Redevelopment Authority - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. This is the regularly scheduled meeting of the housing authority of the city of Milwaukee scheduled to take place at 4PM on Wednesday, 01/26/2026. I'm sorry, 01/21/2026. Can we get a roll call, please, Patty? Commissioner Nelson?

Present.

Commissioner Burrell? Present. Chair Hazlett. Present. Vice Chair Gottsler. Present. Commissioner Snyder. Present. Commissioner Pes Klassen.

Present.

All right. So can you read the next item? Yeah,

the next item is the consent agenda. Would someone like to move and second approval on the consent agenda?

So move. Second. Second. Can we get a roll call please? Did you get this? Yeah.

Commissioner Nelson. This is the consent including the minutes. Thank you. Aye. Commissioner Burrell? Aye. Chair Hazlett? Aye. Vice Chair Gottsler? Aye. Commissioner Snyder? Aye. Commissioner Epez Klassen?

Aye.

Under B, reports and discussion items. Item number one is a presentation of an organizational structure review from MRA, the Management Association. Item part of item Part of item government 5A of the Hoyakum Sustainability Plan, Ken Barbeau and Todd Slussar will speak on this item. Thank

you, commissioners. Todd, do you want to just introduce yourself?

Todd Slussar, Senior HR Business Partner.

Ken Barbeau, acting secretary, executive director. I'll take kind of start it out. Todd, please correct me if I make any errors or leave something sustainability plan that we have with HUD included a corrective action that HACM or a third party contractor would review and analyze the organizational structure of HACM and its instrumentalities to make sure and identify whether there are overlapping missing or unclear lines of authority. We contracted with MRA in April 2025 and to perform a review of organizational structure in accordance with what the sustainability plan was requesting. Today, we're sharing the initial finding the findings from MRA.

They were the contractor that we contracted with and their their initial recommendations. Now these are things for us to consider. They're not written in stone. They are just some recommendations for us to consider. We are presenting them today or kind of over reviewing them very generally.

Generally. If possible, if the commissioners can take the next couple weeks looking at them and coming back with some feedback, either individually you can email Todd or myself or both. And what we want to do is incorporate that feedback into an implementation plan that we're going to be developing that will go eventually back to HUD. And we'll probably pass it by the commissioners as well to make sure that it looks okay for you by you. So I did

too. I just want

to summarize the main points that's in the review. I'm not going to go through the organizational structure review There in are two parts, there's a short report that kind of looks like that in the organizational structure review, and then there is a bunch of org charts that are various possibilities or thoughts that they had. Again, these are things that they looked at and considered. The major points included, one of the major ones was about our relationship with our instrumentalities, primarily Travaux, because that has the majority of employees. So the relationship between the housing authority and Travaux is very complicated, and that has led to blurred lines of authority in some cases and blurred areas of responsibility.

And so we have it mean, Travaux was set up as an instrumentality to earn, for example, developers fees. I mean, it's over property development and property management. So it was set up in in part to earn developers fees, but really one of the other main reasons it was set up for was budgetary reasons to try and reduce costs on employee benefit costs. Mhmm. And so that was back in 2017 or whenever, you know, Travaux was was initially formed.

So what has ended up happening is we've hired people there are people that are employees of Hackham and people that are employees of Travaux, and sometimes they're doing the exact same thing with an same title or a different title. And so it's very confusing because you have people doing similar work, maybe with slightly different titles, slightly different salary constraints, those kinds of things. And so that has led to confusion under the two different organizations. Team members, when they were talking to MRA, while they were doing this review, they also said, you know, they would like consistent standard operating procedures across all organizations. Now that may or may not be possible because sometimes if somebody's working for a property that's an LLC, there may be different things than working for a property that is public housing or market rate.

However, to the extent that we can, we should have consistent standard operating procedures where we can. So one of the recommendations that Treveau had is something that MRA had is something that we have talked about a little bit over the last year, which is possibly moving we have currently how many staff do we have in Travol versus how many staff in HACC?

I think we're approximately we're around 55 HACC and I think close to one and seventy Travol.

Okay. Okay. You.

One seventy, you said?

Around that.

Yeah. Thank you.

And so one of the things we've discussed is putting all the employees in one organization rather than mix. I mean, I can tell you it is very complicated running the payroll for the two organizations and making sure that all the expenses get in the right place. It's just very it is more time consuming doing it with two different payroll, you know, two organizations. It's one payroll, but two organizations as opposed to one. So we've talked about and this one of their recommendations is to potentially assign all staff to one organization or entity rather than dividing them.

But what they point out in here is that is a complicated procedure as well. You have to be able to anticipate what all the issues are. And so we would need to make sure that we are really identifying all the tasks and decisions that are required to do that, whether it's about job title, salary structures, benefit structures, because that's another issue, and making sure that we have done everything we need to do before we flip that switch, and making sure that we're communicating this across to all employees, that there's good communication and that we're doing some of change management. I mean, really this would be a big change for the organization over the, since the last six years, I would say.

How many people are well, let me ask this question first. The HR department for housing authority also services Trabeau, correct? Correct.

The HR covering covers both.

And how many employees do you have in the department?

Two.

Currently. Currently.

Okay.

Right. Yeah. I believe, I think, I mean, and you can read the report itself, I believe. And we'll walk through a few things. So but HR is one of them, where I believe they they're suggesting at least three employees in the department.

There's a couple other things they're suggesting. One is to revamp the executive structure. Currently, there is a chief operations officer, we had called it chief operations officer for real estate, that was Dina Hunt, manages various housing programs as well as maintenance and oversees the contract for the voucher program. My previous role was also chief operations officer for program services. And at that time at that time before it was switched over to Ms.

Hunt, I had the voucher program plus resident services and public safety. What one of the recommendations is is for there to be a chief operations officer and for resident services and public safety to be underneath that in some fashion. Okay. And eliminate the chief operating officer for program services, because it would only be resident services and public safety now. So once I retire after a transition. Whenever that should be. Whenever that should be.

Ken, could you say that again? So the COO would be supervising which programs?

It would be, well, currently the COO position was doing property management as well as and that includes leasing and compliance as well as the maintenance division and overseeing the contract for the voucher program. What we're talking about is now whether it's this person specifically or a combination of this plus somebody else underneath them, they would be over also resident services and public safety. We would add those.

So the COO would be responsible for resident services, the voucher program, HCV, public safety, and

Maintenance operations.

Property management?

That is what MRA is suggesting. That is not necessarily that's why we're looking for for feedback. That is not necessarily what is best for HACM. We have to decide that. So that was their recommendation. I mean, they were treating it like a general a regular seat chief operating officer role in a company. Okay. So

Wow. But they also recommended the restoration of the deputy executive director?

They recommended a deputy director. Think we have I think that would have to be transitioned probably once there is an executive director Mhmm. As well as dependent upon resources and finances. Okay. I think that would be phased in.

I think a chief operating officer is probably more urgent at this point. And I would want that the deputy to be hired probably, you know, whenever there is a new ED Mhmm. Identified. At least that's my thoughts. Human resources, they had recommended that human resources should report to the executive director.

They had recommended a number changes in housing operations especially in titles like director at the director and property management levels for consistency and for workload equity. I believe and Todd correct me if I'm wrong, I believe we've started making some of those changes, but I think we have to, like, just review all property management and and make sure that that it makes sense. Plus, if we are moving everybody to one organization or the other, just making sure everything is kind of on the same, you know, standard. Alright. Leasing and compliance, same recommendation, basically.

Some chain they were recommending changes in titles for consistency and equity, workload equity.

And those would fall under the COO? We see some clients or they would stay with the housing directors?

No. Those would fall under the the COO generally. Okay. Yep. And then there may be somebody, for example, there may be other positions added.

One of the items that they didn't mention in the review was the lack of knowledge on things related to the LITEQ compliance in terms of that's one of the more while we have knowledge of that, director of property management over that, Anicia Robertson, has limited she has a lot of other duties and so having somebody specifically focused on some of the light tech compliance issues is something that they threw in as a recommendation as well.

Okay. Thank you.

Under maintenance, if you look early in the year, we've had generally at HACM an organizational division between maintenance staff that are centralized maintenance and maintenance staff that are on-site maintenance that report to property management. And that has, you know, has some advantages and some disadvantages, but that has been what we have been doing. They were recommending some type of reporting structure that brought in the maintenance director as well, because one of the things we found out is that not all property managers have maintenance experience to be able to supervise that or evaluate it properly. So making sure that there's a consistent consistency in how people are evaluated implemented. One of the items that the chief operating officer before she left that she began was transferring that site maintenance staff to centralized maintenance to be assigned work orders.

Now there are risks in that as well. In HACM's asset management structure not HACAM's, in in HUD's asset management structure and in the regulations, centralized maintenance basically becomes a central central office cost, center cost, and which is then charged out based on the work that is performed. And so it is charged to developments based on work orders. And so you have to make sure that you are accounting for work orders very well to be doing that because the concern is if they are not charged out well, central office cost center could end up with a higher proportion of costs, then, you know, you want to make sure that a good percentage of your labor costs are charged out based on what people are working on. So that is something that I know it just began.

