City Council - Regular Meeting

Yes, sir. Just one or Okay, Tracy Solin, if you'd come up.

Hey guys, Tracy Solomon. Know most of you guys. Good to see you. Uh I don't normally just free free speak. Uh so I'm going to read something here real quick. I tend to uh not go well for me when I do that. Um anyway, I want to focus on an important issue before the council um in regards to the search you guys are undertaking. Uh to me, it's not about who's local, who interviews well, or who's most familiar. Uh this is about the town um or whether the town is prepared to put the right person in the most important administrative job in Greenville. Um as CEO of Tevet, I've learned that when you hire for critical leadership roles, you hire people with a proven track record of relevant success. You do not hire based on comfort, convenience, or the hope that someone grows into the job. You hire people who already know what success looks like because they have done it before. And so that's my concern here. Um I think it's a big difference between being good in a departmental role or being and and being ready to lead an entire town. The job requires proven executive leadership, sound judgment, and experience managing complex issues across organizations. I think we've all seen what happens when the wrong person is in the role. So I'd urge this council to take a hard honest look at the current field and if that group does not include someone with the proven track record this job demands, then do not force the decision. Go back to the market, find that person. There's no shame in extending a search. That would be settling. So thank you.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate you. We don't have any unfinished business, so we'll move on to new business. And it's discussion and approval of which candidates will move forward in the next steps of the selection process. And I'd like to ask Pete Auger from MTAS to come up and talk with us. Back again, mayor.

Hello. Well, we finished up last week or on the Saturday meeting uh with uh three candidates I think people thought were above uh the rest and how they answered their questions on in the structured interview with Mr. Peters lead uh 3.2 uh Mr. Patterson at 3.1 and Mr. Carver at at 3.1. uh when I retallied uh all the information, I was trying to look for a way to h how do you separate them? How do you get one to stand above the others from the interview process, I did the groupings uh on competencies, all those competencies of what you were asking about. Um, in doing it that way, I I group the highest basically shot group, for lack of a better term, of where they scored on the competencies, then their mid-range competencies, and then their lowest one. Uh, they all um and they all fared pretty well. Uh, Mr. Peterson, I mean, uh, Mr. Peters again, uh, led the pack when you did it that way as well. He had uh two competencies at 3.4 and one at 3.5. Now, his mid range group was a 3.2 and a 3.3. So, they're all pretty close together, but you have to separate them in into three groupings when you do it this way. Uh then Mr. Patterson had one high at 3.2 two and a in the middle range of his he had four at 3.1. Uh Mr. Carver his high he his high he had two at 3.4 and three at 3.1. So even doing it this way, Mr. Peters

had um higher the highest score at a 3.5 and another and two more at 3.4. So, even in these groups, he was still ahead in each of the categories um that we looked at. Don't know if that helps you or confuses you. Um but I'm happy to answer any questions and see what you want to do next. Obviously, it's the decisions up to you. Do you have any recommendations or

Well, we we really don't make recommendations. I I think there's a um a candidate that's uh in in my eyes that's leading the other two um that that I just pointed out. Um but that decision's up to you.

Any comments? Well, about recommendations, you don't have a recommendation about the process going forward. If you were to take because you could right now just pick one candidate and say, "Okay, we we all like this candidate. Let's go forward with that." Um or if you want to um move to another stage, then I'd have some recommendations on that. Okay. And you had you had talked about uh presentation and I think we had all talked about a second interview. If you would lay out the presentation idea again, please.

Um well, normally you you have them uh come in and you have a general topic that you would give them. you give them all the same topic and they either uh do a PowerPoint presentation or a Prisy presentation, whatever technology they're using, uh to to show you what they've done on that topic or what their thoughts are on that topic, but you keep it general so you can kind of see where their mind is.

Does anybody else have any ideas, suggestions, thoughts? You gave us three that were above the other scores. Yes.

I guess why is that? Why'd you give us three is what I'm asking? Uh these three are all above uh their their rating uh average rating on Saturday were all above threes. Um the others were in the twos uh range. uh so that there is a clear delineation between the experiences of the top three and the way they answered their questions and the rest of the pack.

