-to-back first and second day interview. And then we could actually make, we have some time to consider those candidates between the 23rd and your November 3rd date. So we could actually go into the third, identify your final candidate and then um also talk about salary and then we could go into the background reference checks and then go into a regular meeting to highlight the differences again that councilmember booter just went through is having an ad hoc which option two doesn't require the ad hoc because we can actually make the november 3rd meeting but the ad hoc could work well also spreads out the recruitment process they all end on the same date it's just about how you want to do that but the option two does not require the ad hoc the option three and option one would require the ad hoc to be able to keep keep things moving forward and meeting that 12-8 deadline. So that's all I would add. The only thing I would say too, the longer the applicant stays in the applicant pool, the possibility of losing them, but they all end at the same time. There's just different drags, you know, during the process. In other words, the candidate doesn't know they're the candidate as soon in option two as they, sorry, as soon as option one as they would in option two. So they're going to know they're a candidate by the time we get to the end of October versus, you know, November. And I think the only other challenge that we're looking at with the spread, which I think is great that we have the time between the 6th and the 20th, is to give a little bit more time to do those reference checks. It does get us really close to Thanksgiving, and we could move that back to the 13th before that. That puts a little bit more pressure on me to get those references done if you wanted to do those. I do think that my team and I could get them done. We have a PI that actually does those references. So I do think that having it on November 20th for in-person interviews could be a little tough, maybe even on council, depending on what your Thanksgiving looks like. But I do think option one is a good option to consider. I just wanted to make sure we also were looking at option two. So I'll take a pause and let you all discuss it. How significant are the risk factors that you brought up? I mean, the risk is somebody's actively looking and they get an offer in front of them a couple of weeks before you get your offer in front of them. I could find out where candidates are and the process doesn't mean it's going to change the timeline, but if they're actively looking because they don't have a job, then they could take the offer before yours. I think most people that are going to be interested in your community, are probably already working. I mean, I would say 70 percent of the applicants are probably going to be working, not in between jobs. So unless they're actively looking to leave their job, they probably the risk isn't that high. But that does have some risk factors.

Okay. So, Jeff, do you have any comments? You must. Yeah. Let's try to keep it to questions just so we understand this.

You're asking for comments. You need to go out to the public. Correct.

I get it. Let's just make sure we understand what the options are. We'll go out to the public. We'll come back and discuss it.

Yeah. So I have two questions. One, Wendy, you talked about the risk of waiting. So for your information, I asked NOVA to print the proposed alternative timeline. And so you were talking about...

Excuse me, Jeff, could I interrupt you for just a second? And there's a copy of that that's been placed on the desk here in case the public would like to have a copy. Okay, thank you.

So we have copies of that. Sorry, I asked for the five of us. So to recap your comment before I ask the question, your question, your comment was that 1120 is kind of late to like, we keep people, we're sort of keeping people in the dark a little bit long for like, I'm sensing a little bit of discomfort on your part. And what you said was that The risk is that someone else is going to get a job offer in front of us and they're going to take that. And that's obviously a risk if they're our first candidate. You don't think there's a risk of the process being too drawn out? I think that is the only risk. Just sort of general malaise, not related to the candidate taking the other offer?

No, there is a risk. I always have that risk, right? I see you spend so much time and money and effort to get candidates through the pipeline and actually through the recruitment process. And then we have a month delay that that definitely creates some challenges. So so I do think that As a recruiter, I'm always worried about losing candidates at that point. It is almost a month, right? It's from the 23rd potential, 22nd or 23rd when we're looking at option two here for interviews, round one and two. So first and second day interviews. Or even if we went with option three, we're in in-person interviews, November 6th versus the 20th. I do think, and it is something that we discussed, we could push that back to the 13th. And like I said, it puts a little bit more pressure on me to get this, the reference checks done, but I do think we can get it done. And that takes a week out of that. So if there is concern about that, we could fudge that a little bit and bring it back. The candidate at least by then would know that they're the final candidate.

So I'm depending on you for like, I don't know whether I should be concerned or not, like honestly. So I'm sort of depending on you, what you say to sort of evaluate my level of concern. So I'll save my comments for later. The second question is for, well, I don't know whether it's for you or Brian. I don't understand. So I'm just going to reference the Hans' schedule, which I kind of like in general, but I don't understand where, any of the salary negotiations happen. So we select a candidate. So Hans, on your schedule, so I'm looking at this slide that Hans produced. And Hans, this was the option one. Yes.

Yeah, you'll be you'll be selecting it on option one. Yeah. Option one, you'll be selecting a candidate to move forward on November 20th. And the ad hoc committee would move forward with negotiations during the time that I'm actually doing the background and reference checks. So that would still be the same date, eleven six through eleven twenty. So if you look down here where it says candidate negotiations.

Where Hans, where did this come from? This first column. just the dates that were emailed to us. So it's not one of the things in the presentation?

I think it's option two. Yeah, my first column is her option two, I think.

Yes.

Yeah, it was actually exactly. It is. I'm sorry. The contract review doesn't match option two. That's where I'm... So my question, Wendy, is... Sorry. Sorry. This is sorry. This is so confusing.

Oh, you know what? So so I understand. So let's go.

Let's go. So let's forget this. And let me just like add my questions. Can you put schedule back?

I apologize. That should be twelve eight where it says special meeting. It should be regular meeting. Sorry. Yeah, it should be twelve eight. And it's a typo.

OK, so.

So the reason we had 12-2 in here was because we know that we have to hit the agenda for a regular meeting. And Hans is, yeah, the 12-2 should be 12-8.

So my question is sort of this. So we have, my question is this. So we have final round interviews on 11-20. And on 11-20, we're going to see three people, three distinct individuals with maybe varying skill levels and varying salary requirements. Right, so we're setting a range, so we're gonna at some point set a range for the city administrator salary. And let's say we have, you know, to reduce everybody to a number, let's say we have one person with one year experience and one person with three and one person with five years experience and they have, so they bring different things and so they might have different salary requirements as they come in. And so let's say that we pick someone, we pick one of those three candidates on 11-2 and then You know, when we do labor negotiations here, we have closed session meetings where the council gives instructions to our labor negotiators, which are generally staff. And so staff goes and negotiates with the union and whoever it is, the unions, and then they come back with results the next month. So if we pick someone on 11-2, I don't understand how, sorry, if we pick someone on 11-20, I don't understand how we're going to do negotiations if we can't talk about salary with the ad hoc committee, like the ad hoc committee doing the negotiations is okay, But when is the council going to be able to give salary? When are we going to be able to have that conversation as a council about salary negotiations for the person that we pick on 11-20? On December 8th. Yeah, you're outsourcing it, basically. Because otherwise it's on. But we're not going to be my question. Like Brian just gave me an answer of December 8th, which is when we have the five of us can talk about. Right. So my question is, when are the five of us going to be able to give the two of us

But December 8th won't work because you have to publish the contract on the Wednesday before.

Right. So there's a disconnect. I'm trying to figure out where my disconnect is or whether it's the schedule's disconnect.

I think the disconnect is there are a lot of advantages to this schedule. The one thing that you give up is... You are basically outsourcing the salary negotiation. You create a range. You could even, in like October, provide more guidance on, you know, somebody with XYZ experience, we want to be in this part of the range. If we really like this candidate, we want to be in this part. You could do that in October in a closed session. Well, we could do that in November, right? Sure. Yeah, you could do it in November. Exactly. Whatever. But at the end of the day, you are outsourcing the negotiation of that salary to a couple of council members because there's no opportunity between 11-20 and 12-8 to have that meeting.

The other three find out when the packet comes out.

Right. But to say, I think what's interesting is we could at least be through the short list and then you could leave.

Okay, so I was gonna, I was gonna, I was gonna, make some comments on that but i'll wait um i'll wait i'll wait until okay so no salary negotiations no salary conversations until december 8th By the full council? By the full council.

Correct. On this schedule?

What I was going to say, I think it was worth saying is, but you could still have some input on November 3rd, regular city council meeting to the ad hoc committee. Point being, you have not selected a finalist, but you've selected the three finalists.

So the thing that I was going to say is we haven't selected the three finalists on this schedule until November 6. And that's after the November meeting. So that's what my, so we can have that, after we have public comment and we're having a conversation, we can go to these dates in this alternative schedule. Okay, thank you.

Alessandra, do you have any questions?

No questions.

You think we understand it at this point? Okay, good. All right, so it sounds like we're through asking questions. We'll take it out for public comment. Anybody like, go ahead, Donna. How many people are going to say something?

Timeline, right?

This is just timeline, only timeline. We're going to give you a chance at each step.

I didn't have a question about the time.

That's all we're going to talk about right now. Sorry about that, but it gets complicated as you've seen.

There's a hand raised on Zoom.

Yeah, okay. So nobody else here? Okay, good. Ian, it looks like you're up.

Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Ms. Brown, for a very good, clear explanation. What I would love to know is, and I also appreciate that Ms. Brown has raised a number of caveats about rushing this thing, and it would seem to me that by compressing the search into a three-month period, we would be losing out on potential candidates who may not be available for consideration in that three-month period. The other thing I'm trying to understand, and this is a good explanation for this, and someone can explain this, is why does this council have to be the one signing the contract with a new hire when at least two of you will not be serving with this administrator, possibly three of you, serving with this administrator. So that's another thing I would like to know, why this council needs to be actually approving the contract and not the next council. And then the last thing I'd like to point out is I think that Booter on the ad hoc, since no matter what, they will be serving with that administrator. So those are my comments and thank you.

Ian, you were breaking up a little bit. I'm not sure I heard the last part. Could you maybe put your phone in a... better position and restate your last two or three sentences?

All right, am I unmuted still? So my last two or three sentences are why does this council need to be the council actually approving the hire when possibly three of you may no longer be serving on council? And then the other part that I would like to add too is that I think it should be Delves and Booter serving on the ad hoc since no matter what, they will be serving with this administrator.

Okay, we've got it. All right. Thank you. And thank you. Thank you for participating in this. It's important that we all right. Thank you so much. All right.

Okay.

Anybody else? Carolyn got a chamber person. This is your chance. All right. All right. We'll come back and we'll have our comments discussion.

You want to go? Sure, I'll go. So I want to pick up on Ian's comment first, the question about why this council. Because I saw we had an email from Carolyn today. And I've actually had other people ask me the same question.

Could I interrupt for just a moment? I apologize. It appears that what we're doing is we're segmenting the discussion, talking first about timeline, and then moving on to candidate. So the typical pattern is that you have the presentation, then you have council questions, goes to public, comes back for deliberation. And decision so then the question would be you know is that decision going to wait until after September 4th when you I'm hearing September 8th might be that so I just want to know if there's some common understanding on that and also whether you're segmenting this so you're going to you know give whatever your input is during deliberations one at a time, starting with timeline, then finishing it, and then moving on to ideal candidate.

That makes sense to me, but I'm open for input. I think that's what we're doing. I mean, I think otherwise this is going to get pretty muddy by the time we're through.

Yeah, I agree. There's a lot to talk about for the other. That's why we're here for a reason.

I just wanted to make sure everybody had that common understanding. Yeah, I think so.

So in my response, again... And this is timeline that you're discussing. It is timeline. It's just the question is related to timeline because if you don't think this city council needs to make the decision, you could have a different timeline. I frankly cannot imagine the five of us having made a decision on hiring a new city administrator two years ago in our first meeting. It's nuts that we didn't know each other. We didn't understand each other. We didn't understand our city administrator. Three of us had never worked with a city administrator. Well, I had worked with a city administrator before, but not here. And so three of us had never worked with a city administrator in Carmel-by-the-Sea. And if I look ahead, we know who the players will be if it's not, you know, Dale and Jeff won't be here. We know who's running for office. And you know, I don't see any scenario going forward where we would have a new council that has the same level of experience in working with city administrators that we have right now. Each of us, each of us have worked with at least two. Chip and we've been working with Brandon for a long time and he's the acting city administrator. but he's been acting as a city administrator. The benefit, just that benefit of seeing two and being able to compare and contrast is a remarkable benefit. I've actually now seen six different city administrators in different settings. And I think that alone would be the reason to proceed with this group. Because if we have someone coming in that frankly has never worked with a city administrator, I just, I don't think that is as strong a position because they don't know what to be looking for. So I really do think it needs to be this group. On the proposed solution here, Hans, I like your work and thank you for doing this with Wendy. I think Jeff's going to have some questions on maybe some specifics here. So I'm going to let that go to him. I'm okay. I think what's fundamental about it is are we okay with the ad hoc? And I am, and I am willing to serve on it if that's the appropriate decision, although I don't think it has to be. But the logic that one thing is for sure, that I will be back here as a city council person, and Hans will be back here either as mayor or a city council person after the election. So there's some logic in that.

So you're a vote for ad hoc?

I am and I'm also fine doing the first round of interviews on Zoom. I think not doing them on Zoom might cost us some candidates because that's asking these people to travel twice and I don't think that's wise because some of these people are not on record as being out there looking for jobs and you know we've If it takes them a day to get here and a day to get home, and they have to disappear for three days and then come back two weeks later for another, I think that hurts us and them. And I think we're all pretty good with Zoom at this point.

And as far as the options?

I would say option one, which is the same as the proposed alternative from Hans. I believe they're the same. It's fine, and I think the sticky wicket here is what Jeff identified as at what point can the City Council give us input, give the ad hoc input on salary. To some extent, it's almost like you're starting that tonight, as once you establish a pay range, you're gonna end up somewhere in the range. And in terms of benefits, our benefit package, it's pretty well known. I mean, there's not a ton of variables, really. You know, it really wouldn't make it, sometimes comes down to is the term. And I think there's a point at which we can get input on that either in October or November and still be okay.

So there are differences between option one and the Hans alternative. Did you want to see the Hans alternative on the screen? I'm looking at it. For example, the reference check from 11-6 to 11-20, that's not in Hans' alternative. So my question is...

It's not, but I think he mentioned it. That if the final rounds are done on 11-20, you've got from 11-20 to 12-1 to do reference checks and a negotiation. And you're right, it doesn't show up here, but it was little bubbles, it kind of did. But yes, thanks.

Okay, are you done?

Yes, thank you.

Jeff, it sounds like we're looking for some input from you to flesh out.

Yeah, so I have some, so I'm going to use, I like Hans's, I like the way Hans has sort of laid out the schedule. I'm fine with the, I'm fine with the... Could we have the schedule put up, Nova? I'm fine with the reference. Are we ready? Yes. I'm fine. So I have some, I have some, I guess, suggestions. I think this schedule, when I think about sort of how the schedule sort of progresses, so my first, to go back, my first issue is with not being able to discuss salary at all once it starts. And so I believe that we should have at some point, you know, there should be a placeholder in here for the November, for the meeting that's on November 3rd. So I think that we should have completed the first round interviews and have discussed the candidates and have sort of narrowed it down to sort of a final list so that we can have an in-depth discussion, so that we can have a discussion about salary as it relates to the three or four, two candidates at the November 3rd meeting. um i appreciate you know i appreciate bob's comments that we're going to talk about a salary range tonight but i would really like to have um i really think that the five of us you know should have a little more input on the on the salary of the five people like i'm willing to sort of turn delegate my authority to to the ad hoc committee but i would like to have some sort of of input passed tonight when we know who the candidates are. So that meeting is on, that regular meeting is on November 3rd. I'm also cognizant, you know, I'm also aware of Wendy's comments about sort of pushing out the schedule. And I think that this schedule, I think that the schedule, the proposed, and I'm talking about, to be clear, the proposed alternative is a little bit slack on the front end and a little bit tight on the back end. And I think that moving the first round interviews from 11-6, which is 11-6 Zoom, to sometime before the 11-3 meeting, so maybe the week of October 26th to the 30th,

If I sorry, so those those are actually old dates. Those are not the ones that I'm talking about.

I'm sorry. I'm talking about the dates in the proposed alternative column. Are those are those old dates, too? And I'm going to ask you I'm going to ask you for some comments. This is a discussion I'm going to ask. I'm going to put some things out and then I'm going to ask you for some comments.

Yeah, I think it might be better to have, to share mine. Hans, are you okay with me sharing mine? I think mine is still yours. I just have a couple of new things and I'm updating it as we're going.

I updated that. I'm getting a little, I'm not frustrated at you, Wendy, but this is, we have, a ton of dates in front of us and five schedules. And I really need to talk to one schedule. So if you have a different schedule that I should be talking to, could you put it up? Otherwise I'm going to talk to the schedule that's in green on the sheet.

Yeah, I think what's on the screen right now is the ones with the option one, two or three. Hans, I think this date, these dates align and they also include the reference check from the mini reference check that we talked about between virtual and in-person. And I also just updated this. So if we did wait till after the community meeting finalized, oops, sorry, finalizing the brochure and opening the recruitment announcements also, opening the recruitments now on nine nine. So I've made the adjustments based off of what Hans had in his updates. I think unless there's any objections, I think this is the one we should be looking at.

So which one am I talking about now? Option one.

So option one is the one that Hans proposed, yes.

Okay, so what I heard Jeff saying is he would like an 11-3 check-in with the council in closed session to talk salary.

Yeah, so I would like, so my comment, so okay, so I'm going to go, I'm going to do all my work over again.

I have the 11-3 in here as well, just so you can see that. So check-in right here.

Okay.

So the interviews in option one that you have, and these are my comments, not the council's comments. So the interviews that you have in round one, so which are on 11-6, right? It says virtual all day.

Yes.