I believe, miss Hunt I I believe we transfer that over in October 2025. So we're gonna really work with accounting and central maintenance to make sure that that on a monthly basis that that is being done appropriately and that there is a consistent level of billing.

Okay. Madam Chair? Commissioner Moore. Thank you so much. Please let the record reflect that I am present. For give my tardiness. Ken, one of the questions that I have in regards to central maintenance, the infrastructure. What is the infrastructure or technology that is being used to ensure that the request that comes in, they're documented and the process for, you know, the time that it takes for the person to leave the the station and get to this you know what I mean? That sort of thing. And that it's it's done because we've heard some stories that, you know, maintenance parked outside for an hour or two and clocked hours because they were trying to increase that time.

Right? So what is the infrastructure that is put in place to ensure that we're not spending unreasonable cost in regards Sure. To

By better use of I mean, the tool that we have is Yardi. Yardi is our our housing software. Yardi has a package on work work orders. What they are doing is if we can use Yardi better so that we are looking at efficiency, that we are viewing for this type of a work order, it should be so long. And if somebody is only getting two work orders done a day when they really should be getting five to 10 work orders done a day, that is something that needs to be evaluated.

Right now, I think it is done, but in but more infrequently I think we need to use data better and and reports and data can be our tool here. What they're gonna do is what the approach and correct me if I'm wrong, because you've had discussions with both Dina and with Mike, and so have I, but we're doing a zone approach where staff are not assigned to a building, they're assigned to a zone. And then they're dispatched to address work orders and custodial needs as needed. On custodial, there's actually a team that goes around and does each building on regular basis. That allows us to cover all the developments with limited staff, but it also makes sure that we can try and better manage those staff in terms of are they being productive?

Are they getting done what needs to be done? Is there a training issue? Is there just a productivity issue? So those are things that hopefully by a consistent manager over the entire program that could assist us. Then the turn team, which turns units and the carpentry carpentry team and the painting team, those are also handled similarly in a zoned approach.

And then so everybody reports up to the maintenance director who's Mike Wellman, which would provide a clear chain of command. We're also instead of right now, we have been using our existing staff to cover the late shift, basically to cover after hours things, and so they're on call, and on an on call basis. And that has been creating some morale issues and some and some issues in terms of response. And so what we're looking at doing is, at least at at a partial, bringing on some staff that are just for that shift. Is that

Well, actually, we've implemented that. Okay. We had we were able to identify two top guys that actually were more better second, third shift kind of gentlemen to do the work, and it's relieved the rest of the staff so much. On a good day, they're going to be doing a hunt call once every six months now. It's reduced Mike Wellman's calls down to almost none in so the middle of the that's had a really big impact with us doing that. And they're developmental wide.

So

So, Todd, how how how it being monitored? I understand that there's a reduction, which is great, and some relief of, pressures. How how is it being actually captured as far as the data or

In the past, the work orders were coming and going, there was no real accountability on either side. Now with the maintenance staff not reporting to the managers, the managers are more focused also on what the maintenance gentlemen are doing because they know they're gonna get charged back for it. So the the work order is going out, the employee is being dispatched, the manager still has to sign off, yes, he was here and did this, and then it's coming back to maintenance to get charged back. Okay. So there's, like, a a little extra step of everybody watching where that maintenance person is right now.

Okay. So I'm Thank you.

Mhmm. Ken Yeah. May I say something?

Commissioner Nelson.

Oh, okay. Thank you very much. Mhmm. As you know, I'm a commissioner, but I'm also a resident of Arlington Court. And I would say probably the last nine months or a year, it's become appalling to me as a resident on the lack of cleanliness to what I call the common areas.

So floors Mhmm. Being swept, debris, trash, that's thrown on the ground. We can go into why is it there and who's responsible. But it hasn't it's not being picked up on what I call a routine basis. Not not sweeping once a month or whatever. That's what it appears to me. Mhmm. Some things should be done daily. Mhmm. Sweeping and mopping is not being done.

You said, well, mister Nelson, how do you know? Because I live there, and I patrol the area because the residents expect me to come up with answers to why things are like they are. And I could talk about the lack of the repair and replacement of the washers in our building too. You know, we have to set certain standards, keep our promises to the residents, and we just aren't doing it. And I know there could be a lot of different reasons, but I noticed also, I forgot the name, but we were hiring or there was some kind of trade between our organization and the residents to clean up on a daily basis.

And let me just finish. And that was going well because they took pride in their work. Mhmm. Their residents, so so they don't have to get to work. All they have to do is open their door and come out of their apartment, and they had work. And they took a a pride and a joy in doing that. They're gone now. I know there's a lot of issues, but we have to maintain certain dignity, respect for the residents. You ask them to pay their rent and follow their rules, and they do it, but they're coming up short with the quality of services, and I'm one of those people.

Yeah.

So it's personal for me too. Mhmm. And I can't just sit here and let that go on and on. Yeah. Being told we'll take care of it or we got issues. Everybody has issues. Mhmm. Yeah. But we also have agreements. And the bottom line is respect and maintaining a certain quality of life.

A lot of the people have complained to the press, you know, whatever, you know, all the things we went through. And so we promise to rectify that within our ability to do so. But it's fluctuating up and down. We do good for a while. And I'm like, how can we do good for a while and then not do so good? What is the reason? Is anyone examining why we aren't consistent in good services?

Thank you, commissioner. What you're saying matches what I know, which is that we are inconsistent. I have been for the last year in our services. We're trying to get there. We for example, I sat in two weeks ago in a meeting with residents and maintenance came up during that meeting.

I won't talk about specific buildings because there were people from multiple buildings in that meeting, but in one of the buildings and I had Mike Wellman who's the maintenance director there with me to hear what the residents had to say. And one of the issues, I think, is the fact that in the past we've had various managers over the maintenance in the buildings, various people reviewing it. We've only recently gone to this centralized approach. Hearing some of the issues, for example, regarding the specific buildings maintenance, we were able to identify that there were issues with that staff person that we are following up on. But in general, what I would say is by making sure that we are treating the staff more consistently and making sure that they are accountable for what they need to get done.

We should and disciplining them when or doing performance evaluations when needed. We will make improvements in that because we need to make sure you know, there's a couple things that are high priorities for us. Obviously, the basic cleanliness of a building is something that we want to make sure because impacts a, the resident's quality of life, and b, how will we get somebody to move in if when they enter the building it doesn't even look clean? So that is something, and you will see buildings that are very clean as well. So that's why I say we're inconsistent.

In addition, we need to make sure that the emergency work orders are done timely. Regular work orders were given a period of time to get those done by HUD. That is a different item. But emergency work orders should be done within twenty four hours or abated within twenty four hours. So those are two things that we need to happen.

Madam Clair?

Yes. Commissioner Nelson.

So I don't really see or recall any major issues with work orders. What I'm talking about is common every day. Just like you would at your house, you have a routine Mhmm. That you do over and over. It never ends.

It's perpetual. And the ambassador program, which involved residents who live I'm just speaking at at Arlington Court. They did a good job. And matter of fact, they went beyond what they were asked to do because they lived there and they took pride in it. It's so embarrassing also when you have visitors come over and the place is trashy. Mhmm. And you're looking. You said, oh my god. Mhmm. My favorite auntie or your children come over and they said, dad, you living like this?

And they would ask they would ask, do you want me to help clean up? I said, oh, man. This is really embarrassing. Are we asking too much to reimplement because it looks like it's ended. I call it ambassador's program. Yeah. You had two people, just two in my building, and no one complained. They were always at work. And they said, James, I was seeing cleaning. And they said, I'm really not assigned to do this, but what the hell? You know, I'm out here cleaning up. I see there's a need for it. So Yeah. Need for this to be done. So I do it anyway.

That was a great program, not only for what it was designed to do, but for the morale, you know, of other people who live there too.

Yeah. I don't believe and and commissioner Borrell, did you wanna say anything?

Yeah. Madam commissioner Borrell.

I do agree with mister Nelson, but the program is not ended. Yeah. Because I have, like, a couple residents. They go overboard with ambassador cleaning, and I have to tell them they even do do it so good. They even be there on weekends or what have So in

your Okay.

So I'm

here. Once

again, let me be clear. Mhmm. I don't know what's going on

Mhmm.

With all the buildings. I'm specifically speaking about Arlington Court. Right. You know, 1633 North Arlington. Yeah. Happened to our people?

That I don't yeah. That I don't know it.

Who who answers for that? Who who should I talk to Well get an answer?

Be before you answer.

Charge of that?

I I just ask for respect to let everyone finish their thoughts before we jump in and respond or to ask the question. So I believe commissioner Barrel needed to complete.

