Common Council - Regular Meeting

Wow. We're a little bit on the struggle bus with tech here, folks.

So, if a tech facilitator might potentially come and help Karen, that'd be fantastic. registrance by the way.

Okay, fantastic. All right, today is January 13, 2026, and I will call to order the Madison Common Council Executive Committee meeting. Staff, could you please call the role? Absolutely. President Vidder here. Vice President Goinda Rajin here. Alder Yugare here. Alder Madison here. Alder Matthews here. I'm not saying the thing. President Vidor is here. Vice President Coinder here. Alder Ugare here. Alder Madison here. Alder Matthews here. Alder Linkella here.

Alder Linkella is here. Alder Tishler is excused. Alder Figuro Cole All right, you do have quorum. [clears throat] Thank you. All right, next on the agenda is the approval of the minutes from the 12925 meeting. Move to adopt. Second. Thank you. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, is there any objection to recording a unanimous vote? Seeing none, we will record a unanimous vote to approve the minutes from last December. All right. Uh, do we have any public comment?

We do have a hand. Oh, now it went down. Sorry, there was a brief hand that came up, but it it seemed to resolve itself. Okay, so we do not seem to have any registrance. Correct. That is correct. Okay, great. Fantastic. Uh, we'll move on to disclosures or recusals. Members of the body should make any required disclosures or recusals under the city's ethics code. Are there any disclosures or recusals on today's agenda? Seeing none, we will move on. Uh and we are going to actually take up item three before item two. Uh just because Alder Gavinda Rajin has to leave. So sorry. [laughter] [snorts]

Sorry. Okay. Does that need a motion? Jesus. If so, I motion to move item three up first. It's with if [clears throat] there's no objection from the body. Is there any objection from the body to moving three up? [clears throat] Okay. All right. So, item three is amending section 33.32 of the Madison General ordinances related to the joint campus area committee to modify the composition and duties of JCAC. Uh we don't have any registrance I assume. Correct. Um, so can we get a motion on this first? Motion to approve. Motion to adopt. I'll I'll take

Sorry. Motion to recommend to council.

Okay, then I'll take Alder Yugger as the second. Fantastic. All right. So, uh, do we have questions for staff or do we have We do not have a staff presentation, right? Or you do want No. Okay. Do we have questions for staff? I am seeing no questions for staff. Do we have any discussion on this item? I'm seeing no discussion. So, do we have any objection to recording a unanimous vote? Seeing no objection, then we will record that as a unanimous vote uh to amend section 33.32 of the man to recommend to council to amend to section 33.32 of the Madison general ordinances. All right, then that will take us to item two. So, our guest presenter, thank you. How's that? Okay, that sounds good. Um, nice to see you all here. I think Carmela is on his uh zooming in. So, [snorts] hi Carmela. Um well um I uh just put together a summary report of the time that we spent together in September. Um I sent that over to Karen in December. I don't know if you've had a chance or just to look over it. I just was here to sort of offer um sort of an opportunity for us to go over that together quickly and to see if you had any questions or thoughts uh that we could take away from it. Um so if you'll remember what we did together back in

September is we were sort of exploring the complexity of constituent dynamics um both through this lens of like all the way from like agreement to threats and violence and this whole spectrum in between of conflict and what we mean by conflict and then how we hold that and and honestly normalize especially that middle range, right? that this is really just part of what it means to be in a in a public life together, to be in democracy. We don't always get to choose who we interact with in those spaces. Um, and then we actually spent um a good amount of time on thinking about who like these different models of representative leadership, like what kind of representative do you want to be? And it again was on this spectrum from the terminology was like delegate to trustee where delegate you are there to sort of be the conduit for your district's um viewpoints for your constituents and then trustee is you are elected um to use your judgment to really you know be taking in what your district is telling you and then really to be um invoking your own lived experience and your own judgment and wisdom and knowledge and to be making decisions based on that. And then sort of this whole spectrum of possibility in between of how you hold those things. And sort of the idea there was that if you know if you are showing up with some intentionality about what kind of representative you are, it will actually help get ahead of a lot of the um tension that can exist in those conversations with constituents because you can be clear, you can be proactive, you can articulate your values and then afterwards really sort of be able to reflect on why you voted the way you did. Um and then we um sort of did we did this exercise where you got to share