Right. Can you move your cursor over there? So I know that you're looking at what I'm what I'm right here.

Eleven six in person. Oh, sorry. Option one. OK, I see what you're talking about. OK.

So that needs to happen. That needs to happen before eleven three. Right. because I'm interested in narrowing the candidates down to the list of people that are gonna come in so that we can talk about them and talk about salary on 11-3.

That's why I proposed option two. So you could actually have interviews before the 11-3 date, right? I agree with what you're saying. I don't know why I keep flicking, I apologize. So I understand what you're saying. You're saying, hey, shouldn't we get to the final round of interviews before we have our check-in on November 3rd?

No, just finish the first round of interviews, the interviews round one before 11-3.

She's got an option too, it's 10-22. How about 10-30?

I understand what you're saying. So if you look at this data over here, let's just look at the shortlist, right? Because that's where the shortlist is in option one. And you're saying, hey, I don't know where the key is. We know who might be moving forward, but we haven't done any interviews yet. But because we're pushing out the start time, we needed to have a little bit more time with the open of the recruitment, which is why it's been pushed out a little bit.

So I'm going to ask you a question in a second. Okay. Can you just bear with me for a second?

Absolutely.

Okay. So if we do the first round of interviews, if we do the interviews that are now listed as 11-6 on, let's say, 10-30, which is one week before, can we do the shortlist meeting? Can we pull the shortlist meeting in a little bit from 10-27? and then close the recruitment after a standard 28 days. All the rest of the schedules are 29 days of recruitment. And you told us that you think four weeks is sufficient. So can we grab some time from the schedule in the 33-day section, in the 33 days, and just pull everything in so that we can have that discussion with a short list of candidates on November 3rd?

With a three-week open, we can do that.

What about with a 28-day open? Right now, we have the brochures. Right now, we have the recruitment opens on 9-9, and it ends on 10-12. Well, that's 33 days, according to your spreadsheet. Why can't we just do a standard 28-day open? Like we've had the conversation of, we've had a conversation about doing a three week open and a four week open, and you've stated to us that four weeks is fine. Can we not pull? Can we not pull?

Yeah, I hear what you're saying. I'm looking at my calendar right now. Just like, give me a second. Let me see.

Like my goal here.

So we would close on the 7th. With the shortlist, yeah, I know what your goal is, and I think your goal is to try and see if we can get through the first round of interviews before November 3rd, correct? Right. Okay. So let me just take a look and see if there's anything I can do to make that happen.

Can I make a suggestion that maybe you just create another column with this proposal so that we can see it? Because I'm starting to get a little confused.

Yeah. Let me just see if it actually could work. Hold on. So I do think that we could do that. I'm going to hit escape just so I can type in here. I don't think we need to actually create another column. I think we just need to edit Anse's version on, you know, of this. And, or maybe I'll, I'll put dates next to it. How about that? So let's, so we would close it instead of the 12th. If we did a four week open, we went from the 9th, 1, 2, 3, 4. Let's just say we close it on the 7th. So 10, 7 closed. And then our shortlist, it's really tight, because a lot of people apply on the last day of my recruitment process. So I'm just going to actually take a couple of days out of that. I'm just going to say 10-5, because if we have 20 people apply on the last day, I still have to conduct those phone screens. So I'll take a couple of days out of the recruitment process. Let's take that out so we're not confused. And then, so 10-5, closing. And then our shortlist, if it was on the, and this all depends on your calendars too, but if we had a 10-5, the shortlist was on the 19th or the, let's see if we can stick with the 16th. Yeah, I think we can stick with the 16th. So we could probably pull these dates over. So we could do the 16th. We could pull these dates over, not those. Because I think I'm hearing that nobody's interested in doing back-to-back first and second day interviews, correct? Does anybody like that, option two? I don't think I hear anybody liking that. So I'm going to go ahead and . And just bring this over. So I'm gonna have the alternative dates in here then. 10-5. And then we would do 10-16. And then we would do our first round of virtual interviews on 10-27. We're following here. And then we would be able to hit that October 3rd meeting after our first round of interviews.

November 3rd.

Right. Sorry. November 3rd. Does anybody need any clarity on that? So recruitment closes on the 5th. Shortlist on the 16th. First round of virtual interviews on the 27th. And then the date, then what I need to add in here.

Hold on.

I'm trying to insert a cell, hold on. Insert. Yeah, was it there? I didn't see it. See insert, but let me see if I can copy and paste.

You just hadn't selected the row.

I thought I did.

You have to select it from the left.

Yeah, I thought I did that earlier.

There. That should do it.

Yeah. Still not allowing me to insert.

Yeah, that's weird.

I know. It's just a weird table. So, all right. So I'm just going to add it in here. I'm going to add it in here. I'm going to say regular meeting. Check in. Or salary check in here. And then we're going to add 11.3 right here. Does that make sense to everybody?

I think so.

Yes. Can you just add the number of days in parentheses in the recruitment closes row? I think it's 27 days for the purple and 34 days for the option one.

Yeah, I think this is 28 or 27.

It's 27 the same day we counted the 29, so if you keep it apples to apples.

Okay. And I don't remember how many days we had over here. This is 34. 34. Are we okay with the changes to this? Going with option one with these state changes?

Well, let me so let me go. OK, so now that we pick up the microphone again, now that we're on eleven third for the salary check in and then can we. So if we have done the first round of interviews on ten twenty seven, So if we have done the first round of interviews on 10-27, do we really need to wait until 11-20 to do the second round of interviews? Like that is 20... No, we don't. That's like three and a half weeks. And you were talking earlier about sort of malaise and people getting other offers. And I think that if we could do, if we could pull in the 11-20 date by a week to like just at the 13th or whenever it is we can pull it in. we would run less risk in losing a candidate for any other reason. And then it would give, we would have interviews, we would send the ad hoc committee on their way, and it would provide the ad hoc committee with a little bit more breathing room on the far end. So it would create some slack at the end of the schedule where the slack is probably more likely to be needed than anywhere else.

If back-to-back was an option, three weeks probably isn't necessary is what you're saying.

No, I think what I'm hearing is that the in-person interviews later doesn't have, now that we've pushed everything back, we've got too much of a gap between the first round of interviews and the second round, which I agree. And I'd rather push them forward for all the reasons that the council member just mentioned for the risk factor, but also because November 20th is really close to Thanksgiving. So I'm looking at my calendar right now. And if we are looking at the first round of interviews for the 27th, I'd like to propose So that's October 27th. I'd like to propose that we look at the 13th, November 13th for second round interviews. How does that look? And we still have time to be able to have some time to potentially do these mini references if you wanted to do those as well.

Yeah, so the mini references, you have 1027 to 1113, so you have two full weeks, two full weeks to do that.

Right. Do people like this?

I haven't had a chance to weigh in. I'm waiting until Jeff's comments are finished.

Okay.

Not hearing any negative.

Okay.

Negative.

I may be negative. I'm waiting for Jeff to finish.

Well, we're in process here. She's looking, she's doing this a step at a time.

So comments from anybody else?

Okay, so I'm finished. Thank you. So you're okay?

Okay, Jeff's okay.

Bob?

They don't want to comment until we do. I'm okay with this.

I want to do my full comments, so.

The only thing I would say is It's basically a, you know, it's not terrible. I think it's actually like, the thing that I care the most about is having the two week period between the first and second round interviews so we can actually do some reference checks, which is preserved here. I do like the idea of having a longer open period for us to go and drum up candidates, because at the end of the day, you're only picking from the candidates that actually get into the pool. And so going to 27 days, to me, it's basically you're weighing, like full council weigh in on salary versus having an extra seven days to have the recruitment open. like an extra week. And so to me, it really just comes down to like how you value those things. And to me, it's definitely more valuable to have an extra week to drum up the candidates, especially because like the salary range is like $50,000 from top to bottom. And so I just don't think, I understand the desire to have full council weigh in on the salary, but I'm not sure that we had that on Brandon. But in any case, I view the additional week as more critical to make sure that we get the right pool of candidates.

Go ahead, give us your full comment. Sure, thank you.