Well, I apologize. Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That's thank you.

The only reason I said something.

I'm gonna ask maybe the two that was in your building, maybe they moved out or decided wanted to quit or what have you. They're still there. So maybe they need to talk reach out to the managers or either someone higher because this the program still going on. I know within Westlawn and other buildings, are. So I don't know what happened to the ones in your building, but maybe they need to reach out and see what's going on.

Okay. I apologize if if I interrupted.

Oh, that's okay.

But you were beginning to talk about your bill, and I said, well, I'm trying to address my bill.

I just wanted you to know that it was still going on. The program is

still going on. Okay. Madam chair But I still don't have an answer, though. Oh. After everything is said

Right.

Answer?

Well, and I I don't have an answer for you this minute. What I will do is go back to the property manager to find out what did happen at your building. In general, sometimes we have shifts so that maybe they're in the process of shifting it to new people, I don't know. But I'll find out why it was discontinued and we'll get back to you by tomorrow.

Chair. And

I'd just like to add, Ken, if we can, just for the sake of consistency, if they could share what the criteria is for the ambassadors program, how are these, or how are residents selected to participate, we would like to know that. So if you can share that with the commissioners, that would be helpful.

We will. We do know the ambassador program has come up a couple times and what we want to make sure is that there's a consistency in how those ambassadors are selected. Because I know we have had complaints on that issue as well.

Madam Chair? Commissioner Moore. And really quick in reference to that request, is there a do they get paid a stipend?

They do get paid a stipend.

Okay. Monthly? Is it

a It is

a monthly stipend up to $200 a month, I believe. Yes.

Awesome. And really quick, in addition to that data request, if we can find out which developments have a consistent ambassador program. I think that'll help us understand where those gaps are.

Commissioner Bahrain.

Yeah. It's a stipend. They get deducted from their rent up to 200. If you paying $50 for rent and you an ambassador, that's how much you're gonna get deducted. It's not just 200, 200. It depends on how much you're paying for rent. When it first came out, I don't know if it's changed since then, but that's how it was when I first I mean, when it first came out. And then the residents some of the residents who wanted to sign up for it, they signed up for it, and they had to meet the criteria in order to be an ambassador.

And how many do you have, Jackie?

I have like one,

two, three.

Probably four out there. Three or four. Yeah. Because there's like different buildings. And like I

case.

That's case. I

discussions on reviewing the rules over the ambassador program and how they get named and things to make it more fair and consistent because some residents, for example, brought up, well, they were supposed to be transitioned every couple months to new people. There are pros and cons to that, so they're complaining because it had maybe somebody's been doing it for the last year or so or more, and maybe they think it should go to a different resident. Their pros are, well, if the person is doing a good job, why switch it? And you have to retrain somebody. The pro to the other side is, well, you're spreading the wealth, so to speak.

But you want to make sure that whoever we're picking is doing a good job.

Madam Chair?

Speaker Yes. Speaker Vice Chair Gottsler.

Two: Ken, are there additional recommendations that you wanted to bring up?

No, that was pretty much my last recommendation. All

So I'm curious to understand the model that they're recommending is not one that I have ever seen in a PHA, so I am wondering, do they do any research with across PHAs to see how they're structured or what their reporting of reporting are?

If they did, my guess is it was probably fairly basic. I don't believe they sent us anything regarding other PHAs as opposed to general organizational models.

Yeah. So I think, as you know, this is something that I have been talking about since last summer. Not last this summer, the last summer before I even came on to the commission, and so I'm very concerned about how we're structured, and I don't know that we have to make that move to have all of the staff be under one entity, because there are many other reporting models that can allow people to be paid by a different entity but still report up to the, as I call it, the mothership, which is the housing authority. So I'm really interested in looking at that model, and I'm also interested to see the position descriptions because what what a person what property manager does in one PHA is not necessarily the same as what a property manager does in another PHA. So the idea that a property manager would supervise a maintenance tech makes no sense to me because property managers generally do not know maintenance.

So, you know, and and of course, if we had the right pushing costs out to the LLC. So that's very high on my list of fixing that because where we're running into problems, obviously, is with the COCC, which well well, anyway, I don't have to go into a lot of detail here. But so I I want to I want to work on this. I'm very concerned about a lot of the recommendations that they've they've made, and I also don't think that the way we're structured right now is doing us any favors. So it would be really helpful to me if I could see position descriptions because that might be some of what needs to be changed just in order for us to understand, for instance, how many people are we would be talking about and what the responsibilities are that a particular person would do.

So I know that's a lot to ask, and I know we're talking about literally probably hundreds of pieces of paper. But if somebody had two people have the same basic job, I don't need

to Correct.

Get everybody. You know? You don't have to send me 250 position descriptions, but I I just wanna get enough of a sense of what the the core how the core structure is currently set up so that I can provide some reasonable information. And then my other question, Ken, I guess, was are you hoping to make these structural changes prior to a new CEO coming on, or are you just preparing options for that person to be able to implement them?

We are preparing options. In addition, we do have one deadline with HUD, which is an implementation plan with deadlines. However, those deadlines can be after we can create this plan to incorporate the fact that there's going to be a new executive director. And the organizational review report by MRA even said that a number of these things may be done you may want to wait until there's a new executive director to weigh in. Now some things obviously we're working on.

If there's something that's an immediate issue, I'm not going to ignore an immediate issue, but other things can wait. For example, we haven't done this TravauxHackam review in terms of where should employees be, how should this be structured. We've started to do look at parts of that, but we have to finalize that probably by the 2026. Because if you're going to do that, it would be probably easier to do it at a time of an enrollment period for benefits type of thing, but

Well, PHAs that have, and I don't know exactly what the percentage is, I'm going to guess it's like 60 to 65% PHAs that have that do have done RAD do have two entities that are paying payroll. Yeah. We don't have to do it that way, but if it's to our benefit, it's probably worth it, but that doesn't mean that the reporting structures should be any different.

But, yeah, the one thing that is more complicated in our case is because we did part of this as a cost reduction reduction process.

Well, we can still keep that in place.

Right, right. But because we did it that way, we have public housing, people working on a public housing development that are Travaux employees. I mean, they're not all, it's not like Travaux employees work on LLCs. Travaux employees work in maintenance which also is now a COCC issue. Travaux employees can work in a HACC public housing development or in North Lawn or South Lawn or Berryland. So it is that is what creates the complications.

Commissioner Snyder.

Thank you. I could be completely wrong about this and I'm willing to be told by anybody that I am and I won't be offended. But I don't think that org charts are typically the purview of a board of directors. I think that an org chart is something that I mean we're so in the weeds here with this and I don't know, I'm sure that some of us, I'd say Karen, there's no question that you're skilled enough to be able to be in the weeds and to figure out how to get out of them. I am not.

We've spent an hour now talking about basically an org chart because what will happen is it'll get into this is not a sidelight for two commissioners who live in public housing down at the end of the table. But could get it we can get into a lot of that and not get to the central issue of how do we deal with the four or five people who or the four or five ways that we can be managing this organization and the board I don't think is really capable of doing that. What I would suggest, you said we should take a couple of weeks, we should read this and come back and I think that that's something that we could do but we should, this a committee job. This is a job for a committee and we typically don't have committees wait till we have a finance committee. That's going to start to get interesting because people will say well you know I didn't go to the committee.

A lot of things are going to happen and we're going to have to have rules about that. But I think that this is a committee job. And what I would suggest would be to take the vice chair and the staff that you decide are part of this to sit down over a period of say maybe the next till the next meeting and hash this thing out and give us your recommendation. I think that leaving this to a new director doesn't make any sense to me at all. New director is gonna be over his or her head on day one and not have to be recommendations of how to deal with this.

I mean if you're up from out of town in particular learning Milwaukee is hard enough. And not to mention all the problems that we've had. I wouldn't want to be that person on day one. Much less be told, well, we're gonna you gonna recommend how to set all this up. No.

I think you do, you do out there and maybe Karen representing the board and the board's interest and understanding that she can talk to us. That would be the committee that I would recommend do this and then come back to us with a recommendation. You know this stuff inside and out. I can't speak for everybody but I don't. And I don't feel real comfortable even spending a lot more time about what your CFO does, what your CEO does.

Well, I think the CEO and then you have a finance director and an operations director. Those are the three people. Those are the two people who report to you and and you all report to us. And you figure out who's supposed to do what and I'll listen because I don't have the experience and you do. Yeah. Thank you commissioner.

Madam chair.

I don't know why you're thanking me.

For your I'm thanking you because you gave you gave some good feedback there. Yeah.

Vice chair got some.

Yeah. I I think one of important factors that is complicating the conversation here is the legal structures that we have in place. And I had no idea that the public housing property managers were under the Travaux umbrella. So that certainly changes the complexion, and it may it may mean for us at some point bringing in attorneys, like like Michael Best, is, I guess, what I'm thinking is Tom Gardner, to who was part of I believe, as I understand it, was part of actually creating these other entities as well. Because for a while, maybe we don't anymore, but I my understanding was at some point, we were paying some crucible people as well.