kind of what you thought were the most important aspects of your role. So we went over all these different possible roles like messenger and translator, equity champion, um public steward, uh bridgeuer, and folks ranked what they thought was important and then where they were comfortable. And so the biggest gaps um between importance and comfort came out in the roles of messenger and translator um public trustee, constituent ser service provider and descriptive and substantive representative. So basically those areas were the areas that um alders felt like were really important but were just not having quite as much confidence around like their learning curve around some of these things. And I imagine some of that has to do with how long you've been on the council uh and how much time you've had to really um just absorb all of the workings of city government and policy. Um, so that was sort of the overview of it and I think fundamentally like our goal was really to like help um provide some intentionality like you guys are thrown into these roles and how do you um just giving you a moment to step back so you can decide how you want to show up and like be um be clear, be proactive so that when the inevitable disagreements arise you know where you stand and it's a lot easier to sort of practice curiosity, to practice leadership, to practice self-regulation in those settings when you feel grounded um in your own uh sort of in your values and in the way that you want to be a leader. So that was sort of the summary of it. Anything any questions? questions,

comments, comments.

I just I'm noting that um I I think future candidates um will find this resource quite interesting um because it has a lot of insight from those of us who have served and um would really be helpful to those who are seeking to serve. Yeah. Any other questions, comments? Okay, seeing none. Thank you so much.

Yeah, I just want to thank you all too. I appreciate your trust and um really just enjoy that container like all the different um aspects of what it means to be in your roles and to like navigate being a private citizen and a public person at the same time. And so I appreciate that. Um, it's uh it I think it it's such an important moment in this country for us to be able to pause and really be able to talk and think about these things because of the way that politics is and is not working [laughter] in the greater context. So, thank you now has

Thank you, President. Uh, I just wanted to thank you as well for a great session. I'm just going to reiterate what President Bidder just said that I think there's a lot of use here for orientation at some point uh of the inevitable new cohorts of alders that we'll be seeing. Um it's it's somebody who you know came in midterm but got to see a lot of things. It was an interesting perspective after this last election and meeting the new Walders and then watching their reactions as some of these inevitable stressors came up. And uh I I think the curriculum you put together uh was very appropriate in dealing with some of those emotions that

I could see and and still have myself at times. But thank you again. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Great. All right. We are going to move on to the next agenda item. So um one of the things that uh I identified as I came in is that our fantastic chief of staff um has not had the opportunity to have any kind of anal annual evaluation. Uh so I worked with uh HR uh the HR director to um develop um an evaluation tool uh that would both that is primarily for the purpose of helping Karen or whomever comes into the role in the eventuality um to have a successful place. It is a weird role just to be clear, right? Uh Karen answers to 20 people. That is not a typical um work environment. And so uh we want to try to set up processes that really protect the chief of staff um and make sure that the person can be successful in the role regardless of who is coming in uh both to council and to leadership. So um what we prevent presented to you today and I just want to be clear uh that this was developed alongside uh HR director as well as Karen. So this was and um the vice president. So it was a collective endeavor. So what we have here is a draft of the performance evaluation for the the common council um chief of staff by the executive committee. Um and so we are looking for feedback. Is there anything

just to let them know that how you want this to play out that you'd like you'd like them to do that yet this term before you're done? Right.

Yes. So, what we're looking for is your feedback on anything that you think should be modified for this so that when then we can actually do this exercise with Karen before the end of this term. So, meaning before April. Um, and then I will use that information to then set up her um, performance plan for the next year, which will then serve as the guide for the next leadership coming in. Um, and then the next year's executive committee will then evaluate uh, chief of staff performance at the end of that period and then again that leadership team will set up her performance evaluation for the for the following year. Does this make sense?

