[0:29] Look at that shows what I know. All right, I will call this special meeting of the Bloomington City council to order. It is Tuesday 15 July and this is our meeting to have a second interview with two of our city manager candidates, Zach Walker and Kathy Hadim. [0:46] Alright, let's go with the 1st. I'll bring in mr. Walker. Soda. I was like, No, the pet soda last night. Should have brought coffee on here. [1:22] I'm trying to see if I can think of this. Hello. Tell me on the news this afternoon. Oh. We're talking about the scrambling aid. Oh, ok. Yeah, that was a fun little day. Yeah to see you again. [1:43] Good to see you. I wonder if it's related to Bolston. Exactly. [1:48] I know that guy. No, it's, you can say that because as we were walking up here in one of our police officers said, Do you have a son who wants a cabin on Boston lake? Maybe? Who wants to know? I don't. Okay, good. [2:05] Well, Zach, thanks for coming back tonight. We appreciate it. We had a good discussion last night and a lot of folks, a lot of good things that folks thought of your your your interview and and what wanted to bring it back for round two is we can learn more about you and ultimately make this decision. It's a very important decision. [2:25] We, well, we were gonna set this up tomorrow informally, ok, tonight. We're just gonna ask not scripted questions, but folks can ask their questions and follow up and the scope will probably still go around so nobody jumps on their six questions all at once and dominates the. And we'll we'll just go around and and let folks so. [2:44] Make this a conversational kind of opportunity and we'll go about. 45 min 45 min. So I'm not going to start because I started last night and whoever would like to start, jump on in. Just clarifying question. Are we also going to have opportunities for candidates to ask us questions? Yes absolutely. Yes. When I say conversation, I hope this is the two way conversation. Perfect. Absolutely. Thank you for that clarification. Yes. [3:08] What's the jump in? I just remember Dell Alessandro. I'm not the only one that prepared obviously so I'm curious, but I'd love for you to articulate like what your management style is. What do you find gratifying about being the leader of a large group of people. [3:26] What taxes you, like give us a little bit of insight into like, you know, what you love about that and what you don't. Sure, I wanna say again you gave a nice introduction mayor, but I do want to thank you all for the privilege and opportunity to be back with you tonight and to be at this stage in the process. It's, it's very humbling and gratifying, so thank you. You know, I spoke a little. [3:45] Bit yesterday about the ICMA Code of ethics. And and for me that's really. You know, home base for me. I'm very serious about an ethical principled style of management, making sure that my staff understand that our role in our job is to bring thoughtful, well reasoned, well researched options before you, give you our perspective on what we think. [4:10] Think would would maybe be best, but understand it's not up for us to decide what's best. That's this council's role and responsibility. [4:18] We need to get out of your way to make those decisions and then work our full heart and energy into putting into effect and implementing to the best of our ability whatever decision that council has made. So that's, that's kind of the underlying foundational principle of my leadership. [4:34] I have really drawn a lot of source and inspiration from mantra that's commonly referred to as the Athenian oath. It was the oath of citizenship for people in ancient Greece. A lot of powerful stuff in there, but one of the things that really resonates with me is that. [4:54] That we will leave this city not only, not less but greater and more beautiful than we found it. I think I had mentioned yesterday, could we move the mountain a teaspoon at a time today? Sometimes that's that's all you can do. Sometimes it's bigger jumps than that, but really try to motivate the staff of. [5:12] What can we do today? How can we get things moving just a little bit further, a little bit farther, and, and leave things better than, than where we identify them today? In fact, I should tell you this, I give all of the council members when they start in our staff a challenge coin that says that on and just, you know, so they remember that and that. [5:32] To carry it on the hard days of what the world am I doing here? This, this is what it's about for us. [5:38] You know, you asked kinda, kind of what does it for me. I draw a lot of inspiration from, from the staff. I love to to get out and just see people feeling the pride of the work that they do at all levels of the organization. I love going out into the community and hearing what matters to folks. [5:58] How do they see themselves in the community? What do they see the community? Just love I mean I got into public service for that very reason. [6:08] What, what kind of can be drained sometimes? It's it's a necessary part of the job but I I hate when we have to tell people NO. I I love when we can find the yes if or the yes but the workarounds, the the compromises. Sometimes the answer is just NO and I I tell folks, you know. [6:28] So if if I'm out talking to you, that's probably because the answer is NO because staff can decide an issue at their level if they had the ability to. So that it's a necessary part of the job, but to be blunt, it sucks. You have to do that. [6:49] So you've talked a lot about your staff. Yeah. What would your electives say about you? If I called them, what would they say if I asked, you know, what are, what are his three good points and his three challenging challenges that he faces? What would they say? I think they tell you I lead through relationships. I really value, it's important. [7:09] I need to build relationships, to get to know people on a, a personal level, because I feel like if I understand people at that level, I understand what motivates them, I understand what frustrates and challenges them. [7:21] And then I can kind of play team psychologists if you will, and get people to get the best out of them and help them maybe work through issues that helps build trust. And I talked about that yesterday, progress mee moving at the speed of trust. So, so I think they tell you I'm very relational. I think they would tell. [7:41] Tell you, I'm I'm. Principled and ethical, but I'm always looking for the ways to find the solution to the problem that doesn't cross lines, it doesn't, you know, compromise our ethics, our values, anything like that, but I'm gonna work relentlessly and tirelessly to try to get to yes. [8:02] Nobody's gonna outwork me. There, there's certainly people who, you know, maybe have had longer careers or something, but nobody's gonna, gonna outwork me. I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to find a way to get to yes. I I also would would hope that they would tell you that I'm I'm deeply committed, you know, and. [8:22] Almost 18 years of local government experience now I've been in, in two cities and you know there's certainly been challenges along the way in the career, where maybe it would have been easier to say, you know, let's try something, look for an easier option, but I don't I don't look for easy. I look for. [8:38] Where do I find that alignment between what I like to do and the ability and the vision of, of the community to to match those things? And I don't back away from a challenge. I don't back away from hard times. That's not gonna send me running. You know what what the overtime, I do an annual review. [8:58] You with the council and what they. Identified for, a few, this was a few years back ago, but one of the things I identified was what we talked about a minute ago, not liking to tell people NO, maybe even, you know, conflict adverse. And I would tell you, I, I really took that seriously of, ok, I I need to get into the personality gym and make sure I work. [9:22] This issue and so I, started meeting with an executive coach who really helped me understand that the only difference between conflict and a problem is emotion. And if you just kind of suspend emotion and say, hey, we just got an issue, we gotta figure this out together. It makes it a lot less strenuous and different. [9:42] Difficult to deal with those things, but I, you know, I know that about myself and I know that's something I need to be on guard about and not make sure that I don't backslight on that. [9:52] Thanks. I'm interested yesterday when we left, you said one of the big reasons they're interested in Bloomington is because you want to do big things. Yeah. Bloomington is one of the places to do that. I mean I'm just gonna use world's Fair as an example. [10:08] Because it was big and public. There's literally a Minnesota, probably four cities who could do that and Bloomington is one of them. The piece that I'm interested in is yes, the big things are bright and flashy and they're fun, but what is your approach to the fundamentals? What is your approach to the small things? [10:29] In addition to that's a great question. For me there's, there's nothing too big, and things that maybe get defined as off the radar or smaller. Those are big deals to me because they matter to somebody. I, I want somebody, you know. [10:48] I envision the, the, the single mom with a few kids. She's got enough on her plate, you know, how, how is she gonna get to the kids to school in the morning and get to work on time and get the kids picked up and get them to the activities and pay all the bills and all that stuff. You know what she doesn't need to worry about? [11:05] Are the roads smooth and clear to get where she's going? Is there safety in the neighborhood? Are there, you know, and meaningful things for her kids to do and, you know, parks to play in, activities, cultural enrichment, things of that nature. I, I want to make sure that we build a community like your mission statement says where people. [11:25] Want to be. And, and to me that that isn't too small. That's the fundamental purpose of why I picked local government as a profession, you know, I told you I started in states and I didn't like the, the disconnect from the public. I didn't like that we just sent money off to, you know, some corner of the state. I regional government was a little clear. [11:45] Closer but still, I didn't like that. I I want to be in the community where I can know the people we're serving, where it can become very personal, make those relational connections, those emotional bonds, and help solve those problems so that that community, that life, that that world is a little bit better for somebody. I had. [12:05] The council members say something ones that really resonate with me and that's more better days for more kids and it's not just kids, it's everybody in that community, but I the big flashy stuff is fine and it's it's cool to to see that but. [12:20] I, I think progress happens in those everyday