Right.

We were, but they were only I I don't wanna get into the weeds. Right. We were there there are currently no crucible employees

at the moment. But they were at one point.

Doctor. Yes.

Doctor. Yes. Okay.

Doctor. Thank you all for the lively discussion around this. It's certainly more complex than what meets the eye. This is a very complex process. So Todd, thank you so much for the oversight with MRA on this. And whatever support we can lend to you, certainly let us know. But this is a great step in the right direction for us to be able to review and come back with further suggestions. Okay? All right. Can we read the next?

The next item for today's meeting is a general public listening session. This listening session is agenda item number B2, part of the 4PM Wednesday, 01/21/2026 meeting of the Hacken Board of Commissioners at City Hall Room 301 B. The purpose of the session is give interested persons a reasonable opportunity to present their views to Hakim's Board of Commissioners. Each speaker will have two minutes to speak. This listening session does not have a specific topic.

Persons who wish to speak if they have not already done so should sign up at the sign in sheet on the side table on your right. For those who have prepared written comments, those comments will be shared with the board. Has anyone signed up? Is there anyone who wishes to provide comments today? The public also had the opportunity to provide written comments.

None were received before today. Seeing no one rising to speak, this concludes the public listening session which is part of the 4PM Wednesday, 01/21/2026 meeting of the HACC and Board of Commissioners. Item number three is a discussion regarding the creation of a finance committee by the Board of Commissioners of the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee, including how the Board may model its duties, members structure and processes. Greg Cruz will speak on this item.

Madam Chair.

Commissioner. Before we get into that. Snyder.

I think we got out of the weed so fast. I don't know whether there was a recommendation, a motion or what's the next step for dealing with the last item?

This is a that was a presentation. So the next step would be that HACM will work, I mean we will work with partners including the Vice Chair and others on an implementation plan but that does not need a resolution.

Okay, thank you Madam Chair.

Yes. Thank you, Commissioner Snyder. Hello, Attorney Attorney Cruz

with the City Attorney's Office. We had put you'll recall last board meeting we had a discussion about some of the parameters about establishing a finance committee. Since then, I just wanted to give the board a brief update. Vice chair Gottsler and commissioner Snyder were nice enough to work with me to start working through a draft resolution to actually have something for the board to vote on. Our goal was to have it here for you all today, but we're very close, not quite there.

So I would expect that we will have something for you that's firmed up next meeting. That said, I wanted to leave this on both to make sure that, you know, it stays top of mind for all of us and also to give Commissioner Schneider and Vice Chair Gottsler an opportunity to talk about anything that they wanted to with regard to it. I'm not sure if their hope is to discuss it more robustly today or just wait until we have the final resolution and then go through all the points at that time. So I just wanted to give them the option.

Madam Chair, I have nothing else to add right now.

Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Snyder.

I'm not sure that I do either. I just want you all to know that I was the failure and we got this close and then I forgot to read what was below the, I didn't see what was below the city attorney's recommendation which was dense and interesting and I think that there was argument, he was the one who was making an argument, a good argument I But the reason that we don't have a motion is because of me and I'm

willing to live out for the don't even think that's fair. Entirely true. I think everybody could have worked a little more expeditiously but we're trying to get it right, not fast. So here we are. And the he that he was referencing is Pete Block, our records and meetings expert, and we just wanted to make sure we got his full input too, so we were waiting on that. We have now gotten that input, and so the three of us are going to get back to the drawing board and figure out the last couple of things that are outstanding, and we should have something for you. So don't blame Commissioner Snyder entirely, We

do not blame Commissioner Snyder. And I just thank you all for your work on this, because I believe that we are strongly moving in the right direction. We have to give ourselves a little grace around each of these phases of the process, but consistency is key. So thank you all so much for spending special time on this. But certainly keep in mind, we need a CFO as well as we are crafting this out. It will be important to have, you know, an internal staffer

Correct.

That can be a part of this committee as well.

I'd also be remiss if I didn't thank you, Madam Chair. The document that you had put together almost a year ago at this point that had sort of the different things you wanted to see in the executive committee, we certainly stolen a lot of your work and put it into the resolution. So when you look at it, you'll say, well, and that and that all look very familiar. So I wanted to say thank you.

Thank you so much, attorney Cruz. I'm glad I can help. That's what we're here for. Madam Chair. Yes. Commissioner Moore.

So in regards then to finances, will we not have any adequate reports until we get a CFO? What do we do until the meantime?

No. I'll let Ken respond to that. We should have

reports.

In the meantime, as we have reports, we will be presenting them to the board. And so right now, for example, I have in my hands as of about a week and a half ago, the draft 2023 financial statements for Hackham. We have not issued those out to anybody because they're just draft. They're still going through the partner review at Berman Hopkins who is our audit firm and once they finalize that and issued that, we will schedule a meeting with the board for that so that you can see that. We will try and have Berman Hopkins on whether it's remotely or in person. We'll have Berman Hopkins at that meeting as well.

All right. So we're at 2023?

That's 2023. The 2024 are in process. They've completed a lot of the compliance work, which is compliance testing, looking at files, participant files, looking at those types of things. They're coming back to start the field work soon. I believe it's in February, but I'll double check that date.

I'm sorry, were you done? Commissioner Moore?

Yes. What type of support are you executing well, do you have support around the finance department?

So right now, the finance director, Pam Watson, is kind of in charge of the Hackham finances and the Travaux finances with Dave Schultz. However, I am bringing on board and have signed an agreement. We're doing a contract for a limited term consultant. We're bringing in BDO PHA finance for a specific scope of work that includes providing oversight and guidance to Pam Watson and Dave Schultz. It'll be done remotely, but they will have somebody checking in with them weekly on what is going on, what is happening, and more than just weekly if needed, as well as helping them in terms of finishing up the twenty twenty four audits that still need to be finished, completing and preparing for the twenty twenty five audits.

And my one of my biggest issues that I have on their scope of work is looking at our cash management and our just paying invoices, looking at those procedures and systems and making sure that we are using using the best practices in the PHA industry to do that. The Yardi tools that we have and other tools.

Madam Chair?

Yes, Vice Chair Gottsler.

Are they also going to assist you as part of this contract with cost allocation plans?

They are. I did add to that scope of work. There are a couple items from the sustainability plan. Thank you Commission Vice Chair for reminding me. Including the cost allocation plan, which they do those all the time. So they know how to do those for a public housing authority.

Exactly wonderful. Excellent.

Good. Thank you so much. Do we have any other questions, comments, concerns? All right. Well, can we go to the next

item? Thank you.

Next item is item number four, a presentation of the December documents from the Travaux board meeting. Ken Barbeau will speak on this item.

Good afternoon. The Travaux meeting from December really it was their annual meeting, so they did have some elections of officers. They previously, Kim Hurtado, attorney Kim Hurtado had been the vice president. She had felt strongly that the because the vice president kind of acts on behalf of Travaux, if the president cannot act on behalf of Travaux, she felt that because she worked full time, she didn't if that ever occurred, she couldn't really commit to that. And so that was one of the reasons why in the bylaws we made it so that it could be a staff person or somebody from the board who wanted to.

And they had nominated and elected Alison Woosnicki as the vice president. So she won't be on the board, but she's the vice president for the organization. And then there was the election of the secretary, that was Patty Dee. So she is the official secretary for Treveau as well.

Let the record show that we are still her favorite. Sorry, Travol.

And she's also not a board member of Travol.

She is also not a board member of Travol. And then they also approved their 2026 schedule, which is typically, typically, I think the

Fourth Thursday?

Fourth Thursday of the month.

At 03:00 at Convent Home. Yeah. Okay.

So, and that, and then, you know, we did our normal reporting, which is in your packet and there's no huge changes from the private prior month but those were the major items from Travaux.

Alright. Do we have any questions or comments from commissioners? Commissioner Snyder? Oh. Oh, okay. Alright. There being none, we can move forward. Item number five is

a presentation of the agenda and documents from the December and January HackM Executive Search Committee meetings. I can speak on this item and a chair or vice chair may want to add something. But for typically for these items, we've included the previous month's meetings and of the Executive Search Committee, their agendas and attachments. For December's four meetings are included here. I had also hurried the January 6 meeting agenda attachments and minutes as that minute as that meeting was also gonna be applicable to discussion today.

The committee then added a meeting last Friday, January 16 and with the holiday on Monday, I haven't been able to get those minutes together yet. But probably what you want to talk about in the next couple of items is really from the January meetings. So I'll briefly say that in December, the committee interviewed five candidates on December. And I'm open to any questions about the December meeting, as I said, I think probably you really want to get into the discussion on the next two items. But you can always reach out to Chair, Vice Chair, who are on the committee, or myself if you do have any general questions about the committee's workings. And I think that's probably it for my December summary.