[clears throat] Alder Madison,

thank you. I just I think I just have more like processoriented questions. So, um CC CC would evaluate Karen, but how are we receiving information from the other folks who don't serve on CC? Like, are we going to, you know, have a way for people to submit, I don't know, just a comment or two or send an email to as part of the process just about experience? I I think it's a great question. Um I mean my first response is of course CCeC is available to any and all alders and this is part of legisar so they can engage in any way that they want but we certainly can actually elicit the feedback directly. I think having a way to solicit feedback um I don't think our feedback should be anonymous I guess you know but I mean being able to being able to solicit feedback is important and then also cuz we also are measuring for the comment the office staff relationships or operations. So how is have you all talked about how to solicit feedback from them as well?

We have not talked about that directly but um we can do that. Yeah. So I would so soliciting feedback from both staff and other alders. And then the last one is um I think this I think the protections are there but I'm really so just trying to understand um what are the protections for Karen about her performance and her evaluation outside of CCEC if that makes sense. Is it just a standard HR process? Yeah. So, so like if Karen finds our assessment to be wholly in the wrong direction and she disagrees with it, which you know, I'm just I always try to think of the scenario.

So, how does Karen address I would imagine she can come to CCec or come to you know, president and vice president and have those conversations, but I'm just thinking about who is the who is the other what is the other level of protection, I guess, or support. It's very It's a very complex question, I think, because ultimately the chief of staff serves for the council and so she has a contract. Yep. Um so, and I'm going to ask you to jump in here if you have Yeah. anything that you want to add.

Yeah. I think um the reason we started with the CCE evaluation is because CCec under ordinance is the body that does this work. So that's the reason why we we wanted to make sure that you this body had a tool for doing that work. So we I think I don't know if I cited the ordinance in there or not, but I can get you the ordinance so that you have that to see that is why we're asking CC to to provide feedback because literally it's CCec in the ordinance that is responsible for

giving me that kind of feedback. So that that's why um yeah, that's mostly what I wanted to say because I'm kind I mean I mean yeah this is unique. I mean this is this is based on the library board but that's even different from us because the library board is one body of 12 or 10 or whoever and I'm on library board. Right. Exactly. What I'm saying is it's one body. Yeah. And this is CC is established as the body that is supposed to perform yeah provide me with feedback

to help me improve and etc. Um and um but that's a subset of the larger body which makes it uh even different from the library board. So there is no equivalent. We I this this all us is is the only one of us in the city that is structured exactly this way. So I don't I mean the contract has an appeal. It just depends on what you mean by that. If you you know you all provide me with what I believe will be, you know, helpful, constructive

feedback, right? And then I will figure out what to do with that. And if you guys if you all I mean every 5 years my contract comes up and that's the whole council voting on that. So I mean I guess I feel like you should be able to give me feedback. I should be able to sort of process that feedback. But that in the city that it's not the same as like uh in other places where they actually like conting they make it a contingent. This is just it's really like helpful. Yeah. You know ina you know. So

so the the only thing I Okay. The last thing I guess I would just say is just having some sort of language that would advise whomever is serving as you know on CCE to also seek like HR you know to have a discussion. I'm not saying that HR needs to approve of anything but I think that so on library board we work with HR to develop it all and we know that we can you know circle back to HR and have more discussions about how we might proceed on something. I guess I just want to I just want to be clear that if there is some tension, not saying that that this will ever happen, if there's ever any tension where there's disagreement between Karen and CC or whatever, who is who is in between to help manage it? I know that can get dicey.

I mean, ultimately, yes, we can go to HR for assistance, but there isn't anyone in between. Yeah. Um it it is CCec overseas chief of staff. So I guess maybe what I'm just saying just to have some language that's included that talks about at minimum seeking the advice of the person who leads in HR, you know, as we're working on these processes like seeking their counsel on it is what cuz we're not all HR professionals, right? You know, so great. Thank you. Okay, let's see. Alder Figuro Cole, I saw your hand up. I I just I'm I'm wondering are you are we going to have a presentation of what you guys are proposing?