I'm just going to begin with, we got a letter this afternoon from Carolyn Hardy, and she's not only a former city council member here in Carmel, but she had also been involved with a search for a city administrator. So she has experience and knowledge in what she's talking about, and I would just like to read part of her letter so it's entered into the record. So she begins, as you address the timeline and process of recruiting our next city administrator, I believe you are rushing the process too much. The push is being driven by two lame duck council members who want to say in the decision but won't be around if the hired candidate sours on Carmel. That leaves the three of you to shoulder any fallout. If I were a potential candidate, I would be thinking twice about the position because the counsel doing the interviewing and the hiring is not the counsel I would be working with. Even your hired search firm has raised the yellow flag for you on this aspect in her own interview. I also think you may not be capturing the best of the candidates if you are operating in a very narrow window of opportunity as to who might surface in a couple of weeks. While two of you are pedal to the metal on this process, I encourage you to pump the brakes and slow it down. Give the new council, whoever that may be, a say in who is hired and who they will be working with. There's more to the letter, but I'll I'll just leave it at that. So regarding the schedule, I favor what Hans brought up. I think it is very important to have the full open period. And I'm fine with even a couple extra days for the search. I'm really worried about cutting a couple days here or cutting a couple days there in the name of trying to get to this deadline. I think it's incredibly important that we are not rushed into this. This is the most important decision we will be making. And any kind of shortcuts along the way could lead to a bad outcome. I absolutely am most in favor of this idea where we have a good two weeks in between the first set of interviews, which I do support having them virtual. I don't think they need to be in person. As Han said, you need time to think, to reflect, to deliberate, to reach out, to do references, that sort of thing. This is not a process that should be rushed. It needs due diligence, and it needs time. I'm just worried with the second thing that we've just worked out right now with some of these suggestions from Jeff that we're cutting corners a bit too much, and I think we're rushing the process. Like I said, I think this needs to be drawn out, not drawn out in a deliberate way, but drawn out so that we have a responsible decision-making process. The stakes are too high to make a mistake. So that's where I stand.

SO ARE YOU SAYING YOU'D LIKE OPTION ONE?

I STILL SUPPORT HANSA'S OPTION, YES.

OKAY. WENDY? YES. WE HAVE TWO OPTIONS ON THE TABLE RIGHT NOW. CAN YOU WEIGH RISK FACTORS BETWEEN OPTION ONE AND OPTION TWO, WHICH IS PURPLE?

Yeah. The biggest concern I heard was that we have 34 days versus 27. I feel very confident that, and I would tell you if I felt that it was going to be creating an issue, that I can do this in 27 days and bring forward the same candidates you'd get in 34 days. I have five people that are working for me throughout the entire recruitment process. They're doing nothing but trying to get candidates in the applicant pool. It's not just me making phone calls or having one other person helping me. So I feel confident that this will still work for us by being able to get the advertising campaign out, by being able to get all the candidates in and give me enough time to vet them. It's tight, but I don't think it's going to hurt the recruitment process. I think it's going to be a little harder on me. But I do think that we can do that. And I think it's a nice hybrid to getting us through the first round of interviews to get to the November 3rd date. And I'm happy to do option one or two. It works for my calendar either way. I'm just saying that I don't it will not affect the recruitment process by taking a few days out of the out of the recruitment and I have a soft close anyways. So if there's a couple of strong candidates that come in the soft close meaning I don't close it and say sorry you applied on the day after the recruitment closed. We say for first consideration apply by and I always let as many candidates in as I can as long as I can until I get to the very end because I don't want you to miss out on a great candidate.

Okay so Alessandra if I could ask you a question. You don't care about having the check-in on 11-3? You're willing to cede control completely of the salaries to the ad hoc committee?

Yes, I support the idea of the ad hoc. I think that Bob and Hans did a great job when it came to Brandon's contract negotiation, and I trust them. They're the most experienced members of this council in that sort of thing. I trust giving them the ability to do that.

Okay, the question was, you don't care about that 11-3 check-in?

if that needs to be quote unquote sacrificed, yeah, I'd rather have those extra days with having the recruitment open and not feel.

You can. So just one thing to, on option one, the ad hoc committee is working from November 20th to 12th too. That is Thanksgiving. So that's basically saying we're going to be doing this the week of Thanksgiving. So I think going from 11-13, sorry.

Let's see.

Sorry.

Wait, Thanksgiving's November 26th?

Yeah, so basically the 20th is a Friday. And then from the 20th to, what is it right there? 12-2. So, you know, the 20th is a Friday. So really you got Monday the 23rd. Tuesday the 4th, 24th, and Wednesday the 25th, 26th is Thanksgiving. Friday the 27th is the day after Thanksgiving. So you've got at least two holidays in that period, and for many people it's the whole week. So I just think that by going on 11-13, I'm sorry, by moving that up one week, we don't have the dates for ad hoc, but it's basically, it would be the 13th through 12, it could be 13th through 12-1, but you're gaining that week.

So you want to add that to the purple, Wendy, where the ad hoc is created?

Sorry, candidate negotiation for the purple, I guess, but also in option in the purple, would also be 11-13 through 12-1. Buys a week.

I'm sorry, I'm not following you.

So candidate negotiation. There you go.

Oh, here. I see what you're talking about. Okay. I see what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah, I'll go ahead and finish completing all of this. This would still be 12-8. Yeah, and 12-8.

So in terms of I'm listening to what Alessandra is saying, I mean, she's also running for office in terms of being lame ducks, but and, and, I might say that I have not been trying to rush this at all. So if you feel that way, that's just not true. I've agreed with some of the logic that's been put on the table, but my goal here is to run a fair process and have everybody's opinion included. And that's what we're doing tonight.

So just to finish this, also in option one, we're doing interviews on the Friday before Thanksgiving. And I'm a little bit more concerned about losing people because of that. And so doing those final interviews on the 13th, I think it just makes more sense from scheduling standpoint.

Plus putting the ad hoc committee under a lot of pressure over a holiday.

So there's two options I'd like to propose for that to potentially change. Option number one is I would think it would be beneficial for us to move it back to the 16th. That does work for my calendar. It creates a tight window for reference checks, but I do think we might be able to get it done. It goes from the 6th through the 6th. It gives us 10 days. They're not 10 business days, but they're 10 days. And that would be a Monday, which is having candidates. Sorry, I just changed the wrong thing here. Yeah, sorry. Second round interviews to the 16th. And this would be the 16th. So it gives us 10 days, but I do think that my investigator could get the reference checks done And we're not doing a full bank of references. We're probably just being able to get two done for each of the candidates. And I think that that cures that concern. Councilmember, does that feel better?

Yeah, I wasn't all that concerned about that one, but yes.

Okay. I thought you didn't want it right next to the Friday before Thanksgiving.

It was more when do we do the round two interviews? NEW SPEAKERS.

NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS.

NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS.

NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. NEW SPEAKERS. So I think the differences now are still pushing, taking almost a week out of the recruitment open period for option two and the purple in order for us to meet the 11-3 date for us to have a broader conversation in a regular meeting around salary versus having a little bit of extra time in the recruitment open and just kind of stretching this out and giving a little bit more breathing room in between each of the processes. But as I mentioned, I don't think that's going to hurt our my recruitment process. It really depends on what council wants. If you want to have an ad hoc committee or if you want to have well, I think I think the ad hoc committee is going to be created. I think the eleven three date is the one date that's the big difference is identifying whether or not council feels that that is advantageous. to take a few days out of the recruitment process to be able to have an 11-3 date. And I think that other than that, I think the rest of it looks great.

So it's basically a check-in period after we've seen the candidates.

Yes. After you've seen the first round of candidates, the candidates that you know are moving forward, we'll be able to have a conversation on November 3rd regarding, hey, we've got three candidates moving forward now. This is who they are. And we open it up to discussions around salary.

And giving the ad hoc committee some guidance from all five of us.

Yeah.

Instead of them just running with it from the beginning.

Correct. I do think, though, that there was a good point by Councilmember Budha with regards to it is only a 50, well, we haven't decided on what the salary range is, but if the proposed salary range is what you end up going with, it is only $50,000 between that. It's not a huge, like, $100,000 range. So I do think it's up to you.

I wanted to raise one other point, which was, this discussion on 11-3, you will have narrowed the pool of candidates to three candidates. But it's not like you're actually getting feedback on the negotiation with a specific candidate. You just have three resumes in front of you that you just talk to somebody. And then in that meeting, I guess you say, hey, this is how much I would spend on this person. But you still have another interview left to go. And you haven't come into contact with reality in terms of negotiating with any person in that meeting. So I guess my only point is it's still a pretty preliminary type of meeting. And the question for me is just, you know, how do you balance those things, right?

No, I agree. That's a good point.

So Jeff? How do you feel about it at this point? You brought up the check-in.

I think the check-in on November 3rd is important.

Bob? I don't think it's mandatory just because it's the practicality of it. I think having a conversation about the components of a contract And to the extent we can, I mean, again, this gets, but you know, there's, there's 10 components to a contract with a city manager. I'm making that up, but it's, it's a finite number of things. And I think to have that, because we don't have a candidate at 11-2, is that right? we or three, it is still a general conversation applying it.

We could have that any time.

My point is we could have that conversation in October. And I think that would allow everyone to say how far we want you to go on the things that maybe aren't salary. Because you're right, the salary is going to be a range. And whoever you assign to an ad hoc is probably going to have full authority to go for the full range, probably.

But like, what's your authority on relocation expenses, right? Or those kinds of things. But those are all, it's still a pretty general conversation on 11-3. And so maybe just have it in October and provide firmer guidance to the ad hoc.