Okay, thank you.

In your packets, I'd just like to go back to December's meetings. That's where we had the pleasure of interviewing the first round of candidates. There were a total of 21, I believe, that applied for the position. Narrowed oh, I'm sorry, 19 that applied for the position, and we were able to narrow it down based on the level of well, there were multiple criteria that included their experience, education. It was a lot.

Let me see. I'm speaking blindly. But there were criteria in place, and we were able to narrow it down to the top 10. And from the top ten, five were identified to bring forward as possible candidates for the position. So in January, we called a special meeting because there were, I believe in December, we had decided to sort of limit who we wanted to bring to the commission.

But after receiving new information, we thought it would be best for you all to weigh in on all five of the candidates for the secretary executive director position.

And I was going to talk about that more in the next item, the January stuff.

So that's what we're bringing before you. I'm sorry, skipping ahead. Okay. All right. So

just to kind of move on to the next item, because I think that's where we're going anyway, although it doesn't really matter apparently.

Of course, it sounds So

for item number seven I'm sorry, item number six is a discussion of the Executive Search Committee's recommendations of candidates for the HACC and Board of Commissioners consideration for position of Secretary Executive Director. I'll give a little introduction touching on some of that, and, then, attorney Greg Cruz will speak for a while too. So, for the January meetings, on January 6, after the interviews on the December, the committee decided to put forward two candidates to the board. However, a couple of days later, there was some new news about one of the candidates. So the committee wanted to get together again to discuss the information, see how the others were feeling, decide whether they wanted to make any changes.

That meeting happened just last Friday, the sixteenth, and the committee was comfortable moving the two previous candidates forward but wanted to provide the board additional options and insight from their review of the candidates. So they put forward five candidates that they were comfortable recommending. It may also be of note that the background checks by the search firm have not yet taken place, so additional information will be provided to the board as that process continues. The five candidates are: Bertie Kauser, Harold Insay, Keon Jackson, Ralph Jordan, and Rick Toney. You'll also see that we have a closed session on the agenda.

That was included just in case you wanted to discuss the candidates individually today, their experience, etcetera, while any comparison or ranking of candidates would take place in open session. And Greg Cruz can provide more information on that open versus closed session discussion about the executive committee executive search committee's work.

Yes. Greg Cruz with the city attorney's office. I just wanted to speak briefly on the noticed exception in case the board decides that it wants to utilize it. It's, of course, optional. You do not have to go into closed session to discuss any of this.

The specific exception that we have cited, I know Vice Chair Gottsler and Chair Hazlett are familiar with it because the Executive Search Committee has used it a few times, but it's a person specific exception. And what I mean by that is when you are in closed session under nineteen eighty five(one), you are really discussing individual or, in this case, two, three, four, five individuals individually. You're not comparing them to each other. You're not talking about the process that we're going to use to select people. You're not talking about, Well, I like this person more than this person or this person more than that person.

It's really just to provide your input on the individual candidates and receive input from staff, from Stan, who I see as our consultant who has helped with process. So again, the big points are that this is optional. You do not have to choose to go into closed session. And two, just make sure that you're sticking on we're just talking about the one person one at a time. And I will be here to help with that because it can be a tricky line, to go into.

And then the other thing I wanted to mention, while Patty has vacated the microphone and I'm I'm free to talk, is just just a reminder, I know when we when this executive search committee was created, the resolution was very clear that the authority to select the next SED lies with this board and this board alone. So you can take the recommendations in and you certainly should take in the information that the committee has gleaned from the various candidates through both the interviews and the resumes and stands, knowledge about the industry. But you do not have to go with any one of those five. You could interview any of the 19 if you want to. Heck, you could reach out to other people and and interview people who didn't even apply if they'd be so interested.

It's entirely in your the ball is entirely in your court, and I just wanted to make sure that everyone was reminded of that. I think Patty was kind enough to put together all of the interview videos, all the resumes, all the scoring criteria, and has already sent all of that out.

Sent it twice.

Sent it out to all of you.

Would

strongly recommend that you review everything so you get a flavor for all the candidates, not just the five that are being recommended to this board by the committee. That's all I have to say. I kept it brief.

Sounds a lot, Greg.

If anyone has any questions about the exception or anything, I'll I'll just stay up here.

Madam chair? Commissioner Moore. I do have a quick question. Patty, you mentioned it as far as background checks. Mhmm. Do we need to wait till that is complete before we make a final decision? Is that typically the rule of thumb? We

would like

to

have those background checks before final.

I think, and Stan, you may be able to speak up here. Stan Quay is in the bottom middle, and he is the representative from the executive search firm, and I believe he had mentioned at the committee that typically it's when you get down to kind of your final candidates that he typically performs the background check at that point. Got it. But Stan, do you want to try and jump in here and add to that?

Sure. Sure. Yeah. Typically, in the structure that I work with, and this is fairly consistent among recruiters, is that once the committee and the board decide on and agree upon the best best qualified

candidates. At that point in time, the background checks would be completed before we bring in finalists to be interviewed by the board. The thought there is and and some recruiters don't

board do a good job at this. Some recruiters will actually complete the finalist interviews, and then once they have their preferred candidate, they'll finish the background checks. But that can be an embarrassing process if if there are issues that surface later. Mhmm. So the process that we've been working from is one where once we all agree upon the best qualified candidates, whether that's two, three, four, or five, or whatever, then at that point, the the detailed background checks would be completed.

I do have a firm that I work with that completes the credit criminal background checks. I typically would take the lead on the employment verifications Mhmm. And the the academic credentials of those of those candidates. Any any drug testing or whatever would be done by the agency at the appropriate time. So that is kind of the process that that I've used with the 75 hires that I've worked with in public public housing.

Madam chair, along these lines? Yes. Reference checks. Where do reference checks come into this process?

Yes. The reference checks, I will do as well.

Okay.

And and we we do obviously diligently look at those. It's extremely rare that a reference check is ever gonna bring up anything negative. Mhmm. One of the questions I do ask on the reference checks is if you were to sit down with that individual over a cup of coffee knowing the job that they were in line for, what would be that one continued improvement area that you would encourage them to focus on. So sometimes out of that, you will get a little bit of substantive input.

Mhmm. But other than that, it's typically positive comments that come out of reference checks. Now in the background checks, if there is an issue raised where there's a red flag, I do typically know of directors in that state that I can contact as well, and that usually gives me one of my best reality checks. Obviously, you look at newspaper articles and anything else that's out there, but the the contributions from their colleagues in that state usually tell you a lot about the candidate that you're that you're evaluating. And, typically, in any state that we were working in, I will know directors that are comfortable talking with me about about candidates.

Madam Chair? Commit I'm sorry. Vice Chair Gottsler.

Call me a commissioner, because I'm that

too. Chair I

just want to mention, Commissioner Moore, to your question that several of us on the committee do have some pretty broad networks around the country. And so we several of us I don't know that I can speak for everybody on the committee, but I know that there were several of us on the committee that actually did make calls about all five of the candidates that you're seeing today. Mhmm.

And that is greatly appreciated. You are benefiting from that in ways that most boards cannot. Most boards don't have that Mhmm. That level of connectivity in the industry. So that is a real benefit that that is brought to the to the table by by your committee members.

Madam chair?

Yes. Vice I'm sorry.

Commissioner Snyder. You could call him the vice

chair too. Whatever.

Oh, goodness.

I guess this is a question.

Stan. Stan.

Were two red flags that came up and actually got in the newspaper so it's not exactly a I mean we all know something happened but what I'm interested in is how. If there weren't background checks or you weren't looking deeply into the Mhmm. The two candidates. How did you find that? And and tell what did you think about that? Did that raise a red flag to you? Because a red flag to me and a red flag to you might be different red flags.

Sure. Exactly. And we can talk about that. We'll we'll differentiate the one scenario. I knew the history on that situation, and there was some excellent news coverage that really provided a lot of clarity on that particular situation.

And that was a scenario even though we were not at the background check point because we hadn't settled on your candidates at that point. I did share that with the committee, and the committee member, at least one committee member, had also known a little bit about that history. So in that scenario, we did have a pretty good read on that, and that was not a surprise to us at at that point. It was a scenario in that case where there was some very different perspectives between the board chair and a candidate over the mission of the agency, over micromanagement by the board chair of that organization, which was very disruptive not only for that CEO that was under consideration, but also resulted in the in the in the in the loss by that agency of the COO and CFO of that organ organization. So it was a very tumultuous tumultuous process that was involved in that particular situation.

One of the distinctions that I make, you're gonna find, as vice chair knows, all around the country, you're gonna find a lot of directors who are very good directors that either have been let go or that have resigned because of differences of opinion with, let's say, the board or the mayor in that community on the nation of the organization, how to conduct the business of that organization, etcetera, etcetera. That is a fairly common scenario around the country where I where the flags really go up even more so for me in my recommendations to a board is where you have a director that has been the subject of harassment, harassment complaints, financial improprieties, standard of conduct kinds of issues. Those to me are no brainers. In those scenarios, I would always absolutely recommend to a board. Don't even further consider that particular candidate.