interactions with at at the neighborhood level, at the community level, and and that stuff really drives me. That's what gets me excited and gets me going every day. I can go next. So the city council. [12:40] Even prior to most of us being around the table has been really committed to the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion. And I would say over the past ten years, it's just become, we've been more committed, excuse me. Obviously it's become a. [12:57] Really, tough topic now, just politically, right? I guess it probably has been for a while, but extremely so now. And so I guess I'd be curious to know, you know, what do the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion mean to you? And, and it's specifically, you know, in that public service role and how. [13:17] Have you advanced. Strategies to really advance that DEI, whether it's in city operations and culture or in community. I think you have to be very, very intentional about it because if you're putting that back of mind, then you're gonna fall into what's maybe comfortable or familiar with you. [13:40] Or N to you. So some of the things that we have tried to do, and, and I would say our our journey is, is nowhere near complete and independence. We we still are looking for those opportunities in those ways, but. [13:56] E.g., we we for a long time historically had a citizens police academy. We have broadened that out now into a general citizens academy or opportunity, if you will. So folks can get into all facets of the organization and see how do the different departments work. [14:16] Who does what, but we're being very intentional about making sure that that academy is a reflection of the community. And if, if we're coming up short on something, then we're gonna be purposeful working through an elected official saying, hey. [14:32] These are the demographics of the community. Here's where we're at now. Who do you know? Who, who can help us, who would be good to fit in that spot? Because ultimately my goal and my hope is that that leads to, kind of like what I read about you council Member, where you served on citizens committees and you got more and more involved to the. [14:52] Point where you were ready to step into elected leadership. I want us to groom those next level of elected officials who start on those committees at that level, and if we're intentional about it, we can, we can get there. [15:06] We're, we're intentional about what we, what we've chosen to start to celebrate in the community. We just had our 3rd annual juneteenth celebration. I really love that we're giving a committee a set aside committee the ability to plan that and run it in the way that works for them. [15:26] And we are just providing the financial resources for them to plan the event in a way that. [15:32] Matters and is meaningful too and for them, you know, don't let city hall get in the way of that. Let the community who knows best plan that activity and let's provide the facilities and the financial resources for them to do that. Same thing our human relations commission has planned a pride walk and they're really good at planning it on the hottest most. [15:54] With some sort of rain like this, yeah. Yeah, they've got a really good knack for that. But we, we've been intentional about that and then opportunities where we have legislative authority at our level, you know, because. [16:06] Like you said, things are becoming more and more controversial. We see that play out at our state government level and certainly the national level, but at the independence level, we have changed our policy where spouses and domestic partners are eligible for benefits. We have passed a non discrimination ordinance. We passed it. [16:26] The conversion band therapy. These were all things that in working with our community, our citizens advisory committees we heard were real fears real needs that were keeping people from engaging in the community. And then the last thing I would mention to you is we overhauled our board and commission appointment process, the same thing I talked about the Citizens academy, but to be. [16:46] Very intentional and clear that we wanted board and commissions to have broad representation of the community as a whole and again that's been an evolution, a journey, but we are starting to see that turnover and that representation that was sorely missing before. [17:02] And have you, and over the past nine years received any kind of significant pushback from different parts of the community who maybe were against those things like I think specifically about like Juneteenth and pride? And if so, you know, how did you navigate that? [17:19] Let me use my best Minnesota. You betcha. Probably the example that sounds out most vividly to me was our our mayor at the time. [17:35] Made a very concerted effort to fly the pride flag at middy hall. And that was met with some community outcry which ultimately led to at that time a majority of council members passing a resolution that said, you know, here are the only flags that comply to. [17:55] Call the. American flag, the state flag, and the POW flag. How did we respond to that? The mayor has a balcony on her office at the time. She's like, nothing in the resolution says I can't lay that flag over my balcony and she stood round about and I said, go for it mayor. I'm you know I'm proud of her. I'm. [18:16] Very proud we have not received any pushback on some of those other initiatives. [18:23] I'm proud that our, a group that's called the Community of Concerns Citizens that plans the annual MLK day celebration. That event is growing in attendance year over year and and not just in the number of attendees but the number of a diversification of the age of attendees that are showing up at that event. [18:43] Why is rewarding to see that more and more people are plugging into these programs and I think they feel safer to come out and be a part of these things. [18:51] Bloomington's concerns citizen group is not got it so much. Sure Yep. Go ahead. [19:06] It's a quick question. True. What do you see as a city's financial Bloomington? City of Bloomington's financial risk in the future, if any, and what are you, what will you you do to mitigate that? Yeah. [19:23] But this has to be a very cautious and careful balancing act in my opinion. And and here's what I mean by that. You're, you're in a very strong financial position today, but if you're not very intentional and purposeful about that, those fortunes can change very quickly. You just saw just today that. [19:43] The consumer price index jumped another 2 % this month. [19:48] It is my belief though that the answer to that is not to always just treat your constituency as an ATM we've got to go raise more revenue. We have to start with the hard work of looking at city hall of what can we do? Are we being as efficient with our resources as we can, as innovative. [20:08] As we can, are there cost savings measures in a large metropolitan region like this? Are there regional efforts where we could collaborate and share services? We could be very, very certain that we are looking at every single opportunity to be wise stewards of those taxpayer dollars. [20:29] But I do believe, I do believe this community has demonstrated through things like three AAA credit bond ratings and through a plan over the next ten years to pay down 68 % of your debt and a 35 % reserve balance that you have been, you just have to continue to be Y stewards of the. [20:49] Those dollars, but make certain that continuing to put yourself in that position. [20:56] Isn't just exclusively answered of let's let's make adjustments to the level of taxation. To me that should be almost your measure of last resort. Thank you. We talk a lot about the relationships and things and how that helps you. [21:14] Coming from Missouri to Minnesota where I presume you don't have as many relationships, how would you go about building those in a way that could put you in a position to succeed? So this might, I apologize in advance, it maybe a little long winded, but I do wanna since we're kind of getting to know each other better. [21:33] I spent high school and graduated from high school in Port Dodgiowa, which is about 3 h south of here. My family would do weekend getaways up here, love getting blasted out of the metrodone by not love more NO beating up on the royals. That was not fun. [21:55] We would come up for church, youth group events ski at, you know, Welch village or afternoon alph. Stay at the country and in sweets in Bloomington. I was usually in the concussion protocol the next day when the rest of the group was at the malth of America. So I've always had kind of an affinity for this area and oddly enough, I didn. [22:14] College roommate from Apple Valley, so I'd come up here quite often to, you know, visit the college roommate in summer months. Since that time, I have a best friend who works for Wells Fargo and has settled in the area. Another friend who works across the street for mind staying oddly enough at Bell Bank and. [22:33] Was in the area. The timing was really weird. I got an email from Greg, before Memorial Day weekend when I was already coming up here for a weekend with my friends and to do a, a royal's twins game. You took two out of three, not cool. We, I told Greg, you know, this is. [22:55] Interesting. I'm gonna be up there. I'm gonna peek around and I'll let you know. And man, it, it really clicked with me. So I I read these recruitment materials and I saw myself reflected in like I talked yesterday, the challenges, the opportunities, the need. I I see. [23:16] Really devoted caring committed council members, your citizen survey scores indicate a community that is proud and happy. Certainly you don't take that for granted, you keep working on that. So I want to tell you all of that to say that I I'm not a stranger in a strange land. I don't pretend, you know, like I live here. [23:35] But it's not a, a foreign country to, to me. I'm probably gonna have to get a snowblower, which I swore off in those high school years, but we'll, we'll get back around to that. [23:47] I, I look for relationships at at all levels and all places. So things I think I see myself doing. Spending a lot of time with each of you, you are elected representatives of the 90000 people that call this place home. You can give me some of the quickest, fastest, best. [24:07] Until on this place. I know your thoughtful preparation for this involved community stakeholders connecting with the people that you identified and whose the input you valued enough that you wanted to have their feedback on this. Those are obviously people that are worth talking to. [24:24] I think cities kind of have some core partnerships, the school district, so I'd want to reach out to the superintendents to work with them, the, the chamber leadership, any any of the business community that you guys would identify, any neighborhood or religious leaders that are. [24:44] Are important voices and advocates in the