We asked questions that you gave us during that interview and I think I told you or Kathy one that I think we should be able to ask our own questions even though we might sly narrow it down to two or three or four right now. I guess that's what we're doing. I think could we not take a list of our own questions that we want to hear from and ask all three or four of them? Yes, you could. That's my recommendation. How many? He he gave us three names. Well, do I hear a motion to bring

Are you talking about three in writing or three face to face in an interview setting? Oh, I think we interviewed based. Okay, let me or if if if we can all agree that there are three the three candidates, that's kind of what our first how many move forward and then item two is how we'll do it. Oh, okay.

So, do I hear a motion to move the three people forward? So I can't uh if we do it that way we need I would prefer if we could to uh move make a motion individually to move the individual three people forward because there is one candidate if we group them all together there's one candidate that I cannot I can't have any commentary on because he's one of my customers. So if we did the top three that we would like to individually nominating for them to move forward I can vote in that way. Can I uh ask for who? I'm going to start with the top. I'm going to do a roll call. Yes, sir. So, on Brad Peters, Jenny, yes or no?

Yes. Tim. Tim. Yes. Okay. So, you got that one. That's not the one you're Brad Peters. But that's the one you said you can't vote for. No, I cannot vote for Mr. Carver. Carver. Okay. Butch Patterson. Yes or no? Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. And then Gary Carver. Yes. Yes. I abstain. Okay. So, they all meet the the number. Yes, sir.

Okay. So those three will be brought along or no? Yes, we've we've voted on that. So the motion was that um based on the roll call is that Mr. Peterson, Mr. Patter, Mr. Peters, sorry, I'm sorry, Brad, Mr. Peters, Mr. Patterson, and Mr. Carver um all would move forward in the process. That was the motion. And then with the um so we've got our three candidates. All right. So the next thing is how are we going to do it? Well, and you've got some ideas.

Well, it was already mentioned and brought up is is the uh presentation to see how somebody in this uh position would present ideas, facts to you. Um and so that would be like a PowerPoint presentation. Um you it doesn't have to be a long presentation by please. What's that? I said please.

Um then there is the interview the individual questions um that the council members come up with that you could ask. Uh I wouldn't make them um too many questions, you know, two or three questions per council member usually uh to keep it short. Um, so and then sometimes a candidate can be asked what is what is your first six months look like? And we could do this ahead of time so they have time to work on it. What's your first six months look like? where do you vision yourself at after your first year type of questions so they can actually build something up to the um up to the interview and present that to you or any other thing that you think would be interesting? Well, like uh council member Teague was mentioning the there are individuals that I would want to ask different questions to, you know, based on um the results of this and their backgrounds and so are we going to be free to just ask our own questions at that time?

Yes. Um, you're free to do anything you want as the elected board. Um, I would recommend you keep them similar, but if somebody said something in the previous interview that you want to follow up on, of course, the other two can't follow up because they don't have they didn't respond with that experience. So, there can there can be some outside ones, but I you know, I would just keep it limited. And there are some questions that shouldn't be asked during an interview. What religion are you? Um, how many kids do you have? Those type of things that you you can't ask.

We could have those pre pre-approved. Well, but some, like he said, some may come during the course of the interview, you know, like a followup. Yes. Okay. Um, so are you thinking interview each person in uh individually? I don't have a preference. We did that the first round. Um,

if if we're doing a forum and and she asks Brad one question and then I ask Butch one question and then Tim asks Gary one question, but they're all different questions. Is that how would that How would that work? Yeah, true. It wouldn't. I I would recommend sequestering them again.

Okay. uh bring them in one at a time because it it wouldn't be um fair to hear a similar question asked to another candidate that you might be asked. The only other thing you might consider is after attending the recent uh school uh board city or school board superintendent candidate interview, they had the two top candidates on the stage and then when someone asked a question, even if it was directed for one candidate in particular, the other candidate had the opportunity to also respond to that question. Now, if you've got three folks up here, that could get very lengthy very quickly. So, we would just need to be cognizant of time in that regard. But

I'm fine with the individual. I just sometimes it's nice to see people play off each other. Are we open to having at this at this stage of the interview, if you were to do single sequestered interviews, would the public have the opportunity to ask a question? Are we going to allow that at this round? At this time, I think we would. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