Uh so or we're just just randomly talking about the what we expected to see. Uh so it's in so the to the evaluation tool is in legisar um associated with this item. Um do you want me to go through it? Is that what you're asking? So, are you going to introduce it or you just asking for questions um about the information already provided? That's what I'm trying to get at. So, right now we're introducing it for your perusal and feedback um and then we will finalize it and then implement it.

Okay. So, can I can we just get get a quick overview of what you guys are trying to accomplish and then um maybe go from there, please?

Sure. So, we're trying to um again set up a process for actually providing an annual level of feedback for the chief of staff position. Um, and so what this is that's in Legistar is you'll see a uh evaluation tool to help you guide you in different aspects of the chief of staff's position and how you believe from your perspective um the chief of staff is meeting or not meeting expectations. And then of course there's an unable to assess. So, for example, if you can't assess um how the uh chief of staff is supervising office staff, for example, if you really are like, I don't know, I don't engage in that at all. I've never heard anything about that. Then you would just say, don't know. Um, and so it is designed to be a way for the leadership, so the president and the vice president to get feedback from the CCEC and then provide a consolidated feedback to the chief of staff about performance and opportunities for improvement. Um, and then use that to develop the next year's planning goals.

Is that helpful? Um, yeah. So I'm I'm wondering like are these so we just going to get this on like a standalone document like this tool for example is there a reason why we are not using the peer review process that the city uses for um evaluations. So it is because it's this weird position. So this this is somewhat based in that process. Um but it's it's more akin to the library director and the office of independent monitor which answer to

question but I I don't know maybe I again I suppose I gather you go guys did talk to staff about this but I have completed multiple evaluations for staff that they had asked me to provide input and the questions don't are not always the same questions. They seem to be different. So, um there's no potential to just um have our own set of questions but use the tool. So, okay. Wait, I think Attorney Hos wants to say something and then I think we have uh Director Hilson is going to join us in a moment. Oh, go ahead.

I was just going to note that if Alder precol if you're referring to the the 360 evaluation tool. Thank you. Mhm. Typically that's not done on an annual basis. It I believe HR is moving to a process where uh they like to have it done at the time that contracts are up for renewal. Um it's not a tool that's used on an annual basis. The the city, you know, contracts with an outside firm to conduct that. And um so you may have been asked to provide input, but it's not like I said, it's not an annual evaluation tool. It's just on periodically

for agency heads. Okay. And um and then for on regards to the in that case for example I don't know if there's any public record that comes out of that. I will imagine that's personal and is protected. So I I wouldn't think that um I'm wondering the feedback that is provided for this particular um under this particular process will that also be protected then or how will that work?

Yeah. So this so the feedback from the CCEC will be delivered to the council president um and the council vice president to be able to um consolidate the feedback and provide it to Karen or whoever is in the chief of staff position. um so that it can be you know an appropriate uh kind of annual evaluation conversation um and again using that to set the goals for the next dental and so it will be it will be like any other HR protected um engagement the the

yeah so the only thing that is public is the fact that this tool is going in the legislative record And you're going to approve the tool and that yeah that's what's going to be in legislative record. Am I missing anything? And Aaron, did you want to add anything?

Hi there. I didn't get exactly what the question was. Um but I did hear Alder Figuroa Cole ask a little bit about um whether why we were not using sort of the executive check-in process that's used for other uh department and division huts. And um

uh one of the chief reasons for that is because that's really set up as a sort of one- on-one process. Whereas um this position, you know, while it um sort of reports directly to a uh uh council president, um it really serves 20 people. And so in order to get really quality feedback needs um needs a more thorough process that gets input from a variety of folks. So we really modeled it after that um evaluation process of the library director and are using the same format for the independent police monitor position.