It's imperfect, but I don't know that it's... Is that an open or a closed meeting, Brian?

Well, you would have started the recruitment process by then, but you wouldn't have any candidates yet.

So it's still an open meeting discussion like we're having tonight? Yes.

It's just with broader terms about contract terms, not just... Well, it depends on your interpretation of the Brown Act, but if we're going with a more conservative interpretation, then...

There's probably no reason to have it in closed session. Well, that means...

So it's going to be open session whether it's October 3rd or November 3rd. Yeah.

If you're going to include a salary discussion... Which...

If you're going to... If we don't have a candidate, can you actually do it in closed session? That's... The question.

We're doing... We're doing the interviews in closed session. We don't have a candidate when we do first round interviews, and that's closed session. I'm asking him.

I don't know. Yeah, well, I'll answer it. By that point, you've got candidates, and you can do the interviews.

My question is, can on November 3, we have narrowed it down to three potential candidates? Not one, three. Can we, at that point, have a closed session to talk about the potential terms of a contract for knowing we don't have a finalist? Yes. We can?

Yes.

Can I do that on October 3rd when I have 12 candidates left?

Well, you're not going to have 12 candidates on October 3rd. The recruitment doesn't even close until October 5th or October 12th.

So you're saying I can only do the closed session if I have candidates in the pool?

Well, my view is that you could, but that has been such a good question.

We might get challenged. We will get challenged on that.

So how did you feel about, I know you're probably going to be on the ad hoc committee, so you're going to have a say either way, but in terms of being a group.

Well, I would put it this way. If Jeff was on the ad hoc committee, I would not feel the need for the November meeting. Okay. That's a good way to put it.

All right. I agree with Bob. As far as we don't, I don't think we absolutely need the November 3rd meeting.

All right? Sounds like we've got a majority of people that don't think we need it. Well, we already have a majority, but I could go either way. I could go either way. I mean, we're going to pick two good people to be on the ad hoc committee, and I think we've all worked pretty well together, so.

Do you want to select the ad hoc committee right now, too?

If we can, can we? Yes. Go ahead. I think Bob and Hans are highly qualified to do it and they've got experience doing it. I'd be good with that. Jeff? You want to do it? And they're also going to be here. Of the five of us, they're the two that are going to be here for sure. Sure. Bob and Hans are fine. Okay.

I've already stated that I support Bob and Hans.

Okay. All right. So. Is that good enough for you? Yes. Okay. All right. So it sounds like we could go with option one with the revisions that you've made. Great.

All right. That's tough.

You guys did it. I have one. Let me just interject here. What your direction would be tonight is that this would be a draft timeline that would then be presented to the public for discussion on September 4th. And then following that discussion and input, we'd be brought back to the council on September 8th for approval. So all you'd be approving tonight would be a draft. Okay. Timeline.

Can I make a, can I make a suggestion? We can't, we can't have the public.

No, I don't. I'm sorry, Wendy. I'm going to cut you off because I have to talk to Brian.

Okay.

All right. The agenda for tonight says, we're going to approve the schedule, right? Is that, that's what's on the agenda, right?

What it says is direction to staff regarding recruitment and the schedule. And I think based on our prior discussions, there's going to be a community input on September 4th. And if there's going to be community input on September 4th, then they should be presented with a draft timeline, not a final timeline, and then have it come back to the council for approval on September 8th.

Why is today not adequate community approval?

September 4th is really about the candidate profile. September 4th? September 4th is really about the candidate profile and I think we've had given people an opportunity based on how this is agendized. I think we can make a decision here about that. I don't really don't want to have another conversation about this calendar.

I'm not sure that public could participate in it because part of it is our schedules.

Exactly, exactly.

I mean it gets highly complicated. It's a linear programming model to some extent. I think that Hans had another statement before we close this off.

Yeah, I did really quickly. I just wanted to flag that going back to the top of the schedule, there's a community meeting this Friday. We're about to give Wendy some feedback on a candidate profile here in open session. And then the community is going to provide feedback on a candidate profile. And so this notion of finalizing the brochure DO WE WANT TO PLUG IN A MEETING FOR US TO BE ABLE TO JUST SAY, HEY, WE APPROVE WHAT YOU COME BACK WITH ON THE BROSSURE? IT SEEMS LIKE THAT'S AN IMPORTANT STEP. I AGREE. OKAY.

I AGREE.

SO THAT'S ACTUALLY A MEETING, TO BE CLEAR. YES. OKAY.

OKAY.

GOOD CATCH.

YEP, I AGREE.

All right, everybody's as happy as they're going to be with option one.

Last chance. That that's the thing that's going to take the longest time. So congratulations on getting through that. It's tough. So all right.

Appreciate everybody's feedback in the public and from the diaspora. It's not an easy discussion.

Okay.

So we've gone through the first of the three items we need to do on this order of business. And I think it's time for our dinner break. So we're gonna come back in 30 minutes. Can you stick, is Wendy sticking with us?

Yes, I'll stick with you. I'm in it with you guys. No, I'm good, thank you so much. I'll see you back here in a minute.

We'll be back here in 10 minutes to eight. Thank you for everybody's patience while we go get some PPE. We stand in recess until 7.50.

All right.

no i don't i'm not going to say you can't let that happen but i'm not hard that's true and i my fear is that if i was i was working with them i would yell at them and i'm not but i can't do that

I'm so sorry. I appreciate it. You're standing up for us.

It's a shitty situation.

And we started talking.

But there was reasons for that.

It all started with the contract . The reason we're here is because we went out a few months ago.

Which was less about the contract.

Usually, if they do, I'll be . OK. All we do is negotiate.

Carrie says she was hearing my conversation with you.

Great. Was that Carrie?

Oh, she was listening.

Sorry. Oh. Trying to keep us on our toes. Yeah. Where are you? OK, so you have JP and That's all right. I really, I agree. And I would just keep two years ago. But I . They're so amazing. And you know, even if I'm sitting inside the house, I know where I sit. Especially dreamers, because I'm always amazed that they can get my answer. Or if I'm not there, will they pick up on me? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Can I grab you a piece of pizza? No, thank you. As long as it's not pepperoni. It is pepperoni.

Anything other than pepperoni is good. Thank you.

yeah yeah yeah yeah

Do we still have water? Nova you ready? ALL RIGHT, WE'RE READY.

NOVA? NOVA? NOVA? YEAH, WE'RE READY. WE'RE NOT DOING THIS. WE'RE STILL CONTINUING WITH WHAT WE WERE DOING.

We're only through with one of three.

This is Wendy controlling that, so if you want to tell her to go to a different screen, you can tell her that.

Oh, okay. All right. Oh, that's right. We're going to the salary. Sorry about that. We've got two salary things tonight. So we're back in session at 7.53. Thank you, everybody, for being patient while we had dinner, although there aren't many people here. Wendy, we have... four people online and two in the audience here, just so you know what you're talking to. And you can continue with our next item, whatever you want to pick off next.

We'll start with the backstory and it's going to be salary. So giving the backstory of prior conversations, if that works for you, Mayor. talking about and then share. Okay. So staff provided a salary study that council reviewed and examined and considered and discussed based on that information. You came out with a salary range you felt would be competitive based on, you know, both looking at Monterey cities and city manager pay as well as you know, other smaller population cities across California. And that's the salary range that I'd like to discuss now and share the information again that we had when you made that, when you had a, you were examining the salary range that you feel would be ideal for this opportunity. So are you okay with me sharing my screen now and sharing that study? Yes, please. Okay. Okay, so this was the study. This is the salary range that was the, or I should say the salary that for the last city administrator had. And this is the salary range that based off of the study, council felt would be competitive for going out 280 to 330. Just to give a quick overview of the information here, it shows the different cities that were studied and then it shows the current salary range or the most recent salary range down here. for Carmel-by-the-Sea, and then what those salaries are, and then there's also population in the last column. So based off that information, in order for us to put ourselves in a position where we could get experienced candidates interested in wanting to leave their current salary and come to an expensive area to live, it was council's recommendation that we propose a 280 to 330 salary range And I'm going to turn that back over to you, Mayor, for discussion.

Okay. Anybody from the council have any comments or questions at this point on this?

Okay.

Probably not.

Oh, I mean, I think the important part of the discussion, I mean, again, we had the discussion and so we're kind of trying to have it again, was we, I feel that it's really important Excuse me, do you have questions?

I have no questions. Okay. So at this point it's questions, then public comment, then discussion.

So, Wendy, could you just walk us through a little bit what the advantages would be if we went with that higher salary range and the difference with like a different caliber of candidate we could find? Or just sort of walk us through the advantages and, of course, potential disadvantages of that salary range. Thanks.