I I think personally I I would rather have a presentation and this set of questions and then see where that leads us and then may may be able to do a public forum after that u at a later date. But uh I think digesting how they how they do with their presentation and the answers that are presented to the to the interview might even do away with the need for that. Um that could that could be that could be timeconuming with three people. Uh if you get 10 12 15 people throwing questions at them it could it could go all day. Um so I personally speaking I would rather do the presentation followed by an interview. Let's let's consolidate them

and do the three of them is normally done. Usually the public doesn't get a shot at asking questions to the city manager. City manager reports to you. uh you know what the job responsibilities of our position are. So if you ask the public to ask questions, you have no idea where they're coming from or what's going to be asked in this public meeting that you're responsible for what comes out. But doesn't that happen on the dayto day? No,

I mean I'm okay with what council member Ward what he just suggested doing the presentation and then followed up by questions and just I just thought it would be worthwhile to you know just discuss if that's something we wanted to consider to have you know the public ask questions. I mean yes time is a consideration. It would get out of control but just wanted to make sure we just put that out on the table to to discuss.

Well and and Tracy's um talk about we need to make sure we're getting the right person. If we go through this stick and we feel like we need some more, there might be two people that we bring in to do a next round. So I we're not saying if we do this that's it. There's not going to be anything else, but if we need to go further we could do that. And then what would you think an hour? I don't even know that we need to talk about this. 30 minutes for the pres or 15 minutes for the presentation and then an hour. Huh? Or three. You're talking about a PowerPoint. Yes. Three minutes.

I mean, I can make one of those because I'd get somebody else to do it. I'd stand up there and read it for you. I mean, we need to ask these people what our dayto-day like I used to call Todd to ask him about. I want to know that stuff, how they would handle that or whoever city manager, you you've been a city manager, you know what you're asked by a city council. That's what I want to know how they would handle it. So, I mean, if they want to do a PowerPoint, that that's fine, but let's don't get carried away with it. I I would at least do five minute. Yeah. Okay. 10 minutes. Whatever.

And it doesn't have to be a long presentation. You just want to see their speaking skills, how they present their thoughts and their ideas. Well, we saw that last time a little bit. Yeah. So, and on that subject, do we have a do we have a topic maybe that in particular we want addressed which might lead to some follow-up questions? economic community development getting along with the county. I mean, there's several, but I mean, that would be up to us, I think, asking three questions if you would give us three questions, right? And I don't want to give it to him ahead of time, right? But I think what the chief was referring to is the uh for the PowerPoint, the presentation. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Yeah. If if there was one thing in particular we wanted, you know, them to do that presentation on that might lead to some questions that we might have for them. Kind of where I was going with it. make make it as relevant as possible anyway instead five minute time waster sometimes uh you you just ask them to present on Greenville see what kind see kind how much they know about what what their thought I mean let them you don't give them any other lead other than talk to us about Greenville you have five minutes and see I like that idea see where their mind goes I like that

can we just can maybe have we have a motion to our next step is going to be a individual interview with one topic and then questions and then um Pete and Laura and Kathy can kind of help us go through how many questions, how much time and then we'll set a date. Do you want this to be a in the work session like you had the last time? Yes. Okay. I guess it almost have to be, wouldn't it?

Would we want an option if we decided it keeps pushing it down the road? If we want an option to go ahead just like we had today, if we go in a workshop, we can't make any formal decisions. Do we want to limit ourselves? Well, thank you. You could you can make a formal decision at a workshop as long as your agenda has that. Okay. So, yeah. So, we have to have a public Yeah. So, we advertise that as a special called meeting like today, not a work session. You want a special called meeting? Yes. Okay. Thank you. We can do that. Yes.

Do I hear a motion? So, moved. Is there a second or what? Uh Laura, can you read this? Okay. So, the motion is to have a special I'm sorry, I apologize for that. A motion is to have a I'm going to piece this together. A special called meeting where the candidates have an opportunity for a 3 to five minute presentation followed by questions from city council. The three candidates the top the top. Yes. Okay. question. All right. Thank you. Okay. Does everybody have the motion? Second. Motion.

There's a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Those against like sign. Motion carries. Do I hear a motion to adjurnn? So move. Second. Thank you. You didn't even get your mouth open. Quick draw over here. Almost there.