community. So I'm gonna lean heavily in those early days on your wisdom of, of who I need to to connect to, but I'm gonna be. [24:55] Very intentional about spending time with people listening, you know, I don't see myself coming in here to impose a will or blow things up. I see myself of let's take something that's very strong and make it excellent. And again, at all levels from making sure. [25:13] You know, streets are cleared and smooth. Arks are safe and well maintained all the way up to. Let's compete for events on the world stage. So I I'm just going to make sure that I've sort of got that checklist of who do I need to spend time with and talk to and get their perspective and input and. [25:33] And just keep building my Rolax, not just of my network for those future relationships that I'll need to draw upon, but whose insight and wisdom is going to be essential to representing you well, leading the staff effectively and making sure the community gets the services that it deserves from, from this organization. [25:51] Okay, so everybody's had a chance to ask a question. Oh, you haven't. So my question I like to ask folks when I are applying. Yeah is what questions or or question did we not ask or that you hope we'd ask? [26:08] And and why, and then go ahead and answer that question for us. Yeah, what I'm not thrown platitudes, you asked a lot of thoughtful questions yesterday. Here, here's probably something that I I walked away hoping that I would have had a chance to talk a little bit about though, and and that's my. [26:28] My experience with hospitality and tourism industry. I I know that is one of the top three revenue streams to the city. It's very evident in just driving around, you can see the role that plays in the community. [26:42] I've been very fortunate in independence to get to work in that arena quite a bit, you know, that we have one of 13 presidential libraries in the communities have gotten a chance to work with the federal government and worked in this day and age preserve funding for that entity so that that can remain a vibrant effective part of. [27:01] Not just the community, but really the region. We are the jumping off place for the Westword trails. So I've gotten to work with the national Frontier Trails Museum Association to help that organization continue to evolve and remain relevant and attractive. We have a 5800. [27:21] Seat arena in our community. The anchor tenant for that is the Missouri Maverick, so hockey is not a foreign concept to me. So. [27:33] So I I worked well with that. Most recently something I'm really proud of is up until this past year, independence ran tourism as a city department, and, you know, it was not an indictment on, on our staff. They, they worked well, they worked hard, but it, we were not good at it. Cities in my. [27:53] Opinion aren't well positioned to exclusively run a tourism department. We're added a competitive disadvantage, a lot of issues like that, ok? So we in 1st step, and I think I talked about this yesterday I really believe in the power and importance of planning, make sure all those stakeholders get brought along in a, you know, meaningful digestible. [28:13] So we did a tourism master plan, which really identified opportunities, the weaknesses as well, and not surprisingly, that was one of the things that identified and over the past eight months. [28:27] We have set up and now officially launched visit independence, which is our own standalone nonprofit five oh 1C3 convention and visitors bureau for the city, Hired the executive director and pushed that vote offshore and, and it's going now. So I again would reiterate I know your proximity. [28:47] To downtown, your size and importance in the region, geographic location, them all. These are all important factors that make tourism so important too, to Bloomington. I just want you to know that's not a foreign concept or foreign notion to me. [29:03] Thank you for that. Yeah, just a quick time check. We have about 15 min left, and I apologize. I didn't realize we had that, but everybody's asked for an hour and now how would we give you an opportunity if you have any questions. Yeah. Yeah, that's fair. You know, here's. [29:18] I guess my questions fall into, into two categories. So when I, when I haven't been here at city hall, my wife and I have spent the better part of two days driving around your community, really having a chance to. [29:34] Visit with folks, start to really look deeper into the community. You know, what I would tell you is I, we, we are all in. We are very much interested desiring, chomping at the bit, I might say. [29:51] I, I can't tell you how excited and honored we would be to be a part of this. We started kind of this process, a year ago when I was finishing the efforts to get the general obligation bond that we talked about on the ballot, had a conversation with my wife and said, you know, if. [30:10] This bond is kind of a natural inflection point. I've got the city finances in a stable position like I said out to do. We've done the 1st charter review in 40 years and got a charter amendment passed. We've worked to rebuild trust in the organization, negotiated and settled all of. [30:30] The collective bargaining agreements with our seven public employee bargaining units. [30:35] Regardless of how this bond turns out, this is an opportunity for us to take a chance to think about what comes next. And when when Bloomington presented itself, it really seemed like the answer to that thought that we had been having about what might be that next opportunity. If this. [30:55] It's decided that it's not the right opportunity. I say it very respectfully. It won't be me making that decision because I'm all in. So my my two questions really fall into one category of, is there anything before I walk out that door tonight that would leave you wondering, you know, or or hesitant? And number two, I have problem. [31:14] Probably three or four questions of things that would help me start to get my head in the right space. [31:20] To start planning to, to lead this organization. So maybe I'll start with the, you know, is there anything else that I have not answered? Any concerns that I could clarify so I know I left everything on the field, so to speak? There's one there's one idea I had that I. [31:40] And I wrote down as, you know, it would be very interesting just to hear what you had to say about it. And if you spent time here and everything, I feel more comfortable putting you on the spot with this one as opposed to before so I'm glad to hear that. Give us your elevator pitch for Bloomington. In 30 s, you know, tell us why. [32:00] Bloomington is a 1st ring suburb, but Minneapolis, you can get all the big city amenities without having to be downtown and all of the noise and cacafony and maybe diminished quality of life issues that come with being urban living dweller. You've got rich culture, commitment to the art. [32:19] You're launching a quality creative placemaking plan tomorrow night that I wish I could stick around for. You're very intentional about the goals of this community. The vision, there seems to be pretty good alignment among the council about what the vision is here. The residents are very proud of this community as reflected in your citizens. [32:39] Satisfaction survey, you, you've got all of the amenities that somebody is going to look for, to either call this place home or to locate their business here. [32:53] Appreciate you. And I appreciate you didn't hesitate. Yep. Anybody else with a question to his answer question? Yeah, the only thing I had on my list was the diversity question and the other question was around environmental sustainability. Yeah. [33:11] And talk a little bit about that. Would love to. Thank you for the chance on that. So, couple of things and independence we own and operate three different public utilities. [33:22] Our water one has probably historically been best positioned. We're very fortunate now I'm not gonna try to compete with your water. Very fortunate natural aqua for our water from the Missouri river. So very low environmental impact to treat that water and. [33:42] And and and produce that for the community. So that that's been top notched. Our, when I got to the city, our storm water and sanitary sewer system were a combined system, which on a night like this was chaos because obviously the plant couldn't handle what was coming in and you bypassed into the Missouri River and. [34:02] And the Department of natural Resources did not like that. So we did a $70 million capital plan to segregate that system and you know much more and sustainable and environmental friendly than what we were before. And on our electric utility, when I got there, the city was operating. [34:22] Two coal fired power plants. During my time we decommissioned one of those coal plants. 2nd one phased from coal to natural gas, and then most recently we've actually shut that plant down. We've got six combustion turbones. We're having conversations about what the future of that looks like. Those are diesel fueled. [34:42] But right now we are purchasing most of our power off the grid. We're in this huge consortium called the Southwest power pool. Our power's coming from all over. But where we're making our investments mostly now, we've started two community solar farms. They're still small, they're about 11 mW, but it's, it's a start. We're buying a. [35:02] Tremendous amount of power out of Kansas from a bin farm out there, but really evolving that model of how the electric utility operates to become more friendly, reduce the overall carbon footprint of that. [35:18] I'll be very honest with you. I told you, you have to follow the will of the council, that's it's their decision. When when I was 1st hired, we had a council that passed a resolution with a very ambitious agenda to be the the greenest city in america. And we started putting in electric car chargers across town. We went. [35:38] To an all electric vehicle fleet, started doing some energy efficiency upgrades to some of our antiquated city facilities. [35:48] Some that leadership's turned over now and that is not necessarily as front of mind as it was, but where we can still kind of make that business case, maybe if it's not leading with the environmental conversation, we're still making some of those changes that are more environmentally sustainable. So those are a few questions. [36:07] Quick examples of some of the areas where we we've tried to affect really greatly. Thanks for that whole project. Yeah. And just real very quickly, our regional council is still leading on this issue. They've got the climate action KC playbook that we've adopted, you know, and are working to affect as many of the changes in that playbook at the. [36:27] Regional level that we can contribute to. This is totally out of, we're converging about right now. But how would you approach the, for lack of better words, to marginalize. [36:45] Population that don't fall into, into the fault of all