So there are degrees of of firings and terminations and and departures from agencies. So that's the one scenario. The second scenario really came to light after we had reached our decision on the two that we were going to suggest to bring forward to the board. So that that is the scenario that just happened. Now we had I had mentioned to the board that there was some history with the again, in this case, the the board chair and the CEO.

There was some history that goes back. He he this individual had been with the agency five years, probably middle of that third year with the agency. Things really deteriorated with the board chair, and I won't go into too much detail now, but it, again, involved who was going to manage the organization, what was our mission going to be, how were we going to conduct business as an organization, and that continued to deteriorate the last two years. And once we I I I do not know every detail of that deterioration, but obviously, that would come out in the background report if we decided we wanted to proceed with that candidate. Again, there's nothing at this point for this candidate that I have heard of from anyone, and I've heard from a few people.

Nothing I have heard would indicate there were, again, financial improprieties, harassment issues, standards of conduct issues. That if that is the case, that will come out, of course, as we do the background checks. But I do not know of anything at this point. To me, it's more of that scenario I started with where, again, you're gonna have some directors that have issues either with their board chair or sometimes with the mayor in that community where it simply becomes an unworkable situation, and they come to a decision to to not continue. So that's just a little bit of back background on both of those two individuals.

Hope that helps some.

Commissioner Snyder.

Madam chair. Thank you, madam chair. Yes. So I think that this is also a matter of public record or at least it's been in the newspaper, reported in the paper that either one or both of the two candidates filed a lawsuit against their

employer. Right.

That you did not consider that to be a red flag?

Well, yeah, it's I I think it's it's red flag that that has to be looked at. And as I mentioned on that first candidate, we have a pretty good read on that situation. That that and and there was comfort level on the committee that there were some very valid reasons for that employee to take the action they did. So there was a comfort level on the committee that given the situation and the knowledge that was readily available, that that was a a reasonable decision by that employee to take. Again, we don't have enough information on this situation, on the other situation, to be able to say that, you know, that was reasonable on the part of the employee.

We don't have that all that information all that information at this point in in time.

Madam chair,

can I

make a suggestion that we go into closed session?

Yes. Can we okay.

Would just move and take a vote.

Yes. Alright.

So, the board of I'll I'll do a read spiel and then I'll get the move in second. The board of commissioners of the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee may receive a motion to convene in closed session at City Hall Room 301 B to evaluate applicant applicants for the position of secretary executive director of the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee pursuant to section 19.851 c Wisconsin statutes to consider employment, promotion compensation or performance evaluation data of any public employee over which the governmental body has jurisdiction or exercises responsibility. The board may then reconvene in open session concerning additional items on the agenda. During the closed session, the committee I'm sorry, the commissioners and the staff involved in the deliberations must be in private. After the closed session, the Board is expected to then reconvene in open session concerning additional items on the agenda.

During the closed session, all members of the public and staff not a party to the discussion must leave the room. Once the closed session is completed, we will reopen the doors and let any members of the public and staff back into the room to speak at that time. Is there a motion and a second to go into closed session based on the exception just read under 19.851 c? So moved. Second.

Second.

Yes,

we do.

Can I get a roll call, please, Patty? To

go into closed session, Commissioner Nelson.

Aye.

Commissioner Burrell. Aye. Chair Hazlett. Aye. Commissioner Moore. Aye. Commissioner Snyder. Aye. Commissioner Epez Classen. Aye. Okay. So, we are now moving into closed session and the public must now leave the meeting. Okay. This is the roll call to go out of closed session back into open session. Commissioner Nelson. Aye. Commissioner Burrell.

Aye.

Chair Hazlett. Aye. Vice Chair Gottsler. Aye. Commissioner Moore. Aye. Commissioner Snyder.

I was having a great conversation. I guess.

And Commissioner Commissioner Epez Classen. Oh, you know what? We might have surprised Commissioner Classen with how quickly we came back in. So, I will table her vote for now. Okay. And we will come back to it. So, the next item I have too many things. Next item oh, Lord. Okay. Let me borrow your let me borrow your agenda. Yes. Go go right. The next item oh, so actually we're back. We're back in closed session. We're So still actually on item six, which is I'm sorry, item five, which is the discussion of the Executive Search Committee's recommendation of candidates for the HACC and Board of Commissioners' consideration for the position of Secretary Executive director.

Did we want to talk about process at this point?

We're at six, right?

We

just The we just Yes. And how do we get to the discussion of the resolution?

Well, do we want to talk about process here? The resolution, the resolution that is item seven, is simply you're accepting that the executive search committee has provided you with these recommendations. It's not really taking any action actions. You're just accepting that this is what they have provided the board. But if you wanted talk about discussions of process and how the board may want to proceed, maybe that happens in this item.

Okay. On behalf of the Executive Search Committee

Oh, hold on though. You know what? We have to bang that gavel in order to Oh, make sure that we're

they not

Let's do that. Make it official. And then you know what?

Right. We're back in session.

Commissioner Ripesh Klassen, do you move to go back into open session?

I do. I so moved.

Thank you. Alright. Thank you.

Much coffee for it.

That's right. Some of the, did you want to talk about process and what you may want to do or what you may want to consider? Did you want to talk about the five candidates?

Well, I just wanted to speak briefly in regards to the process because this board is the deciding factor of who we interview. Again, we have conducted the screening as well as the first round interviews. The second round interviews will be for those finalists, and we would have to determine determine what that looks like as a board. Is it two candidates? Is it three candidates to bring in person for these interviews?

Please keep in mind that the finalists will not only interview with this body, but also with our community stakeholders, our political stakeholders, and it will be conversations with the community. So I'm just bringing all well, I can't say I got to calm down some but we have presented the five candidates that we thought would be beneficial for bringing in or considering for the second round interviews. Again, if this body determines that you would like to review other candidates that were a part of the process, or the 19 candidates that applied, you certainly have the authority to do so. What am I missing? Am I missing anything, Karen?

No. Okay. So we will certainly I don't think you all have to necessarily vote on anyone right now, but certainly look at the information that's been presented, and we will be able to come together again fairly soon to determine who we would like to move forward with during the second round of interviews. And don't worry about the interview questions, the packets, everything will be prepared for you all. There is a process that was determined for the second round interviews.

Don't think well, Stan, would you like to talk about the the process for the second round interviews?

Well, yes. The the second round of interviews, of course, we would bring the finalists in to the community. And as the board madam chair has mentioned, she's doing some very extensive work to make sure that those candidates

Uh-huh.

Do get to know the community, to know the agency, to meet with stakeholders, whether that's governmental entities, politicians, residents, staff, business partners, whomever, that they get a chance to be be involved with focus groups that we would be structuring with those parties. When we do meet with the board, there will be a second round of interview questions. That's usually 14 to 16 interview questions over about an hour and a half or two hours depending upon what the board wants to go with. We also talked about having the candidates complete an exercise where they would talk about their action plans for completing the rest of the recovery agreement with HUD. So that would be we would give them a limited amount of time before their board interview to complete that exercise.

So that would be kind of a critical thinking exercise for the candidates. We wouldn't give that to them before they come to the community. It would actually be part of the time. So it would be a time limited exercise while they are there in the community. And give them a tour of the portfolio.

That is oftentimes insightful because we ask the staff who do that tour to give us their feedback. What kind of questions did the candidates have? What were some of their observations? And then we usually have a couple of the board questions that focus on the portfolio in terms of what recommendations would they have from what they had seen in their portfolio toward. So that's some of what goes into that final final session with the candidates.

And, again, you would be scoring those candidates again both on the interview questions as well as the ideal candidate profile. And, of course, we talked a lot about this in the committee that the scores are not necessarily your final basis for a decision. There will be many other factors that the board wants to consider, you know, in making that final decision. Many other things other than the actual scores can certainly be considered as you make your final judgment. Out of that then, you would recommend a preferred candidate subject to negotiations.

There would be a board committee, negotiating committee then, that would conduct negotiations with that preferred candidate. I can provide advisory input on what's going on nationally on various aspects of negotiations, whether it's salary or fringe benefits or other aspects of the negotiations. But, again, I'm not the negotiator. That would be the the board committee that would complete negotiations with that preferred candidate. So that's in a in a nutshell. Nutshell. That is kind of what we would be up to at that point.

Madam chair? Yes. Commissioner Moore. Quick question. Just as a point of process. Yes. Based on so I wanna know, will you is the committee move on with the five candidates, the two candidates?

Like, what

where do we stand right now as to what as far as the board, what decision we have to make? Or is it none today? Today?