Sure. And I just want to make sure, too, that in the documents, everybody also has the other department head salaries, too, which is the screen. But we're probably going to be focused here. So, yes, the advantages, and I think the history has been that, at least for the last couple of city managers that you've had, have been step-up candidates. That's usually what you call them when you say people are stretching into a city manager role. Because of all of the CIP and infrastructure and additional work that you've got, there's a lot of things that are happening in Monterey right now and over the next five to 10 years with all of the capital improvement projects that, and all of the things that are changing that an experienced city manager is what I heard you'd be looking for. So I do think that the 280 to 330 range definitely gets you some interest based off of the other salary ranges I see here. We do class and comp studies too, that you're putting yourself in a position of, hey, we have an attractive salary range that it's not just going to be $5,000 above what you're making right now and you're going to have to uproot your family and relocate, that it's going to be a potential salary range that could attract a broader, you know, a stronger candidate that has experience in a city manager role and while you don't see those city city positions here we just recently did a city manager recruitment for city of santa monica the city of pasadena that was in 400 i think 420 something and the assistant city manager for beverly hills which is a much smaller population similar cost of living maybe a little bit more expensive in beverly hills the heart of beverly hills for above 400 so just to give everybody in the room an understanding of what YOU KNOW, WE'RE LOOKING AT AND COMPARING IT TO WHERE THE OTHER SALARY RANGES ARE AS WELL. SO I DO THINK IT DOES GIVE YOU A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE AND NOT A HUGE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE.

NEW SPEAKER SO IN YOUR OPINION, LOWERING THE MAXIMUM FROM 330 TO 300 YOU THINK COULD LIMIT US FROM GETTING THE RIGHT PERSON?

I do, I definitely do. I think this gives you enough room to be able to have flexible conversations. It doesn't mean you have to hire at the top of the range, but it gives the opportunity for council to consider that depending on the caliber of candidate that you have in front of you. So I do think it gives you enough flexibility. I think $20,000 range in salary is probably not gonna be enough.

Do you have any idea how old these salaries are? I don't.

Yeah. And that is another thing to consider, right? So St. Helena was a recent recruitment. I know that that opened not too long ago and I could look that up really quickly. And I know Monterey just filled their position at 320. So I don't know where these other California cities are, but I could look at them up one by one and find out when the last city manager recruitment was. But I think that's why you're seeing the 300s for the most recent recruitments. I can look up Sand City too, but I know Monterey was just filled in the last six months.

And since cities a little surprising for 400 people, it's an interesting city for sure.

Well, you know, it's, you know, it's interesting. And I think that everybody needs to understand this, like just because you have a small population doesn't make the job any easier. Um, it, in fact, it might even make it harder because that means you probably have less staff and with people, I mean, I've done city manager agreements for people with, for cities that only have a handful of employees. That means they have to wear 12 hats, right? They have to be, The clerk and the city manager and the public works director and the CIP person that's delivering, they have to do a lot of things. So it doesn't necessarily make the job easier because you have a smaller population. But I do understand why people use that as a reason for comparing communities, but I don't think that it's necessarily... always fair, that larger communities mean harder jobs. It means you have more staff, it means you have larger budgets, but the job is just a little different.

Okay, so what I'm hearing you say is that the ones towards the top are probably a better model. Some of the ones towards the bottom, including ours, are pretty aged. They could be older.

I'd have to search that to find out, but I can do some of that work for you while while we're talking. OK, I can look online question.

Jeff, go ahead. Can you talk a little bit, Wendy, about the city of Monterey, which is number three on the list, which they just hired their city manager? Last year, the city is in somewhat of financial distress, worse than ours. And they have 10 times as many people as we do, and yet they're paying $320,000 a year. Do you think that $330,000 a year on our part is overstretch, given the 320 from Monterey?

Well, I mean, I'm looking at the same information you're looking at, so I think that it gives you more flexibility to have those conversations with people that might be even making more than $330,000 but want to be in your... in your community. It gives you an opportunity to have more flexibility to negotiate. I mean, council, I just have to say, just because you go out with a 280 to 330 doesn't mean you have flexibility to even go above that once we get through the recruitment process. I do think it's nice to be able to put a range out there and it's actually required by law to put a range out there, but, or not a range, but a salary. You could put a flat salary or you could put a range. The flexibility in the range provides you flexibility and it also attracts a different candidate. So I can't tell, I'm not an expert and I have, I mean, I do do class and comp studies, but I CAN'T TELL YOU FOR SURE IF I THINK THAT THAT IS OVERSTRETCHED. I DON'T THINK SO. I THINK IF IT WERE ME MAKING THE DECISION, I'D WANT THE FLEXIBILITY TO GO UP TO 330, THEN 320 OR 310.

NEW SPEAKER any other questions from the council? NEW SPEAKER NO. NEW SPEAKER NO. OKAY. SO LET'S GO OUT FOR PUBLIC COMMENT. ANYONE WANT TO COMMENT? HERE? Nobody?

Should we go to, there's a few people on Zoom.

I knew Nancy, I knew I could get Nancy up here.

I'll build on the comment that was just made that it does the 3.30 at least high end of the current range that would be publicized seems excessive, especially in this time when you're kind of trying to tighten some of the purse strings on behalf of the benefit of everybody. And compensation, we want good people and I don't want to guide or influence bad decisions, obviously I wouldn't, you guys are all smart folks. But it seems like a lot given that Monterey as a comp level position seems, 330 seems really high on the high end. So my personal preference would be to pull that down some with regard to what you publicize in this recruiting. So just an opinion.

All right. Thank you. All right, I've got three hands going online. Nova, why don't you call them out?

Victoria, go ahead.

hi everybody you're doing great lots of good stamina um for a complex day um i just wanted to point out something i don't know whether it's ever come up before but that relates to salary and it is that we are looking for folks i hope that are so popular where they are that they're reluctant to leave that they are intertwined into their communities, and that they will have to uproot a really rich life to come to our community. That's the type of person I think generally, to me, reflects someone of high caliber. What comes along with that type of person, I would imagine the highest anxiety may not actually be cash. It's probably housing anxiety because we have the, you know, that is the difference between our community and most others in California. The cost of living piece you guys are talking about is a housing cost of living. So I guess I would ask, and I think, again, we would want the person who we select to have that same experience we're taking them away from in our community. We want them to be a person who is intertwined in our community, really committed, really gets rooted, et cetera. So I'd ask the council to, if you haven't already, to consider not just a cash way of looking at this, but to have the ad hoc experience have the flexibility to talk about a cash plus cash equivalent way of approaching this, meaning that there might be some assistance with housing. I don't know if it's toward a down payment or it's some kind of search or housing allowance or something to that effect. um that could be intertwined with the cash package perhaps if you explore that with the candidate you will relieve their anxiety you will attract them you will show sensitivity to these special problems we have here and um you know you end up at this maybe at the same number but you take it uh in pieces and just explore with them what what they really care about that's my comments thank you so much

Thank you, Victoria. Great comment. And that is potentially something we could do at a future meeting in the near future to talk about those issues. I think they came up earlier in our discussion. Okay, Carolyn.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm assuming you can hear me now.

We can.

Thank you very much. You know, I was thinking about this salary range, and I do believe you'd want to start at the lower end at offering. I agree the top end is pretty high for Carmel. The one thing that's not being discussed is when these other people are hired, let's say, for example, Monterey, we have no idea how many years of experience they've had. So they might be starting out at a higher range because of their experience. And if we're finding someone with a little less experience, you'd certainly want to start at a lower end range and be able to advance them as they get the experience in Carmel and be able to bump their pay on performance. And I agree with Victoria, you know, that's one of those negotiating tools. You could offer a lower salary, but you can offer them some moving expenses or those kinds of things. So I, you know, just because there's, you know, 320, 330,000 being offered to local businesses, City administrators doesn't mean that's where we should be starting. That ought to be where we'd be ending in a year or two or three, whatever the amount is. But those are just some of my thoughts too about the salary range. You know, negotiation is negotiation. You have to start low and And, you know, if the candidate isn't willing to take that amount, then you bump it up until you get to a point of agreement. So that's just my input for you. And I do think you guys are doing a great job. And it's tough. Been through it. And this is... you know, you're just hammering it through. And so I appreciate it. And I'm agreeing with you on your timeline, too. You know, but, you know, how I would apply done it a little differently, but there's always compromise. So but thanks for your time. Appreciate being able to speak up. Thanks.

Thank you, Carolyn. We greatly appreciate you being involved in this. Be nice to have more people on that list. Kelly. Can you hear me?

Yes. OK. I just would like to echo that we have obviously flexibility, but most importantly, I think the council made a fantastic decision in seeking going through a process to identify a recruiter and open up a search. And I don't think we want to handicap the professional that's supporting this endeavor for us by not being able to even access at the early filters candidates who might be fantastic next city administrators in our city. So I would fully support the recommendation of the council and the recruiter. And I think we just have to trust, like, you're not going to offer everybody the starting 330 salary, right? The candidate's experience, where they're coming from, how much experience they have, what their current salary presently is, all of those things would be factored into any offer as you progress candidates along, but certainly I think we want to be attracting the best pool as possible and defer to our professional recruiter to help us with what that initial offer and salary should be. And I would also concur that I think other things, you know, perhaps could be included. You know, maybe the offer is 280, but there's also a $10,000 housing allowance or something on top of that that allows you to work within the range you have. So thank you for all the hard work you're doing. And I think it's really important that we find the absolute best person that hopefully will stay the course for us for many, many years to come. Thank you.