the the plans the city has in mind. You know, there's always a group of people that don't see eye to eye with what is planned, right? So how would you approach them having, you know, them not large number of people but still. [37:05] The minority, how would you converse with them and try to coerce him or or convince them that the plans the city has are for the overall benefit including theirs? [37:20] How would you approach that? You know, knowing that they're not, they don't always take all the information that is given to them in a positive manner. Yeah. For for me it's intentionality, it's. [37:36] Who have we engaged? I think one thing I've noticed that you guys do very well is being intentional about meeting people where they're at. E.g., the budget process, you know, having these tables set up at community events and asking people for their feedback. But as I mentioned earlier, some people are just trying to get by day to day and they don't necessarily have the time to go to the. [37:55] Community events. What I have found works when I say being intentional is identifying leaders in different communities who are underrepresented. And building, we talked earlier about getting, you know, a network and build finding those individuals and building a personal relationship and a trust with them. [38:15] And so that then I could take fill in the blank plan or conversation that's being discussed at the council level and say, here's something that the council is discussing. [38:25] We really haven't heard from your community on this. Can you help me get some feedback on it? Is there, is there a place that I could come and and meet folks? Could you make an introduction? Do you want to take it and present that to them and bring the feedback back to me? What would be most meaningful and most effective? [38:45] So we can get. Feedback from a group whose voice and perspective and insight isn't being reflected in whatever topic. You just, you have to be intentional about it. You have to make sure that you're going out of your way to not overlook or forget somebody or some group or some part of critical to a successful is to building trust. [39:07] When you need those on the hard days, that community's got to remember that I trust that person. And if they're telling me this is happening, they've gone out of their way to build trust with me. One other area that I don't think we've talked about, but as a priority for the community is housing. Right, can you talk a little bit to what you've done there and your. [39:27] Thoughts yeah. So independence, we are, we are kind of, you could run the line right down the middle and separate east independence and west independence. East independence is kind of the newer growth area in my presentation yesterday. Recently we adopted a. [39:49] Two things, update to our comprehensive development plan which hadn't been touched in 25 years and a new housing development strategy that identified gaps in the, in the marketplace. That has allowed us to go to the regional Kansas City Home Builders Association and shop that around and show them what our need is, and then through. [40:09] To them start to identify developers who could help fill that gap, and so we have seen last few years 1200 new class A market rate apartments, but also putting some restrictions on there about how many of those units have to be affordable. [40:26] Now, this last session, the Missouri Legislator decided that wasn't a good idea and they have cut our ability to do that, but we grandfathered the previous ones in, so I'm proud that we do have some of that reflected in there. On the western side, that is the. [40:43] Older original part of town, that's where a lot of housing popped up post war as well. So couple of things that we have done to try to stabilize and reinvest in those neighborhoods. We're using a substantial portion of our community development block grant funds to focus on minor home repair. [41:03] Or infill housing. We are not leading that effort. I again believe that there are some people are just better suited to lead an effort than city hall. So we have partnered with our local habitat free humanity organization. They are filtering the applications to see who's best qualified for those minor home repair grants, and then they are using those funds to strategically build new housing in some of those areas where. [41:26] We've just got a vacant lot cause a a house housing stock has been torn down. One of the recent things that we did that I'm really excited about. [41:34] This area of town that we call Inglewood was kind of your typical middle class 1950s neighborhood, and then over time this investment really fell off and, and slouched off. A group of artists have come in over the last few years and got a designated arts district for that area. [41:54] Now they're starting to work the next phase of their plan, which is to bring density back by creating what they're calling artist housing. So we created a special zoning district that's allowing people to do cottage style housing, you know, there's lots of names, accessory dwelling units, et cetera, but. [42:14] They can put these on lots, you know, that were probably typically just residential single family residents and put four, three or four of those on a single lot. It's working wonders. So for me, it's. [42:27] Be open to a diversity of ideas because the market more so than ever has a diversity of demands and you know there's not a one size fits all answer for the community. Let's work to see what parts of the community are open to different ideas and then match that with. [42:43] What's, you know, acceptable and feasible in those areas. Alright folks, we are at time. Zach, thank you very much. Thank you Mayor. Thank you for coming back this evening. Thanks for spending a couple of days in our city. It's been a pleasure to get to know you and I hope. [43:02] And I I hope you you got a good view of what the city is and understand it a little bit more and I hope you understand and and know Zach a little bit better and you can help form our decisions, so thank you so very much from the from the bottom of my heart, I appreciate your hospitality. Community has been wonderful to my wife and I. [43:21] My wife and a daughter previously again Bizarrelie had a trip planned for for next week to the Mall of America, so they might be here house shopping or you might get an eleven year old mean mug, I don't know. But I I have been, I've been treated very well. I'm very appreciative and best of luck in. [43:40] Your. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you council member. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. [43:49] Thank you council member. Thank you. Good stuff. Sorry. Thank you, council member. Thank you so much. Have a good evening. [44:14] Very Minnesota. Oh yes. See Greg. [44:32] Kind of wet right now. My android. No, you were smart account. [44:43] Oh, ok. I had the same, basically the same question but he called everything. Yeah. Oh, this is an all child guy. Oh, it is, yeah. [44:57] Let's see here This is really a nice room. Nice dream you said? For a conference ok it is raining. I mean, it's just kind of a. [45:17] My tree isn't real. I don't know if you noticed that, but I do think it's funny that we have like a fake. Alright, I gotta take some points off of that. Two trees, two. No I just I just feel like it's more airy and light kind of comes in here in a way that I think the the artworth though with like a stadium. [45:36] There, yeah. That's Baltimore. That's the mall. We should know we should build the airport. That was before Ikea, that's why. Hey doesn't have the north to south roundway yet. The. [45:55] I wish you build a stadium over there. We should. As soon as everybody's back, I wanted one thing I want to cover before our next interview should only take just a minute. [46:18] It's a little man. Yeah, it's just like the hageroom, it always felt dark and I was bigger. I like this bigger. I thought this one was dark cause all these lights were turned up. I was like really tired yesterday. It was dark yesterday, that's one thing, you know, it normally it's light in here, yeah. So I don't know. [46:36] Just one of our I think it's one of our nicer conference rooms so when I was in rotary, we had a, I was or I was applying for a rotary scholarship, they used to always use the Osborne. Oh, big, it's like there's a replica in in Germany of it, but because I'm gonna. [46:56] Sorry, great. That's ok. It's rainbows. What you can't pass it through rainbows. [47:03] All right. So after we start our next interview, I just I kind of want to pose a question to the council. City Hall yesterday here received a voicemail from a former council member for Zach, left a voicemail message, wanted to just pass along former council member from independent. [47:24] Wanted to pass along their thoughts about Zach and wanted to see if you felt it was appropriate to hear that, to play that, one, I think that should just be your decision or I also didn't want to make the decision not to let you hear that and we just go without it. So personally, I would like to hear it. [47:42] And I will say that I've also heard from local people with regards to cathy too, so I don't I don't think it My question on timing would be, is that the kind of thing that we would do in terms of like a reference checked post? Oh, we absolutely would do that anyway, but since it. [48:02] It happened unsolicited, we have this message and I want you to decide whether you want to hear it and consider it? [48:09] Or not. I guess my concern about doing that is do we have something equal for Kathy and then also what were the circumstances behind that person leaving the, that the council? So was it good? Was it bad, was it you know indifferent? I we just don't, so I just I get the concern. [48:28] But that might. Unduly influenced one way or the other and there's NO corresponding yeah that's my concern. Yeah, it's a positive. Okay. It's a positive voicemail and and I think the only counter to that would be what council member Nelson said that he had received some unsolicited feedback. [48:50] From people about Kathy so then what I would say is if we're gonna allow something positive about him. [48:57] To, to be fair, I also want to hear something positive about Kathy because I just I I don't want to have that imbalance and I just I guess my question would be in normal course of things in the city manager interview process, would you even solicit a city council members. [49:14] Opinion? No, and this was unsolicited. I know, but I'm not I'm not that's not a critique of you Greg. My question is, do we care about what other city council members think? That's what I'm trying to say. Like, like that's different than asking about like the profession of the job and asking inner like the the people that will ask for references will not. [49:34] Be city council elected officials is my point. Yeah, so we do reference checks at the end once you've identified the person you're