Okay. Um so then my thank you Erin. Um and then my last question. Oh my last question was um on regards to a um in times where there might be conflict or or further discussion that may be needed um as the body that um I don't know how the library does it but as the body that um takes care of this particular position. I suppose that any of those conflicts can be handled in a close session, right? Like I think I've seen close sessions for personal matters done in other boards.

Oh yes. Yeah. Yeah. So um typically what would happen is that um the form would be filled out but the evaluation itself would be discussed um as a personnel matter. um the evaluation would often be attached um to the discussion item. So um the document itself might be there, but you would typically enter close session to discuss the evaluation and any potential next steps with that evaluation.

Okay. Um yeah, thank you. That those are the questions I have for now. Oh, one more question. So when like um other vid you said that where we eventually will be approving this tool. So are we approving the tool as a as a um as a matter of reference or are we approving this tool as a matter that of um like every single time we want to change a question we have to change the resolution. Yeah. Are we referencing good point? Yeah. It's a really good question and I don't think I know the answer to that right now. I think that probably it has to be this this one because

if I if I could just um I I think what you would want to do is um basically indicate that um the tool may be modified um but that um this is generally the standardized process you'd use. what cadence you would be uh using that evaluation tool. Um and um I would assume that only really significant changes to the tool would need to go through this sort of process before before using it. So we would be able to modify you're sort of approving use of the tool and um uh the cadence you know like are you doing this on an annual basis? Are you doing this every two years on 5year contract basis? Um how often are you doing it? And um I would think you would want to leave it so that modifications to that tool don't really require um you to go through this body um just because you know there there would be small changes you know like a rephrasing of a question here you know

I definitely would wouldn't like to to approve the all the each question because again that that just changes with priorities And um I'm okay with revising, you know, having a methodology to do revisions every year or to whatever or, you know, to just say we're not changing it or we're making this change, but I I wouldn't want to approve the actual um specific questions of it. So yeah. Yeah, that's all I got for now. Thank you. Thank you. That was super helpful. Uh Alder Linkella.

Yeah. Thanks to Alder Finger Cole most of my questions answered. Um still a couple of So this is the tool is going to be kind of like an online tool or is a third party tool? How is that? So we haven't delivered to us.

We haven't decided that yet but I do think um I do think it merits discussion of whether you want it to be anonymous or not. Um if you want it to be anonymous then an online mechanism is really easy to do that. Um if you don't want it to be anonymous then certainly it could be you know done via email. Um again the it it would be submitted to the president and vice president. So it it's not going to be submitted to Karen it's going to be submitted to the president and the vice president. Um but how the mechanism that we do that um I would love to get feedback. So we are we have to decide right now whether it is going to be anonymous or not or

we're having a discussion. Okay. Yeah. It's just and then we're also discussing on the time frame when this going to be uh whether it is annual or annual. My humble opinion is it should be annual. That's annual. If it is annual, is there a timeline like is is like December of every year or

so it's laid out so that the so that it it it hit so that it is completed before the end of the term. So it's completed before April. Um so that the outgoing president is and vice president is set setting the goals for the following year and then whoever takes effect uh the mantle on in April is now then responsible for carrying out the next annual review and setting the next goal setting. So it's always um [clears throat] the outgoing president is doing the goal setting and the next year's president is doing the evaluation and then doing the next that at least that one is now decided that April is the time frame we wanted to has to be completed by

I should say decided this is my suggestion this is what I envisioned um but if you all think it I mean like this is what I do in my job right I get evaluated annually and have a goal setting annually um it seems to work well. Um, it's kind of what I experience in most effective run organizations. So, yeah. Yeah. Um, but if you have other ideas, you know, please. So, that's that's all I have question on when are we doing it, how are we doing it, right? That's was the two needed clarity on

and Aaron, you have your hand up. Did you want to kick in on that?