You don't have to make a decision today, but it was the recommendation of the executive search committee to bring the five candidates to you all. So that's where we stand. However, if you decide that, on top of these five, I would like to bring in this candidate, then that's how we move forward. And I'd just like to also share that the finalists will have time on WNOV AMFM's radio station to address the public. We would also like your feedback on community stakeholders to invite to this process.

The executive search committee did a pretty good job of developing a comprehensive list that included some of our current vendors and stakeholders such as WEDA, Independence First, Common Ground, some of our, you know

Lutheran Social Service.

Lutheran

Social Service. Yes.

Yeah. Yes. So it's not a completed list, but we also wanted to ask for your input on who you think should be a part of this process and invite those people in. Not everybody will participate, but for those who are interested, we would like to formulate either round robins or formal interviews with the finalist.

And so follow really quick follow-up. So if no one has any other recommendations, you all would then go forward with the five candidates and bring and and and bring them into this sort of secondary process?

If if that's what's decided by this body, we would like to reduce it from the five Okay. Just from a budgetary standpoint because No. Yep. You know, there's But

cost we so that's the clarity that I was pulling for. Do we just so do we then say that's what I'm saying. As this body, do we say, yes, move forward with the five or no, move forward with the three or no, move forward with the two. That's what I'm trying to understand.

Doctor. Yes. So, again, it's for us to determine. Is it five, four, three, two, or one?

Doctor. Thank you.

Okay. One other wrinkle in that. Think the idea is that the board will come back with those thoughts. For tonight, you could take the action to just receive that the executive search committee is recommending five people. Mhmm. But that does not mean that you are then taking action

on those five. Thank you. Okay.

Thank you.

Got it.

Commissioner Snyder, did you have a question? Oh.

Irma, we can't See you.

Commissioner, FS Glassen. We we acknowledge you.

Hi. I was just I think you clarified it, Patty. I was just gonna ask, like, do you do we need to communicate? Are we coming back together again to make our recommendation, you know, as a body, you know, to the executive search committee, or are we doing that by email, etcetera?

And I think part of what you could do tonight would maybe be to give to talk about a rough time frame Mhmm. On when you think you would have that done, and maybe it would be appropriate to schedule a special meeting for that. Mhmm.

Oh, and

go ahead.

And, Patty, one more question too. Is it okay for the commissioners to reach out to an executive committee member directly if we have any questions,

or does it have to

be done in the full body

I'm looking at council now.

That's right. Great question. Yes.

As long as it's a less than quorum size meeting of this body and of the committee. And, again, for the board, that

would be four commissioners. For the committee, that would be three committee members.

Madam Chair.

Commissioner Snyder.

I know that finance hasn't been approved by the group but is that the same rule for finance if a bunch of couple of us wanted to have lunch, let's say three? It's not a quorum of the board and there's no committee yet. So it's okay for us to meet if we wanted to.

Yes. Yeah. There's that body doesn't exist until this body creates itself. Okay. There's no quorum of that body. Thank you.

Thank you, madam chair.

Thank you. Do we have any other questions or comments, concerns? Chair. Vice chair Gottsaller.

One other thought I had, just to be thinking about what the possibilities of options are, could be that the commission also could decide that as a body or some other subgroup

of

the board could interview all five candidates on teams and come back with another report, or we could use that, or the whole commission could interview them all online, and then use that to decide who we're going to physically bring to Milwaukee. It would seem to me that might be another I know it adds a step, but it also might help us make some other consider other options and ask additional additional questions. Questions. Okay? I'm not saying we have to do it, just a thought.

Alright. Do we have any other questions or comments around this subject? Yes, sir. Commissioner Nelson.

Well, I first wanna say thank you to everyone that's been involved in the process of of us leading up to finally, which is not yet, selecting someone as the secretary, executive director. Couple of questions. Is there a reasonable projection of a timeline? And I know there's a lot of steps along the way to finalizing the selection. But are we looking at completing this process, say, by May?

Is there something pushing us that requires us to close out on the finality of naming someone as the secretary executive director? And then this may leaping ahead too, maybe not, but what what what type of time commitment are we asking the next secretary director to commit themselves to. Just like I'm a commissioner, so I was asked for a five year commitment. Now whether that actually transpires or not, there's a lot of factors involved. So what kind of a commitment and this may be out of the way.

Maybe it's not in the proper sequence to be asked. But what kind of commitment as far as time or what is talked about with the candidate as far as commitment? Or is that important? Can anyone answer that question?

Sure. I can I can jump right in on on those? Okay. Starting with your timeline that you asked about. Originally, we would have liked to have had the finalists in the city by the last week of this month, but considering, you know, the movement, we would like to have someone identified by mid February now.

Hopefully we can get the second rounds and receive all the feedback to be able to make an offer by the February. Please keep in mind that some of these candidates or whomever may be working currently, which means they have to give a notice. I don't know if they're under contract or not. They may need thirty days, sixty days, one hundred and twenty days. We're not sure.

But we would like to extend an offer by mid February. And the contract The previous secretary executive director was not under contract, so we would like to have a contractual agreement with the next or the successor. All right? So I will work closely, or we all will work closely with Todd on what that looks like and legal to make sure everything is in alignment. And yes, I would like to see a contractual commitment in place just to secure the agency.

Madam Chair, could I chime in on that just briefly?

Yes, sir, mister Kwai.

In the industry for new directors coming into an organization, the norm is usually a two or three contract that they will come in with. That's something they typically want and the agency wants for your respective purposes. So that's kind of the norm in the industry. Industry. I I think think part part of of his his question question also also was, was, can you know, we lock them into long term agreements?

And that really it's it's not the norm in the industry. In the industry right now, with the market the way it is, a lot of directors are staying three to five years and moving to different different positions. There's a lot of things that we can talk about in that finalist interview that will give us an assurance, I think, or some assurance that they're in here for a good long tenure with the agency. Agency. But in the industry, there's no guarantees that, you know, you're gonna get a director that's gonna be here ten or fifteen years.

It just it's not the realities in the market today. But as I told the committee, I would rather have an outstanding director for five years than a mediocre director for ten or fifteen years. Yeah. You're gonna get a whole lot more out of that five year tenure than you are the latter. So those are just a couple of thoughts I would share.

Thank you, Stan. Do Commissioner Snyder.

Yeah. Madam chair, thank you. Mhmm. One question before we decide on whether we're bringing in two, three, four or five, is it appropriate to find out, I think Stan you had mentioned one of the candidates, one of the top two candidates dropped his lawsuit against his employer and he went back to his job. Now is there something in I don't I don't wanna necessarily say contractual, but is there something in that agreement that would preclude him from continuing the process with us?

And if so, it is do we wanna keep him on or not?

I I would be highly surprised if there's anything that would preclude him being a still being a candidate. But, again, if that was an individual that you were interested in, between your attorney there and me, Greg and I, we would make sure we had all all the full disclosure on what those what those terms and provisions look like. But so but I I would not anticipate there would be any clause like that that would limit his options options to to take another position with an agency.

Madam Just

based upon what I've seen in the past.

Yes. You could

Because I got reminded during the the break that my fiduciary responsibility is to hack them and not as an a citizen at large. And so a question would be, did he have an agreement that the city of whatever it was could turn around and sue us as a matter of a breach of the of contract or breach of agreement of some sort.

I I don't believe that would be possible, but I can turn this over to legal to respond.

We certainly wouldn't have a contractual claim because we're not a party to that contract, whatever it might say. Mhmm. I it's a different state, so I don't I'm not super familiar with their laws there, and I don't wanna comment on what kind of causes of action, but that that would be highly irregular. Maybe I would I would be surprised. Thank you, my honor.

You're welcome. Do we have any other questions or comments?

Madam chair. Yes. Just Commissioner sitting here

they're

be

to if they're going be able

another meeting. Who knows? And we're gonna be going over all this information. So this is directed towards Stan. Stan, how was your last name pronounced so I could be

responded?

Quiet. It's pronounced Quiet.

Okay. So this is directed toward Stan Quiet. Now if it's appropriate, and you speaking to us as commissioners, and you got a lot of experience cross country, etcetera. What do you recommend that we sort of take a look at when vetting and reviewing the resumes of the candidates for secretary, executive director, you know, housing authority, etcetera? Sure.

What because there's a lot of information, and it's being crunched down. So what should we look for based upon your experience? Not who we should look for, but what are some of the Right. Right. Strengths or

Right.

Is education a big thing? Experience, how how do you look at that? You're talking to the commissioners when you give these answers.

Sure. Exactly. Exactly. I I would start out on that by saying, did you you all have seen the board staff surveys that were done early in this process in terms of what was most important to you in looking at these candidates. So I would go back and research that as to what you all said was most critical.

We've alluded to some of those things, leadership, relationship builder, resident relations, marketing, public relations skills, internal organizational skills, and and and, obviously, obviously, knowledge of the industry and the programs. Those are probably probably just some of the five or six top things. If I was on the board, I would probably wanna focus on that with the candidates. We have provided you with a wealth of other information. I'm not suggesting ignore that, but those are some of the things that you may want to focus on.