interested in if they're not your employee, and we would solicit references from his current elected officials but not past elected officials. Okay, you would. We would. Okay absolutely cause that's who he reports to. Right, ok. Hundred percent. And I'll say I I've tried. [49:56] Talk too. Half a dozen or more people who have had comments about different candidates, and I've had the conversation with them. I've listened to them and thanked them for their input. Yeah. And that's about the extent of it. But there are people that I know and people that I, you know, trust their judgment and understand what they're calling, why they're calling, they've made a connection. I made. [50:18] It's big deal to get this job. Everybody's gonna want their person, right? Exactly. Yeah, absolutely. There's nothing wrong with that, and I only exactly, there's nothing wrong with it. And I only say that because. [50:28] I, you know, somebody called me unsolicited without knowing who that person was, you know, you take it with a huge grain of salt because you don't, you just don't know that person. Right. That's unlike the, the half dozen people that I did talk to who I knew very well. So, and if the call was made to me, honestly I would have just kept it in my pocket because it was for me, but the call was made decision. [50:49] Yeah, here. The message was left here, so I think, you know, you just need to decide what you want to do with that because all I all I really cared about was knowing whether or not it is generally positive or not. Like I don't need to hear it but I'm also fine hearing it if everybody else wants to hear it, but it that was the piece of information that I would need anyway. Will we have access. [51:08] So otherwise, if you wouldn't mention it. I don't, that's a good question. So the message was forwarded to me from one of your staff. I don't know what else would have been done with that. I think they didn't, they weren't sure what to do with it. So they asked me to raise the issue. I'm comfortable not hearing it to be honest. I'm comfortable not hearing it. Okay. Same. Yeah. [51:34] Oh, I just I I agreed. I just generally wanted to know if it was positive or negative and I mean to your point, like we don't know the person or you know the circumstances or, you know, so. [51:44] Yep. And and honestly I would say the same thing if it was bad. Yeah. You know, if it was less than positive, I wouldn't want to hear it because I don't know the person and I don't, there's NO context around it. Yeah. Okay, that's all we need to do and. [52:01] We have still about 5 min left before to start on the next candidate addition to the interview process to have. [52:19] Candidates that are all the candidates just had their people call in and call in, right? You know, just, you know, the interesting data point would be interesting, you know, like I said, I've talked to a bunch of people who've had something to say, but I think. [52:35] Three of the 4th candidates have had people call. Okay, I was gonna be locked out again. Very much. But you use your network for sure we're doing right now. I mean I do it all the time. [52:55] That's exactly my job exactly that way. The last few times I got a job. Yep, that's exactly right. Yeah that worked out well. I was on track and sticked in the face. One more thing. [53:15] I feel like it's every hour on the hour? Way team. Good for you. Make it go through what it was you're doing. I'm like, come on now. [53:36] And we can ask different questions this time. Yeah. Same question every Can be fair a different it's a different format though. [53:54] Yeah, Yeah, I think that's good cause my question would make NO sense. Where she came to that computer say next. [54:16] It might have worked fine. [54:41] Videos. Very good. I'm officially welcoming you. Thank you. Have you made it make it through the rain? I did. I saw a pencil member in make the run from this truck, and I was like, I have some time. I'll get a little bit longer, so it lightened up as I as I went through. [55:02] Although, council member Loman, did you make it across the street? I did. Yeah I made it just before I'm like, I should leave right now, I don't know what the instinct was. I can't feel the the pellet's dropping on me and I just made it just in time. I could see it as I was driving I was like I'm not gonna beat that. I'm not gonna beat that. [55:21] Right. Wait just a moment for council member Dallassandro to return. Absolutely. Way too much information about where she was having. Oh, ok. I can imagine. Oh. [55:39] Yeah. I was looking at that class. Yeah. [55:56] Okay, that's ok. All right. Yeah, welcome back. Thank you. Very glad to have you back here and to continue this conversation. The way we have it set up, we've got about 45 min. [56:16] To talk to you. Much more informal this time. Okay. We're not, we don't have set questions. We're, we're gonna bounce around, we're gonna let folks ask questions and then what we'll do is once everybody's asked a question, then it gets to be your turn or you can ask us questions from there. Okay. And we'll be done here in 45 min and. [56:34] Then we'll start our conversation. Okay, there we go. Sounds good. All right. And I started last night, so I'm not gonna start tonight. Okay, so wants to jump in? Like long I shouldn't. [56:50] Fair enough. Alright, great to see you again. So, you know, I I think I think operationally we've we have because we have a s a bit of information about that's your style and things of that nature. What I, what I feel like I'm very interested in having you talk about is. [57:10] What your, what your vision for Bloomington is. So if you, if you had an opportunity, and it doesn't have to be based on what we've already got in place necessarily, but if you had an opportunity to, to share what you thought would be the best way for. [57:28] Knowing the resources that we have and everything for you to, to kind of move us over the next ten years, what would be your top ideas? Ten years. It could be 30 if you wanted five, whatever five. Okay, whatever, whatever you like in terms of vision. I appreciate this. I think, I think about this in a couple of different. [57:48] Ways, so I think about it in terms of. Things that I believe that we need to focus on, as a city to continue to progress and to continu continue to move the city forward. And then I also think about, what does technology look like in the next 5101530 years. And so. [58:12] Well I'll start with the the practical of, actually I don't know which one of those is practical, but I'll start with some of the things that I mentioned yesterday, which is we have to figure out what a stable workforce looks like especially as changes come our way from all different places global, local. [58:33] You know, was sitting today and having a conversation with, someone who is a part of the business that's thinking about NO longer having a presence here in the city of Bloomington and some of the reasons about what they were looking for spoke to help. [58:52] People get their work done and how they get it done differently today and how they want to get it done. And that may not mean having a seat in the space that we're in. So what does that mean for us? What does that mean for our tax space? What does that mean for, what fuel city services to make us move forward and how do we adapt so that we can keep drawing them in? So. [59:13] Thinking about how technology is making work different, but how we lean into that technology because government could be very slow to lean into technology, so what does that look like for us to lean into that technology in order to. [59:28] Still be enticing for a community to have workplaces and workforces and what that, you know, leaning into what that traded sector is and making sure that, you know, we are still a a hub, even if that work. [59:44] Isn't being done or sold here, but it's benefiting our community so that we can move forward. So I think about technology and how technology plays a role in, in how we're gonna work differently and we have to find ways to keep up with that and that's a challenge I think for government agencies. We don't always have the fun. [1:00:04] Ways to do so. I also think about. Stable workforce internally. What does that look like? You know, as we hear from our community, we continue to hear that can't keep raising taxes. So if we can't keep racing taxes and adding funds to the base of how we get our programming done, what does our programming look like? What do the resources look like? How. [1:00:28] Do we adjust as we move forward? We have to make some decisions, I believe in the next, in the short term to help us think about how we are going to be here in the long term. We are very. [1:00:42] We treat our employees well here and we need to think about how we continue to treat our employees well, but we may have to adapt what that looks like as we think about it, the stability of what we do here in the long term. Housing again is huge. If we don't have people who are in our community. [1:01:02] To benefit from the amazing spaces that we have here, then, then, then what are we doing? So we have to make sure that people want to stay here, that they want to live here, and we hear different reasons about why people love being here and why they want to raise children here or why they want to grow old here, and we hear different reasons about why people feel like they need to move out of here. And so for whatever those different. [1:01:22] Reasons are if it's affordability, we need to figure out how we fit and how we can be more affordable, and it's not only affordable apartments. It's aff affordable single family homes. It's a thinking outside the box of what a home looks like. And I, you know, I think we're doing that and I think we have to start acting on that in ways that will come to prove. [1:01:42] In the next five to ten years. And again, financial stability and debt management. I think this is huge. I think we continue to watch what debt management looks like and how much debt we can take on as a, as a city, as a whole and what kind of risks that we could take as we continue to figure that out. There's a lot of different options still to lean into when it. [1:02:05] Comes to financing the work that we wanna do. And so we need to be as creative as possible, but we also need to look to the private sector for private and public partnerships, and I think there's more of that that can be done in the city as we figure out how to be, more innovative as we move forward. And then. [1:02:27] Finally it's. It's continuing to shape, and bend and fit into, the expectations of our community and what people want from us as a workforce and investing in the people who do the amazing work that they do on a day to day basis. [1:02:46] Thanks, yeah. I'll jump in, yeah, i'll jump in. So just looking over your resume, this would be the 1st time that there's NO assistant or deputy in front of your title. [1:03:03] And you would be the captain of the ship leading