Yeah. So typically um um typically we would load this up in a survey monkey so that um it could be uh implemented very easy online. Um so we would we would load that up in a survey monkey. We would send out the survey monkey. we would um analyze the results and we would provide the uh president and vice president with a report at the end of that uh evaluation process. And um I I would just um share that typically when we do 360 evaluations, those are fairly um anonymous, but um obviously the annual executive check-in that employees go through with the mayor is is not at all anonymous. Um it's it's direct feedback from the mayor. So um so that would be a choice that you could make but we we do already have a mechanism for doing this. The sort of how isn't um I don't know if you need any more details than that but that that's the how

if you're setting for future precedents right so I think maybe anonymous might be a better option to go with. Yeah, I mean that's my opinion. Yeah, I I think that this is an an existing process and and it would be unwise to not use it. [laughter] That's it. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Uh Alder Gar,

thank you [clears throat] President Pitter. Um well let me start out by saying that uh in this unusual uh 20 to1 situation that uh I I found it helpful when I approach uh uh the chief of staff on a variety of issues rather than thinking about having 120th of her bandwidth I think of her as my boss and that seems to simplify the whole process. I'm how how high should I jump? But uh obviously that doesn't work here. And um uh I I guess uh my attitude about all of this is conditioned somewhat by the fact that back in the day when I was managing several thousand people in 11 different locations and and uh couldn't be changing behavior with a water cooler uh conversation most of the time and telephone often didn't wasn't a good way to use it. that these annual reviews were important. And I will say that I screwed them up pretty badly in several situations, not recognizing the breadth of different different personalities that I was dealing with and their relative sensitivity to criticism and so forth. But, uh, what I do want to say is that I think the, uh, the several categories that are in here, they're as good as anything. Okay? They're I think they would allow a discussion of most of the things that are important. um might make a little bit of mess but there could be a place at the end uh uh to say is there any thing is there any other category that we haven't talked about where you would like to uh make a particular comment about high performance or where you would like a

change in uh the way certain things are handled uh because I looked at these things back then as a after a lot of early missteps as a really way to to change behavior which often is not was not you know you're doing a terrible job. It's out of all of the things you do these are I want to recommend that you change your priorities on some things because you're smart and I know you wouldn't have your job if you weren't smart. Um, but I'd like you to pay more attention to this area in your limited time because we need to make progress there. And that seemed to go over well. And the other thing, and I think I I hear you saying this, President Vidder, is that the president and vice president would be collecting this and presenting it. And what I found was that an opportunity to include in that process a face-to-face process where um the eval evaluators and the evalue uh could ask questions and exchange it and look for more information. Sometimes you didn't have it yet. Go find out more things about that. Uh but out of that process um one of the things that happens is okay uh there's a the sense of mutual respect out of this thing. We're not here to just to beat you over the over the head uh or to uh you know we're looking for a way to open communication. I say change results and if that requires change behavior fine but to change the results for continuous improvement. So [laughter] again, overall I I think the categories in here are as good as anything. You might look at the catch all because over

a series of years, if you kept finding people had to say things in an miscellaneous category, it might be an indication that you wanted to add something or change something in the basic report. I think it's a good start. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Appreciate that. Um, you have your hand up. I have all my hands up. [laughter] You have all your hands up. Go ahead.

Um, okay. So, one thing I want to um add to Alder Yugare and um, Director Hilson had mentioned it as well. We have some processes. One thing that they do have in other processes that I think might address your Alder Ugar's uh, request is a start, stop, continue.