Thank you, Kelly. Anybody else? All right. Appreciate everybody being here at 815 and participating in the discussion. Let's bring it back to the council. Who would like to start?

I have can I add I have some information regarding the chart, if you'd like to hear when the last requirements were done. Should be interesting. OK, so Sand City was done. Sorry, I'll go from the top down. So St. Helena, they lost their city manager and they have an interim placement right now. So that just happened in 2026, March of 2026. Marina, March of 2026. Monterey, February of 2026 when it was appointed. Sand City was 2022, so four and a half years ago. Calistoga. to 2026 was just appointed from internal. So that's not an experienced city manager, an internal appointment. Sausalito just completed. There's not too long ago, I'm sure that everybody read some things around Sausalito and their agreement. Seaside was 2022. So you're starting to see that the salaries are going much lower from Iowa. That's as far as I got with Seaside. I can continue to do that. But I thought that that was, I think informative. So I just wanted to share that now.

So those are people hired a while back that are just getting bumped up.

It looks that way. I'll still continue to do it from seaside down, but it's so, so far seaside was 2022. So that was again, four and a half years ago.

Yeah. So if they went out to hire somebody right now, they'd probably be going higher.

That's my point. Yeah, I'm guessing.

I happen to know that Seaside was 2025.

Okay. All right. 2025? Yes. Okay. Sorry, AI lied to me. All right. Thank you for that. Bob, you want to start?

Yeah, I don't have much to add. Wendy made the points for justifying a range that has a higher end to it. You know, I think a lot of this comes down to the next discussion, which is the, you know, what we want to see in the ideal candidate. And I know I want to get an experienced candidate. And it's everything Victoria said, actually, you know, that someone that maybe isn't even thinking they're looking. But somebody who's really good and that it's going to take a little more to get them to budge, and this is an expensive place to be. Doesn't mean we have to open the negotiation on that, but I think it's the right range.

Okay.

Jeff? I'm having a little trouble with the upper end. I think, you know, we have made a big deal about the financial distress of the city. We know what Brandon and what Chip have made in the past. The reason I asked a question about Monterey was they did just do a recruitment and they found a good qualified candidate in a distressed city for 320. So 330 to me, like I appreciate that. I appreciate that it maybe, and I don't mean to disrespect Wendy, maybe it makes Wendy's job easier, but... I would like to see the range a little bit lower, 270 to 320 would be more to my liking. I think it would send a better message to our community and a better message to our employees. I think that we, you know, yeah, I'm not sure that it's realistic to, you know, I guess a bigger question is whether it's really, you know, we had the luxury of having a chip here for eight years. And I don't know if that's, if that's realistic anymore to have city administrators stay in a community such as ours for eight years. And I've, I've wondered whether we should try to catch, um, a younger star that maybe has, you know, experience in another city and is looking to upgrade a little bit, um, and is on their way up, uh, versus someone who is, you know, and someone who is, who is more mature in their career and is looking to end here. I think those are sort of different talent pools and, and, um, I'm interested in exploring the first talent pool as well. So I would like to see the salary range a little lower to see if we can attract some of those people.

Yeah, Seaside sort of represents that type of candidate that was hired last year. He's good. Alessandra?

Thanks, Mayor. I'm OK with the proposed salary range, just as we had discussed and Bob had said. It's nice to have that ability to go up to that level if there is somebody that is just spectacular, outstanding, with tons of experience. And it would make the difference in getting that person to come here. Certainly share the thoughts that Victoria and Carolyn brought up about housing and also incorporating that into some of the incentives of hiring the candidate. I'm certainly not saying we should go for that top salary, but I think at least let's have that range in while we're doing this search and trying to get the best candidate and the most experienced candidate as well.

Yeah, I guess I would echo what was stated earlier about if we're trying to find somebody who's happy where they are and trying to pry them free and bring them here, you know, an extra five or ten thousand dollars might not be sufficient. Similarly, I think there's a reason when you look across companies, when you look across organizations and you see the CEO, et cetera, tend to have salaries that you're like, wow, that's really high compared to some of the other employees. that's not just because, that's not random, right? That's because people do recognize that that top person leadership makes a huge difference. I was the chair of the board of our county housing authority, and we did a national search for an executive director. And we brought somebody in from, from Alabama. So we did this national search and there was some heartburn about paying up for that person. But within the first three months, she had identified something that we had never thought of that would save us one and a half million dollars based on her experience. And so to me, at the end of the day, $20,000 here or there on this will be made up many times over in terms of organizational efficiency. You know, these opportunities they identify. And so I also agree with some of the other comments that like, this is a range of, And so we're not going to, you know, not everybody gets the top of the range. It depends on your experience profile. It depends on how excited we are about you as a candidate. It depends on how marketable you are to other cities. At the end of the day, there's a market for labor and different people have different prices in that labor market. And we just, we just need the flexibility to meet someone where they are while preserving the flexibility to find someone who is on the more experienced range that is you know, is a higher flyer in the labor market. So yeah, I support the range.

Okay, good. Yeah, the average tenure of a city manager in California is about three years. So people tend to move around quite a bit. It keeps Wendy busy. But that also is one of the reasons these salaries are going up because the good people are getting poached and taken to other places. And that's basically what we're trying to do here. I keep hearing from everybody that we want to get the best possible person. And I think if you want to get the best possible person, we need to get Wendy some tools to bring them in so that we can interview them. And then the the we with some advice to the ad hoc committee and their negotiations. And I trust that our ad hoc committee of Bob and Hans know how to take all the tools that you brought up. Thank you for the comments from Carolyn and Victoria and Nancy. I mean, I think we know what all the tools are. I think it might be good to have a discussion about that at a meeting. And we'll talk about that maybe before the night's out with the agenda, future agenda items. But I think the 280 to 330 is a nice range. I don't know that we have to go to 330 to get a really good candidate, but we want that person to come and interview if they think that they're up in that range. We need to see what's out there. So I think we've got four. Jeff was close at 270 to 320, so we're only off by 10 there. So I think pretty much all of us think that the range that we've got here is good. And I think we heard some comments from the public that they'd like it a little lower, but I think we've also seen that we can pay lower if the person doesn't have all the qualifications. So I think the 280 to 330 sounds like it's gonna stick, Wendy, is that good guidance for you?

It is. You need to take, is that all you need? Do you need to take a vote or are you good?

I think we do on this as a resolution. So I'll take a motion. Resolution 2026-067, establishing a revised salary range for the city administrator position, which will be 280,000 to 330,000. Do we need to fill in any more gaps in that?

No, is that a motion? That's a motion.

I move to approve resolution 2026-07, that's 067, sorry.

I'll second it. You have a comment?

I just have a comment. I'll be voting against it. For the reasons I stated earlier, I will absolutely support the council's decision to go to the range of 280 to 330. But I believe that I stated my reasons earlier.

OK. All right. Any other comments? Roll call, please.

Okay. Council Member Barron?

No.

Council Member Booter?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Delves?

Yes.

Council Member Dramaw? Yes. Mayor Byrne?

Yes.

Motion carries 4-1.

All right. Thank you. All right. So I think that still leaves the qualifications discussion. Yes. And the brochure related to it. Just go ahead and lead us. Okay.

Yeah, so kind of going backwards, we talked a little bit about, you know, what helps me really find a great candidate. And separating the background and technical expertise that would be ideal from the interpersonal strengths is kind of the way I like to do things is first thinking about what does that person's background typically look like? Could it be somebody coming from another state? Is it somebody that's currently a city manager? And when I talk about this, I'm talking about our purple unicorn. I'm talking about when I say purple unicorn, like if we could have the best scenario ever, what does that look like? And I just have to say that, you know, purple unicorns are hard to find. Wendy? Yes.

Could you take, that's the latest version of the brochure, correct? Correct. So if you could take that down because we're going to, we need to go back and walk through. Okay. Starting at the beginning again. although that picture is beautiful.

Ms. All right. So, going backwards and talking about that, the ideal candidate is really a mix of both background and experience, as well as interpersonal expertise. So, hi. Sorry, there's, can I, I'm just going to put you on hold just for a second. I apologize. Hold on.

NOVA, DO YOU KNOW, WHILE WENDY'S ON HOLD, DO YOU KNOW WHERE WE CAN FIND EARLIER COPIES OF THE BROCHURE?

NEW SPEAKER I HAVE AN EARLIER VERSION I CAN BRING UP, IF YOU'D LIKE. I'VE SAVED SOME OF THE EDITS.