Bloomington into the future. What is your stop, start continue making this jump and transition? Can you say a little bit more and explain a little bit more what you mean by stop, start continue? [1:03:19] It's, you're gonna have different roles, different responsibilities, different things that you're gonna be accountable for that is different from an assistant city manager, from a deputy county manager. What are the things that you've recognized that you're gonna have to let go willingly or not? [1:03:35] That you necessarily have to pick up and the things that you, whether it's the core value or whatever it is that you cannot let go that you must continue to do. Those are the things I'm interested in. Okay. Well core values drive me, and so I always at the center of who I am is integrity and respect. [1:03:55] And those are. Basic. I start there and I have expectations and everybody else is there with me. I think my entire life feels like I have been in a position where I'm either pushed or thrown or step into what do we call it? Stretch goals. [1:04:16] Like spaces where I haven't been before and I excel. I excel because I'm competitive and I don't like to fail, and, I don't say yes to things that I don't think. [1:04:28] Like I say yes to things that I know I can accomplish as I move forward. I have it starts all the way back into college, where I was a resident and in the dorms and my second year in, they're like, we need you to be a CA cause somebody quit, and you seem like a good person to do it. I have NO idea what that means and. [1:04:49] All I know is my dad said, it costs you're, you're gonna save us on food and we don't have to pay for your room and you don't have to pay for that. I was like, sorry, sounds great. So, and it moved into the next position and the next position. And what I found is I have colleagues, right? When I'm in these positions and I have to. [1:05:08] Find that space where there's now boundaries where I'm now in that leadership position I then have to have a different mindset. But that level of respect and that level of integrity stays the same. [1:05:20] I do recognize that in this position, the model that's been created is a good model and I would love to keep that model, which is the city manager and two deputy city managers. And for me, that is giving up, a connection to leaders here that I hold dear. And so there is. [1:05:40] Need to step back and allow someone else to come into that space and allow someone else to build those relationships and continue to move things on. I do delegate just fine. I have NO problem with delegation and with ensuring that this part isn't my role, this is somebody else's role. In. [1:06:00] That I coach others to be able to take a look at situations and understand when is it your turn to step in and when do you step back and help help other people solve the problem and you're there as somebody to help guide and to help move mo move things forward. That's actually something that I've been doing here for the last year. [1:06:21] U. There's been a lot I think what I feel has happened in the past, a lot of reliance on that one role to make decisions, and this past year has been building up people's abilities to make decisions at multiple levels and to work together and to problem solve and only come to me when they're stuck and truly stuck after they've already tried to work. [1:06:41] Look through something. When you create a space where you don't allow for that partnership to happen, bottleneck happens, things don't get done, you can't sign things, you're not innovative, you don't have time to vision. And I think that's what we need in this, in the city is somebody who can be in the space to be more strategic and to be more. [1:07:01] Visionary and to be out there and making those connections in those spaces. So for me, I I I find. [1:07:10] An opportunity here that I've been in before while not in that top top position, but have been pushed into positions where, I have to make multiple decisions for thousands of people and and have to make sure that I'm communicating. At the same time, nobody does anything. [1:07:30] Alone. No job does anything alone. I don't know who does stuff on their own without connecting with anybody else. There are all of you who sit here in these spaces. You play a role in the ability of the city manager to excel and to succeed. There's and then there's the top leadership team. [1:07:50] And that's how I work in a collaborative way. I, I work in a way that allows me to go into spaces with ideas, but allows those ideas to either come from somewhere else together as a group. I also know at the end of the day somebody has to make a decision and I'm absolutely capable of that and I do it and. [1:08:10] I'm excited for the opportunity. Thank you. So on a kind of similar note, what would you say is the kind of ideal role of a city manager, kind of the like the things that I guess maybe another way to put it is like, what would be kind of the top five priorities? [1:08:29] That you would have coming into this position, and how do your specific strengths and leadership skills, make you the best person to do those things? Yeah. [1:08:48] I always love the multifaceterated questions and trying to figure out if I'll remember how to answer all of them. I, because I'm here, I I know some of the things that we need. We, we need to continue to refine how we budget in this space. So that's the top priority for me. [1:09:08] If we want to get to a space as a city to not consistently have double digit levies year after year after year, we have to think differently about how we do a budging process and we are and part of what. [1:09:21] My leadership has been a part of this last year as the priority based budgeting, and you all have been a part of that, and it's very intentional to get us to think about how to do this differently because we can't keep adding things on top of each other and putting that on the community to continue to, to, to pay for it. We just can't keep doing that. And. [1:09:41] And and so being more, working on the budget and changing a model, being more transparent both internally, and externally, so not, not only about budget, but just communication in general, still needs improvement in this space. And so that. [1:10:01] That is a, is a top priority for me. Working with all of you and working with a council and ensuring that the, that the city council feels like a group and I don't wanna go as far as a team and you all get to define that on your own, but that it's something that we do together as we move work forward because if I'm in a spot and I'm working to. [1:10:25] Lead an organization and operations that you're in a spot that you're not working together and you're not jelling to get these ideas forward, we're going like this and one group's going in this direction and another group is going in another direction. And so working with all of you to continue to understand, what works well for you, what your styles are, how. [1:10:45] How you wanna lead in the city as elected officials and bringing those pieces more closely aligned with operation and policy making is also a priority as they move forward. [1:11:02] I think staff as a whole are continuing to, and this process is a part of it, they're continuing to feel uncertainty of what does it mean for us to work here at the at the city of Bloomington? [1:11:17] And so working to help, create balance for staff, and a short, you know, these are the more short term priorities as I'm moving forward but will help us in the long run. If people feel like this is where I wanna be, job that I wanna do, I feel supported. [1:11:37] They're going to, they're gonna do better work cause they're gonna want to be here. They want to keep moving forward. So helping to kind of bring that stability as we move forward. My strengths, I'm definitely a, I'm a flexible leader. I mean these are like all keywords that a lot of people use, but I start with people. I invest in people, I I spoke about coaching. I I think in the former life I was a sociologist, so I I get to know. [1:12:07] People to understand what makes you work, what makes you want to do the thing that you wanna do, and then I get to know groups and how groups work together and what makes those groups work. And I bring those things together and I utilize what I know and what I learn from those one on one connections and those group connections to help. [1:12:27] Form how we can get work done and, and move work forward. It's how I motivate. I love being able to help motivate people in, in situations. And I love taking opportunities like the one that we had last night where a group of people worked really hard on an item and it, it didn't work out for them. There are learnings in there. There I think. [1:12:47] That worked out that I can remind them about and help them learn from, ways in which it's not a failure. There's actually different avenues that we can take. There's different ways that we can work through this and we can actually build on this and there's some positives that actually were positives for other people in that space. So, I try to take situations and work with people and help them see what the opportunities are as well. And I I see that as a. [1:13:16] I have I have a, I don't know that this is a good thing. I just have a lot of capacity to lean into a lot of things and that gets me in trouble sometimes. That's the part of in part of your question of what do you have to let go of because I like to be a part of things. When you get into the positions where you're the leader and not the doer anymore, there's there's, you have to be able to. [1:13:38] Know when you can step back and when you need to allow other people to be that doer. So I'll I'll leave it at that. Thank you. Then I'll jump in here and I got that opportunity to to observe that you were talking to the staff yesterday and being positive. I want to give you the opportunity to respond to a couple of different items. Yesterday during your during the interview, you had raised an. [1:14:05] Example of where you allowed a community group to kind of gain or get into a circumstance or situation to elevate that group to a place where they could be able to participate in the process. And I wanted you to kind of talk a little bit more about the background and you know your authority, how how that worked and just because I think there's some confusion. [1:14:25] Fusion among, you know, you know among some of us here about that. And then the other one, you can respond to either or both of these things is just the process of seeking this position in terms of, you know, how you kind of came to a point where you kind of changed. [1:14:41] You know, you kind of changed and then you were interested in the position if you want to talk about that process and and kind of what that looked like and kind of walk through that if you Those are the two items I have? Okay, can you say a little bit more about what the confusion was about the, the the