Obviously, particularly on those local candidates that we talked about, you may have a whole lot more information than any of us have. Please bring that to the table for consideration by the by the full board. And I guess that would kind of be be be my advice on this as you as you move forward.

Commissioner Nelson, one of the documents you received was drafted by Stan and it's called the ideal candidate profile. That's one of the documents you got in and that kind of summarized

Right.

The surveys, the focus groups, what we heard from people that they thought was important for the position. So that might be a document to look for.

Was that sent from you?

No. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Because it was quite

a bit of information.

Yeah. There's one there's a a document in there called the ideal candidate profile.

I apologize. I haven't went through everything, but thank you for pointing that out. I will be taking a look at the thank you, Patty.

Yeah. Patty, could we could we also share with them the earlier board staff surveys that were done? I think they saw those initially, but is that something we can share also?

Yeah. I believe that would have have been one of the handouts that or one of the attachments that was included in an earlier board report and that where we were reporting the monthly actions of the committee, and I can find those and and resend those.

Alright. Yeah. I think that would be helpful because that was fairly extensive. That included not only input from the board, but the staff, the the staff key staff, quite a few staff responded, and a number of community stakeholders were were were solicited for that survey as well. So it gives you kind of a a a baseline of what's what the community seemed to be saying we really needed in these candidates and recognizing the board has its own perspective on that, but that gives you a lot of good base information as well.

K. Madam

chair? Vice chair of gods, sir.

Might we do the background checks first on all five?

Well, I mean, if you could. You know, we we you know, the normal process like like I said is to know who our best qualified candidates are before we go into that, particularly since a couple of those, you're gonna want some very extensive backgrounds on it. It it would be quite a bit of work to do that on all five knowing that only maybe two of those are we going to end up interviewing. But, you know, it's it's the board's decision as to how you would like to proceed on that. I I can tell you on two of those candidates, I have done previous background reports and checks for other positions, but, obviously, you don't wanna rely upon that.

You need to do a whole new fresh review for any new candidacy that they would be involved with.

So does the committee what I would suggest is maybe the committee could do their review of the candidates and then you might have a better sense of whether you want to do the background checks on all five or if there's a general consensus about a smaller number to proceed, then maybe you would be more comfortable with just that just those candidates.

And when you say the committee, you mean the commission?

I do.

Yes. Okay.

Okay. Madam chair, Patty. I thought

Madam chair, Patty.

We had had a preliminary general discussion about avoiding picking someone, and then after the fact, we do a background check. I thought we had discussed it to the degree where we said that's not the proper way to proceed, that we should narrow it down to a a final couple. And then before naming one of them people, we do a background check. So I would be more comfortable with narrowing narrowing it down to a couple people. And I don't know what the time factor is gonna be involved in the finalization.

But then before we name the final person, whoever the last two or three or whatever that number comes to, we do a background check before naming them. It's important to me that we do a background check

Mhmm.

Before finalizing who that choice is.

Absolutely.

Does that make sense? Does

that I make believe that was discussed earlier. I don't know if you wanted to respond to why you had asked about the five?

Oh, no, not particularly.

Okay. All right.

I do have another question though, if that's okay. Madam Vice So

that was one method discussed for proceeding.

Okay. This is a question for Greg. Is a background check a matter of like a FOIA request or public record? I mean, if somebody decided that they wanted they wanted a background they'd heard something.

Mhmm.

And they wanted to get into like specifics. Can is our as a public agency, our our background checks, you know, a matter of public record if somebody really wanted to know or a FOIA request? Mhmm. I'd have to

look into it, the specific request that's being made and what the actual background check showed, but I it's not always a clear cut answer on public records. Records. In the state of Wisconsin, there is a balancing test that that is undergone.

I'd have

to look if there's a basically, the way it works is there's either a clear exception to disclosure, and if there's not, then HACA moves into what we call public policy balancing test where you weigh you you take a look at the individual piece the individual record that's being requested and you weigh the public benefit towards disclosure against sort of the private, you know, reasons for the policy reasons for withholding it. So I'd probably have to do a a deeper dive into whether whether an individual background check would get disclosed if there was a a public records request for it.

And, Stan, what when you say background check, the background checks that you do include what, specifically?

The background checks that that I do are through a professional screening service out in Florida, and that's focused on two major areas, criminal background check as well as the credit financial check for those for those candidates. Beyond that, as we briefly talked about earlier, there are the reference checks. If there are website if if there's website information that raises a red flag. I will talk to other directors in that state. I will also then do the employment verification and the academic verifications.

I will say approximately 40% of candidates do stretch the truth on their resumes. You it's not that high for Mhmm. Finalist candidates that we're working with. But if we just took the 19 resumes, we've got probably 40% of those have stretched the truth or or completely misrepresented the truth in terms of their resume. So you do wanna do an extensive background check.

And And

then as I mentioned, if you do require drug checks or anything, that I would have the agency take care of.

Right. So excluding the reference checks, do you do an Internet search, or does the company that

you Yes.

Employ do Internet searches?

No. I I do the Internet checks myself. Yes. Yes. That is part of my my evaluation process is to go back by name and by agencies they've worked for to see if anything surfaces there that that we need to either talk with the candidate about or do further research on in some other way.

So you don't get involved in what commissioner Snyder was asking about, which are FOIA requests?

That would not be kidding.

Not no. Not typically. No. You know, again, if there's a situation that requires that, I would work with with the city on that to to make sure that we get that information.

Alright. No other questions or comments?

But did you want a time frame for a special meeting?

Yes. For a special meeting. So

they

can forward forward their list of candidates to you then that they're interested in? Is that what we're doing? Or we just want to have

a special meeting? Have the special meeting.

Okay. We can do that. We can have the discussion at a special meeting, but can we have it scheduled within a week's time? Is everyone okay with meeting call I mean, having a special called meeting within a week's time?

Or in a week? Next week.

So what about next next week at the same time, 04:00 on Wednesday?

Can't do that. Wednesdays are my toughest days.

Oh, that's right.

I thought it was the best Wednesday,

but it's not. Yeah.

All of

I'll be in Superior, Wisconsin wrapping up their executive hire that particular day also.

Alright. What about next Thursday? Or at least can the sooner that we can come together, the better because we still have to reach out to these candidates and arrange their travel to the city. So

so were I and you guys could send me your availabilities tomorrow or next week.

Mhmm.

Is the goal for them to walk in having kind of look through the candidates and want to have discussion about who they would like to move forward?

Yes, please.

Really quick, Patty, if also for my colleagues, if there's an opportunity to meet a little earlier, that'll help me out a little bit with providing more options to Patty for availability.

Yes.

And this could be virtual too, correct? I mean, it's up to

but

meeting will work for everyone, if that would help.

Perfect. So, okay. So not really a point of action, but if you could tomorrow give me your availability for next week. Okay. Looking at all different dayparts, hopefully we can find a time. And the goal is that at that meeting you would be able to bring having reviewed the candidates and be ready to discuss them.

And

I think that probably does then close out that item on the agenda, which is six. And so then I could proceed to item seven? Yes. Okay. So item number

Hey. Thank you, everyone. I will go ahead and depart here, and great to talk with you all. Have a great rest of your meeting, and I'll look forward to next week then.

Alright. Thank you, Sam.

Alright. Thank

you, you, Sam. Sam.

Thank you. Bye now. Bye now.

So item number seven

is a

resolution receiving the executive search committee's recommendation of candidates for consideration for the position of secretary, executive director, and the rest of the recruitment selection process. Commissioner Pes Klausen, if you could turn down your audio because I can hear myself. I can begin the discussion on that just real quickly saying by, again, the committee last met on Friday and in that trying to turn this around, the version of the resolution that was attached was not the most recent version that listed the five names. So we will have to do an amendment listing all five names, and that's just to get the correct version basically of the resolution to you. And then once that's moved, seconded, and voted on, then we can approve that amended agenda which has the actual five candidates listed.

So, just for the record, I can add that the three candidates we need to add are Birdie Couser, Keon Jackson, and Rick Toney that Harold Insay and Ralph Jordan did appear on that earlier version. So if if there's a friendly or if there's an someone who would like to move resolution to include all five names, that would be very helpful to me.

So moved. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. And Under the Need a roll call?

Yeah. So, is again just to approve that amendment. So, the roll call, I'm just adding those names to the resolution. Commissioner Nelson.

Aye.

Commissioner Burrell. Aye. Chair Hazlett? Aye. Vice Chair Gottsler? Aye. Commissioner Moore? Aye. And Commissioner Snyder? Aye. And Commissioner Pasquale? Aye. Thank you so much for accommodating our not getting the right resolution on there. So now is there someone who would like to move to receive the recommendation from the executive search committee?

I move that we accept the res that can I do it? Can I do it?