NEW SPEAKER HOLD ON, WENDY. I HEAR SOME CHIT-CHAT HERE.

NEW SPEAKER ARE WE TALKING ABOUT THE ONE BEFORE AUGUST 24th? IS THAT THE ONE WE'RE LOOKING FOR?

I have the first version I can share.

So Wendy, you can get clarification from the rest of the council. I'll just speak for myself here. I think the goal, like when I was making my motion, the goal was basically to go back to the discussion that we had downstairs in closed session, where you first came to us and said, hey, what is the profile of the candidate that you want, that discussion we had in closed session, to basically have that discussion de novo in public session, not through the lens of the brochure that emerged out of that process, So having that on screen is probably unhelpful for the needle we're trying to thread here. And so, yeah, my thought is if we could go back and you could walk us through some of the different aspects of the potential profile of candidates and we could just have that discussion and then that's the guidance you need. You go back and you create a brochure and maybe it's similar to the one that you already created, but, you know, we'll see.

Got it. Okay. So I was headed down that path and I apologize. I had somebody walking through the door and so I didn't know who that was. So I apologize for the interruption. So going back to the discussion, talking about the ideal candidate, both background and experience, is this an experienced city manager is there room to consider people that are stepping up into this role if they have a lot of the expertise you're looking for in interpersonal strengths and we think about interpersonal strengths we think about leadership we think about all the challenges and opportunities that are in front of this person so that was one of the other things i asked from council to say, hey, what are your top three to five main challenges? What are council's goals? That will also help out with me identifying, okay, well, if you're looking for all of these things to be accomplished over the next five to 10 years, somebody with this kind of background could be helpful. So uh so the three areas i asked from you were what background should this person have what technical expertise could they have are they coming from public works would they be a planning director at some point uh would they have been a finance director so sometimes people are saying hey those people come up usually from an area of expertise so i get into those things and then interpersonal Beyond leadership, it's the emotional intelligence. And it's also related to the community they're coming to. And in talking to council, I was also asking, what is great about your community? What's amazing about your community? What's unique about your community? And in talking with both council and the department heads, I'm looking for what are some of the important key things that the community is looking for from a council's lens of what they know about your community? What is it that staff from their lens and what are they saying that they think would be really important about the community? And I've worked in some highly engaged communities and that's how I would, what I would say I've learned. And so interpersonally, you know, what are some of those traits and character and expertise? So, THAT'S THE QUESTION I POSED TO YOU, AND I THINK THAT FROM LISTENING TO YOU THAT YOU'D LIKE ME TO JUST PAUSE THERE AND ALLOW YOU TO REHASH THAT CONVERSATION WE HAD, CORRECT?

NEW SPEAKER Yeah, TO SOME EXTENT.

NEW SPEAKER I'LL OPEN IT UP TO COUNSEL.

NEW SPEAKER YOU GAVE US A STARTING POINT WITH THE BROCHURE based on our original comments and the public. We also got letters from the public that had things plus there's some also just motherhood and apple pie stuff that everybody's going to put on the list. Right.

If it would be helpful to take it to the next level of after conversations with each of you individually you as a group and then also department heads I can share. the summary of that content, if that would be helpful.

That would be helpful. And then how you turn that into the first draft of the brochure.

Okay. So highly engaged community means a lot of different things. Somebody that not only can run and do a great job at running your organization and making sure that they're fiscally sound with all of the challenges and opportunities that are in front of this, this, this council, this community. Some of those things I heard were, let me just go back to my notes here. Like investment, some major projects and initiatives. So major reinvestment in Carmel with public infrastructure implementing your council's plan. You have $100 million in identified deferred maintenance that needs to be done. bringing a major community into that investment process. So that's fiscal, that's making sure that while this person is not your public works director, making sure that they're supporting the public works director and everything that they're gonna be doing. You have a build of your police station and your public works facility. I know that's been on the books for a long time and that's gonna be needing some financing. and some skill sets and project delivery that is beyond the public works director. So launching also making sure that everybody's being like a performance management system. So you can make sure that that the city manager is holding people accountable, themselves accountable, being innovative, establishing clear KPIs or ways to measure the success that people are having at multiple levels in the organization, making sure that they are thinking about customer service, which gets back to that highly engaged community who expects a lot from their government, making sure that they are this person's customer service focused, um building strong collaboration not only internally with the workforce but also externally with uh with the community making sure that they're accessible available and approachable are all things i think a community like yours is looking for strategic helping support strategic technology initiatives helping modernize your technology system so somebody who has some strengths in that area um Let's see. Also making progress visible. So making sure that everything's transparent or as transparent as it can be for both council and the community so they can keep track of what's happening and how things are evolving. What are some other things I heard? So... evaluating opportunities for economic stewardship and renewing or, sorry, and revenue enhancements that could kind of bring forward some broader priorities or some long-term financial goals or opportunities there. I think that's it. I think that the interpersonal strengths, though, if I were to highlight a little bit more on that, it's that customer service. focus. It's an interest in wanting to be involved in a community and engaged in the community available and accessible by staff and external. I know I said that, but those would be the key things I would highlight on as well as just being able to do all those other technical capabilities. So I'll pause there, see if there's anything I missed.

The only thing I would add, Wendy, and thank you, that was a very comprehensive list, is sort of just a real understanding and appreciation of what a unique community we are, the one square mile, just the fact that we are hospitality-centered as far as what our revenues are to run the city, and just that kind of understanding with our historic background, artistic background, and that's the only thing I would add.

Yeah, thank you for bringing that up. It actually was one of the points and I just skipped over it by accident. So I have preserving Carmel's unique character and natural beauty, natural beauty with a deep appreciation for the historic traditional qualities that your community has. So thank you.

Yeah, so it's sort of an unusual agenda item because I'm not sure questions are really appropriate. You're really looking for input from us to see if we missed anything. So as opposed to questions, let's just go ahead. If any of the council people have some items that they didn't hear that they think should be on the list, I'll let you go ahead and do that now and then we'll get the same thing from the public through their public comments or we can do public comments first.

I was gonna recommend you take public comment before you make yours.

Let's have them join in on the fun here. I know Cindy's going to have a few. Because I know you, Cindy.

Thank you, Mayor, Council, and the city staff. My name is Cindy Lloyd. What I would like to see in a city administrator is somebody who strongly supports and defends Carmel. And that means when people come to the community and they want to start changing the community, the first person who is defending the character of the community is the city administrator. And that that person is well-versed in the history and the character of the community. I noticed in reading what I could read in this very fine print, that that statement came near the end of it, not near the beginning. And I'd rather see something, an initiation or introduction to the community, be more open to and include something about the historic character of this village. There was a reference to fairy tale kind of, I didn't say cottages, but I think the fairy tale thing needs to be soft pedaled a bit because the unique aspect of this community has always been the multifaceted and many different types of architecture. And the fairy tale architecture is getting blown out of proportion. And people are always looking for fairy tale cottages. But anyway, that's one of my little things. But again, somebody who's accessible to the public, somebody who is listening, somebody who cares about us and is willing to go to bat for us. But I think that a lot of what we have had in the past is good, but I would just like to see those aspects strengthened. Thank you.

Anything else? Okay. Nancy, are you going to come up?

So this is not my personal comment, but I have heard from a couple of others that I don't see embraced in here, and it might be something that is really best managed by the relevant department heads. But the topic of honoring, respecting, and implementing, and updating our general plan and our municipal code is needing attention as comes up in most meetings. So that's a major task that I don't know is incorporated into the strategic plan as a line item. that would be linked from or to this roster of items that are getting council attention. So that may warrant some visibility. I don't know if it belongs in the brochure or belongs somewhere else in the communication, but I've heard that from a couple of people and just wanted to offer that as a comment. Thanks. Otherwise, it's your guys are headed down the right path and appreciate the coverage on this. Thanks.

Thank you very much. So those of you who are online, could you put your hand up if you want to speak? We've got Ian as the only one currently. Ian?

Good evening, everybody. I'd like to add an ability to think strategically to defend Carmel's against state of California's one-size-fits-all regulatory environment. Recently, we had a situation that is up for discussion currently where our local coastal program, the city has figured out, actually trumps the state of California's ADU ordinance. And being able to have a deep familiarity with Our general plan and our municipal code and understanding the regulatory environment in California so that the city can can be proactive in defending itself against one size fits all regulations, I think, is important. very important. And I think it also speaks to passion, having a passion for preservation, be it natural or the built environment is also important as well, because you want to be able to be inspired to come up with those solutions to defend our community character. And I definitely want to echo what Cindy Lloyd just said that, uh, having a deep understanding of the historicity of our village and how fragile it is. I mean, we're only a square mile and, you know, it doesn't take a lot to really have a huge impact in a negative way on everything we hold dear. So anyway, thank you for listening.