commission that I brought into the budget process? [1:15:01] I'm not gonna be able to do that while if anybody else wants to jump in, I'll jump in under. What I had heard that maybe other people did not hear exactly the same was that they, this community group had the right to approve the budget before it went to the council and they got elevated to the same level as the electeds. [1:15:24] And that may not have been accurate. I may have, so I think that was where some of the confusion was. Okay, I appreciate that. Thank you for explaining that and thanks for the questions. So Ransey County has a long history of community engagement of working through barriers that communities experience. [1:15:44] And, part of the, the goals and the asks of the county board and the then permission is for staff, leaders at all levels to work with community to bring them into be a part of processes. And so. [1:16:04] My role is to figure out how to do that in that space. And so the black community Commission is similar to the Bloomington tomorrow together group, groups that are brought together that raise their hand to be a part of community groups that are, want to work on some. [1:16:24] Something. I had the ability and the, the permission and the power to be able to bring them into the space to help be a part of the budget process. So, it's similar to here if you were to sit at a group with the sustainability commission or another commission and the two of you sit together to work through a process together. Ultimately, the, the. [1:16:49] The group that approved the budget is the county board. They're the ones who sign off. They're the ones. Does that help? Yeah. Okay. And then your other question is it ok if i answer both? Yeah, please up to you either way. So the process of seeking the position, and I appreciate this. I I've had this question asked of me a couple of times. You know, I think we all. [1:17:12] You're a little bit or maybe you all weren't, but I was a little bit taken back when I learned that the previous city manager was NO longer going to be the city manager. And cause I had just gotten here only six months before that. And so, you know, I thought about it and I'm like, I came here to be the the deputy city manager. So I came here to be. [1:17:32] We had a lot of discussions with our team. We had a lot of discussions with senior leadership, senior management, the executive management team, and there was a consensus that, things were hard and that I was doing a good job in my role and, and a big huge push for me to apply for this role. [1:17:53] Lots of conversations with people, leaders at all levels. Honestly it's a lot of pressure. There's a lot of people in this space who are are hoping for an outcome here and so I thought about it and I changed my mind based on the conversations that I had with key leaders in this space. And so that's. [1:18:13] That's basically, that's it. Thank you. Thank you for that. I wanted to give you the opportunity to. Yep. But you talked about how you develop relationships within the organization internally, how you develop people and all that. Can you talk a little bit about. [1:18:30] Your process and goals in terms of external relationships. Obviously the city manager is a key leadership position within the overall community at the state level, at the national level. How do you see that going? [1:18:46] Were you and what, how would you approach that? I appreciate that. Being in local government in the Metro area for 25 years, I actually started my career at the city of Newbriton as a, I worked at a driving range and picked up golf balls. I actually. [1:19:06] We had broke the Cushman and I didn't get to pick up the dolphballs anymore. It's a long time ago, and I think, I don't know who knows Tanya answered, but I think she was working at the time. Anyway, I have a lot of relationships. I make a lot of relationships I have a lot of connections. I have connections at the local level. I have connections in the governor's office. I. [1:19:26] You have connections with state representatives and with federal, you know, legislators, over time, you just you get to know a lot of people and it gets to be, we used to call it st. small and it's small Minnesota and it's, and it's continuing to make those connections and come back around and have conversations. I was having a conversation. [1:19:54] And today with, with our director of the port authority and we were talking about how sometimes conversations with business owners, you wonder is it is it gonna go anywhere? And especially if it's somebody who may not end up being here anymore. And one thing that I, I know to be true, and it's the same. [1:20:14] Name of like internal staff. I invest everything I can into somebody, whether they're gonna stay stay somewhere for three years or if they're gonna stay somewhere for eight years because you are going to meet them again. You're gonna connect with them again. This is a small world you are going to run into these people again. And so it's important to me to nurture those relationships. Sometimes it's a, it's a making a connection through a connection because I don't know everybody and so it's using the people around you in a positive way to make sure that, hey, I need to go get to know this person because. [1:20:47] Is this happening in this community, can you help me do that? Then other times it's me just going up and connecting with people in different spaces. But my 25 years, in, in this in these different cities and county, and then other people moving around, I just have a lot of connections. I, you know, my work with, social services in Ramsey County has me very connected to Hendipen county. So when commissioners. [1:21:17] Gatel calls and says, hey, I got a family up the street who needs a little assistance. Who can you connect with? I know the person who works with her on her end that I can call and say, hey, can you give me a little bit more information about this? Because our our you know public health nurses over here need to go make a visit. That makes this job a lot, a lot easier. [1:21:37] Here when you when you've been here this long and you've had these connections. So you talk about the connections on a community level and at state level and the government's office and so on. How much your connection with the electors that you worked for in in Ramsey County so what would they say about your years there and how would they evaluate you? And what would they say? Well, there's one thing that Cathy needs to work on, it's this. Yeah, I appreciate that. There is a video out there. [1:22:01] Have Kathy Haden day on July second, so you catch that. I got a prompt I got a proclamation and the towny board chair presented it to me. It is fun and it popped up apparently on people's emails or I don't know what popped up on, but I got about four or five messages on July second of this year and people were like happy Kathy Haden Day! [1:22:23] What are you talking about? I was like, Oh my gosh I forgot. I, I think they would tell you that I am very committed. I, that, you know, being in that agency for 23 years, I like to work, I like to work hard and I like to, if I believe in something, I'm I'm going to stick with it and I'm going to work. [1:22:42] To ensure that, that I'm a leader. I think you know one of one of the commissioners who now is at the met council will tell you that and she has said to me in the past, you know, the way that you invest in other people isn't done the it's not done that way by other people. And so. [1:23:01] So I think that investment lifting people up, ensuring that I put others 1st the and mission 1st before me in order for us to move those things forward. I think those are, those are some things you might hear from people. They might say I have a nice sense of humor, they might, you know, they might say in a couple other nice things, but. [1:23:22] Things to work on, I think, you know, one of them gave me advice of maybe you need to go work out city so that you have different opportunities to lead different areas and can grow in areas that you haven't, haven't worked in before. And so most I think the advice. [1:23:42] That I've gotten in the past is more about building of a well rounded background that allows me to have just more opportunities for goal and more opportunities to learn and to have more knowledge in different areas around local government. [1:23:59] Alright, I have an easy question for you. You already saw multiple departments at Ransay County, right? Police, fire, public health. How do you balance completing priorities between. [1:24:14] Departments in general I mean not specific departments, but yeah. I think it's a good question, you have to I rely on multiple people to balance those priorities. At one point, this is not, I don't recommend this, Nobody should. [1:24:34] I have 25 director parts. At one point I had 25 director parts. That's not ok. And I had to figure out how, what was gonna be up here, what's gonna be down here, who can actually manage on their own, and they don't they don't need as much of me as other people. And so for me, it's understanding what are the things that are, we have to get this done. There's a deadline. [1:24:55] There is, there's there's a grant tied to it, there's a timeline, so it depends. The priorities depend, but it also connected to our strategic plan and our strategic priorities. And so ensuring that the things that needed to get done, were getting done because. [1:25:14] If these are the things that we said that we were going to do as a system is also really important. But for me, it's also empowering others to be able to do their jobs and to lead and to remind people this is like you can actually do this. I had the person who replaced me actually just started last Monday. It took over a year to replace me. [1:25:34] That's just making, I guess I don't know, I don't know if that's good or bad. And, a wonderful human being and I wish him all the luck in the world and he'll do well. My executive who will now be supporting him just sent me a really kind note and just said, I just want to say thank you for how you empowered me to do my job and you helped me understand that I had more power than I thought I did to be able to do the work that I needed to do because that's gonna help me as I go to support this other person. And so. [1:26:08] Being able to ask for help and being ok with that is also really important. Nobody's a superhuman. Nobody can do all these jobs like I said by by themselves. That's important. It's also important to right size your work plans. So there's too much on your plate, too much on my plate, I have to be able to be in a space where I need. [1:26:28] To acknowledge that and we need to course correct if that's necessary, and that's ok. Like, and I think sometimes people need reminders of that because I think sometimes people feel like, NO, I have to get all these things done. No, we're not gonna get this done. We have deadlines. It's, like, well, ok, what's gonna happen