Mhm. And it could be I believe I've seen them where they kind of have it at the end and a folks can do a start stop continue. So it's basically like what would you like the person you're evaluating or you know providing feedback to to start? What would you suggest they stop and what would you like them to continue doing? And that is something the city has been doing in other contexts. So, I guess I'll offer that as a potential way to address your um ide, you know, to help focus folks because that might, you know, I don't know. That's one thought. Uh I do want to say something about this anonymous thing. I feel incredibly strong about this. Um you're going to find that I have sometimes some pretty strong feelings and this is one of them. Um I spent many years teaching at the university level where people could provide not only a number but also feedback always anonymous right. We did receive the individual um documents so that I was able to see oh is this person giving me all ones and what are they saying about it or what you know what is each person's kind of thing. So that's helpful. But one thing that I found to be it doesn't as matter as much in a class that you're going to see you're you're already on you know you you give the in a class you give the uval when you're on the way when they're done so it's not like a repeat it's not a it's not a continuing relationship the same way our relationship is continuing and I have found that people [sighs and gasps] sometimes provide feedback that you want to follow up on because maybe it's unclear. Uh, I'm not sure what to do with it. I'm not sure what you meant. I want to be able to follow up with everybody to make sure I'm getting their needs met and I'm understanding what they want me to understand. And

that's very important to me. And so I am going I the president knows this. I am abs I'm pushing I'm going to just put a pretty strong stand. I do not want I do not want this to be anonymous with you all because I think you can tell me. If you can tell me, you can tell me to my face. And if I I respect each one of you individually and as a group and it's really important to me that I get it right and that I understand what you each want. I also think it helps people focus if they know that I'll that it it's like having a conversation only on paper as opposed to just knowing that you knowing that you know knowing that I won't know who you are but then that it's like but for me I guess it just makes it really challenging because then I can't if I know if I know you you know President Vidver I can go oh hey I noticed that you had suggested or that you were you really wanted X. I need to ask you a little bit more about X because I want to I want to get this. I want to get I want to nail this for you. So, what exactly is like let's talk about X. And it gives an opportunity to really have that conversation. And then I know now I know what exactly what you want and that I I can't do anything with vague. I can't do anything with mysterious. And I also another thing I don't want and this is not a commentary on our current president. It's more thinking about it's more thinking about longevity or sustain whatever you want to say like going 10 years into the the mystery future where we never know who who's who you know we get a new president every year we get a new CC every year we get new alders every two years um I want it to be set up so that there is not I want how do I say it [snorts] because because the president

is a one-year term. I don't want them h how am I going to say this? I don't want them to filter out everything. I want to know what you I don't want there to be too much of a filter. It's one thing when you're in a normal like a normal like I don't know like a work place situation where you have a supervisor who also works there full-time and isn't planning to cycle out every year or whatever. and you're building this relationship with your supervisor and so then your supervisor is providing this information and you're you're that's who you're dealing with. This is not that. So I don't want to I and I also don't think you want the the theoretical future you. I don't think the future you really wants to leave it in the hands of the president to get across what you each individually want to get across. I think you have to be very thoughtful about that because we don't know the dynamics in the future. We have no idea. So, I just want to caution you about that. I think everybody should go on record or not on record, but I think I think we should it's a conversation to have and um I don't want there to be a lot of things in between so that I can't do what I need to do or get clarity where I need to get clarity and I want you each to feel understood as best as I possibly can. That's a I know that's a a speech, but thank you.

Thank you, Karen. And I think uh you and I and Aaron maybe should sit down and talk through that a bit more. Um but I also do just want to encourage all of my colleagues to take any concerns to Karen at any time. Um she is here to serve us. Uh and if there is anything that you have concerns about in terms of how she is operating or her staff are operating, um she needs to know that. Um and this does need to be a trusting relationship. And so, um, if there are issues that come up, um, I do ask that folks address them in the moment as best they can. Uh, Alder Figurero, please.

Thank you. And I do have to get going here in a few minutes, but um I understand what that's those statements are coming from. But um perhaps I do um coming from a point of from a place of privilege where I do have um where I do feel confident enough to go to Karen at any time and address the issues however at the moment or however um as they come up. Um and it takes time especially on these environment [clears throat] of that is pretty fast moving that um there's so much thrown at others especially the new ones. So it takes time for people to build these relationships. Uh most of you know I mean like Karen knows that for me for example I didn't even know there was a a council office until my second year. So I didn't I didn't reach out to staff for a whole year when I first started. Um so they ask for um I I will suggest that they ask of providing clear um feedback be put on the person that provides that feedback. So if that feedback is not clearly stated, it's really not a burden from HR or Karen or the president to carry in my opinion. So I um I had done many many surveys in my lifetime and I I there always been anonymous surveys and I had no problem signing my name on them most of them because I'm I I don't care you know if I have to say something I'm just going to say it. This this process to me is not just for to collect like negative feedback. He also is very helpful to collect feedback, positive feedback of the things that have been done very well

and that we want to continue to happen. So I am not opposed to h the option for the user to provide their name or not provide their name. I think it I I prefer that it's anonymous and if the person wants to say hey this is what I'm seeing and if you want more clarification this is Janet let you know. I mean, obviously, I'm not going to be doing that and this at this moment because I can I do that already without these um without this process in place, but it might be a little bit difficult for other people to it's I think it's a a big ask to ask new people that haven't had the chance to build relationships to put their put themselves out there um filling the survey. And also, most of us are come from the professional environment. So most likely they're used to have the anonymous feedback to be presented. So I understand the wanting to serve us 100% plus. But at the end of the day, it's really not up to you guys to interpret what we're saying. If we want have something to say, we can have the following conversations and and we can just get better about expressing what we need to express. I mean if someone is something is unclear and you guys can decipher that. I I have no problem moving on with what you know you know you can make a blanket statement in in the CCC meeting. I got this I got a comment if you I don't understand it please reach out to me directly and we can talk about it or whatever. But um but I think there is value on having this be anonymous and which allows for people to um to provide their name if they want to um for further clarification.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Alder Focal. Appreciate it. Uh I'm not seeing any other hands. Any other comments, ideas, discussion? Okay. So then I believe at our then at our next meeting we will come back with finalized tool and process. Yeah. Um and we will vote on that and then it'll be implemented. That'll be the plan. All right. Uh, I think we can move on to council office updates.

I just have to unfortunately because I had a family emergency, I wasn't able to dedicate time to writing out the updates. I apologize. No worries. Okay. Thank you. So, we so we have no current [clears throat] updates, but they will but they will come. Yes, of course. [laughter]

Um, all right. Future agenda items. Uh, so there are three items um that are on the future agenda item requests. Uh, I'm going to go out on a limb and say I think it's possible we might be able to get to at least one or two of them um before the end of my term. Um, do we want to prioritize them? Do we do is that up to me? Uh [laughter] um is that are there other additional items to add to the list? Let me start there with are there additional items to add to the list first? Alder, wait a minute.

Um, almost all alders at some point in time are going to be dealing with the process for a new development in their district. And if you haven't done that before, uh the complexity of the process, how a development works through the system uh can be somewhat intimidating and there are a lot of options. You know, is it going to have affordable housing? Is it a housing project or is it some other kind of project? Uh is it going to take a conditional use permit? Is there going to be a demolition permit? And so it might be helpful um to have something more than could be covered in the initial older new alder orientation to really go through that process.

Love it. So new development process. Thank you. Mhm. Great idea.

Other suggestions for future agenda items? Okay. Uh, so does anybody want to spend time prioritizing these or do you feel like you're okay with leaving that up to leadership? I'm giving you an eitheror. Okay. Leadership will decide. Um, but I kind of almost feel like what Alder Yugare offered is really good, especially perhaps at the beginning of the terms. So, I'm wondering if that's something that we want to put in place like for

Yeah. for April or May. So, like an overview. Yeah. Of what to kind of a Okay. Like what to expect in a development if if there's a new development in your district. and then obviously that'd be recorded and then can be a resource for folks. I really like that idea. Um it also could be a council discussion item, but yeah, I don't know. We'll have to I think we need to do it. It's a question of what is the vehicle to do it, but it's a really good idea. Okay. All right. I I will entertain a motion to adjurnn. Is

there a second? All right. Is there any objection to adjournment? Seeing none, we stand adjourned. Thank you.