if that deadline is three weeks from now versus today? How can we figure out how to manage this? [1:26:48] Differently, so some different ways I manage that. Thank you. Everybody's had a chance, right? That's ok. Do you have any questions of us? Find them. [1:27:10] Okay, I have a few and I mean we could get done early too, so I won't take all the time to ask these questions. What do you Have you known this group to get done? I know, I'm sorry. I guess even putting it into the knife. Let's see, what do you see as one big challenge and one big opportunity for. [1:27:38] For the person in the city manager role. [1:27:46] It's a lot easier to ask the question than just saying. Tables are turned. Well if you don't mind, I'll go, the th the immediate thing that came to my mind when, when you asked that question was. [1:28:05] What we we Bloomington is in a very specific spot and I and it's I think it's a little bit unique among the cities around us in the sense that there is so much growth potential here and also. [1:28:23] The there is, we're, we're well positioned in the sense of the diversity of our, our tax base and other things like that compared to other places. But I think that hand, that that's that kind of hangs by a thread a little bit and and especially given the volatility of the markets and the decision making at the federal level and other things like that, I think we have So I guess I guess the challenge I think we have is. [1:28:52] To be conservative small C conservative about the way that we approach continuing to drive to drive the investments we know we need to make because the city is behind on investing in the the the reality of of what the place needs to be over the next few years. So. [1:29:11] To me, that's an opportunity, right? It's positive, but there's a real challenged in that in my opinion. And so when I think about what the city manager that I'm looking for is needs to do is that is to have a a strong vision for how to shepherd us all through that process because that, that's not the. [1:29:34] That you won't be making the decision necessarily, the city manager wouldn't make the decision, but having an efficient and transparent process for shepherding us through that is, in my opinion critical. Thank you. Yep. Anyone else anyone else wanna try? Sure, yeah, what I would say. [1:29:54] Is that I think the opportunity I agree with you on that in terms of the the budget things of your renewal, that's an opportunity. And then the challenge I think it's really around staff stability, how, how we, how are we able to have a stable staff because there's you know there's a lot of resources that are in with that staff, you know, they go back to the budget if you gotta cut that so people stick around. So how do you kind of balance those two things? [1:30:19] And my piece is Bloomington has had three city managers over 30 years. There's certain expectations that come with that, and so how do you, how do you leave your own legacy, and. [1:30:39] Be who you are while living up to those expectations. And so I think there's, it's the challenge and opportunity all in what. I have ideas for that, that I can't talk about it here. I this is the recording part. I like that. I appreciate that. [1:30:57] Thank you. Okay, another question? I'll take them as a opportunity. [1:31:17] How, because of this position is your one hire, and you work to, do performance evaluations of this work, how do you see your role, around, guiding a city manager pro providing professional development opportunities? It's lonely at the top, right? So. [1:31:45] So it's this role's job to do that for everyone else. What is your expectation around your role for that type for investing in a city manager? [1:32:03] Okay. What's interesting because I Wayne and I were around when it had been literally a decade before the city managed since the city manager had a performance evaluation. Oh my goodness. Literally a deck. [1:32:20] And and to to move into that was he saw it as an incident so I think I mean I think the the whole the the council's role, any supervisory individuals or or group's role, yes, you do the yearly. [1:32:37] Performance evaluation, but if there's anything on in an evaluation that's a surprise you've done it wrong because the performance evaluation should happen basically every week. Every time you sit down with someone, there should be a performance evaluation, it should be opportunities for a discussion about. [1:32:52] What what what went well, what didn't go very well, how can we improved, and then opportunities for, I mean, professional development, which is enormous I think in any role. And I think in, in this role, I mean with ICMA, with any of the, the. [1:33:10] City organizations with, you know, just, just the interactions and the the collaboration with other city managers across the metro area, both formally and in and I think there, there are. [1:33:27] With plenty of opportunities and I think there are plenty of plenty of ways that we probably haven't thought of yet, I think that this person could say, Yeah, but what about this and it would make sense for the professional development as it not only result reflects on the individual. [1:33:44] But it's also on the how individual can serve. Thank you. Any others on that one? I mean, I would just say that it you know, I think that that professional development piece and feeling supported is just absolutely imperative. [1:34:02] And I think if the next city manager weren't taking time to, if we weren't having those conversations, if there wasn't that kind of initiative to continue to learn and grow, whether that be with other city managers or through professional development opportunities. [1:34:18] I mean I would find that concerning, but I don't, I mean I don't foresee that happening because I think exactly what you said, like there's just kind of like I think it's like continuous conversations and check ins and the performance review and things like that, so. [1:34:34] And I will say I think my expectation for this person is continued leadership roles in both the metro and the state and and I would say that not only of our appointed officials, I would say that of our elected officials also getting that one is opportunities. [1:34:54] I'm on the, you know, Minnesota city's climate Coalition steering committee. So, you know. I just, you know, and I think you have a position at the state as well. I just saying this side of the table is the tables fair eno. [1:35:14] If I could just add one more thing if you don't mind Kathy, the the other thing I would say is one of the challenges I think we have is that we only get together formally once a year to do that professional evaluation of you. The rest of the time we're talking largely one on one with each of you, right? We w we each are talking with you individually, right? And so what because other. [1:35:33] Otherwise we're gonna violate some. I would love it if we did them on a quarterly basis, but that's challenging, right? And, and I understand that. So, so the the big question I think I would say is one of the areas of opportunity that I I didn't have, I didn't see with our the previous city manager that I would. [1:35:52] Want to address in the going forward here with whoever the candidate is, is to say like when when we give you feedback, and you're getting something, I'd love to know what other people are giving you as feedback as well. And so to make sure that that there's a a chance for is something rising to the top because it's been, you've been hearing. [1:36:12] Get from a number of us, and if so, does that change the priority then that, you know, the, the city manager gives it because it's been heard or whatever as it relates to personal performance or other things like that. So, that's, that's just one area where we've got to navigate as the group of people, a little bit of a sticky wicket because we can't just sit down with you as a group and talk, you know? Yeah. Thank you. 5 min, if you Can you open it back up, see if anybody the lightning round here if that would be ok? Okay. [1:36:44] Anybody have? One one question I wanted to give you the opportunity to respond to is you know just in terms of qualifications at all in terms of you know if there are any things you wanted to talk about in terms of your qualifications of the position that we maybe we missed or any question that you know you wanted us to. [1:37:04] You know that we we we didn't ask if you had thought that we would ask it that way. Well, I'm happy to only have 5 min left always fun to answer questions. You know, I have of lots of years of service in local government. I have been in leadership roles for a very long time. [1:37:30] I, and I think that's, that's that's documented in what you have. I have I will I would love for interview processes to also include cohorts of people so that you can hear from other people how they experience me in spaces. [1:37:55] And, and perhaps you've done that and because I I do take my reputation seriously how I show up in spaces. I can be very informal a lot of the times, but I can be, very professional as well and, but I work really hard to ensure that other people can do amazing work and so I don't know that that kind of thing and helps. [1:38:22] People could talk about me, gets into a document, but I think that's important to share. I think I've been very clear that I am a people leader, and I think the city of Bloomington right now is a space that needs somebody who will be able to lead people both internally and externally as we continue to move forward as you. [1:38:42] All experience what we are all living through right now and consistent divisiveness, we have to keep pushing for connectedness and bringing people into a space. There are a lot of different ideas, a lot of different idealogies of people who work in this space, and yet we can still do really amazing work together and I think that's. [1:39:02] Something that I have the ability to do is to listen to people, see them for who they are, lift them up and help keep moving really good work forward. [1:39:14] I have one, so what would you say in reflecting on your last year in Bloomington? What are you most proud of? That's a good question. I'm really proud of the work that. [1:39:31] That everybody is doing. I'm I'm a quiet leader at times because what tends to happen is people sit down with me. What do you think of this? How are we going to do this? And it's even in areas where I don't have as much expertise as other spaces. People want to know my thoughts about how are we gonna get. [1:39:51] Through this, you know, we have a situation in a specific neighborhood where there's, you know, it's something with the infrastructure that is very serious that we need to work through. I don't have a lot of background in that, but what I have the ability to do is to sit and listen and to ask questions and sometimes being new and being able to ask those questions. [1:40:11] Questions helps other people to think about things differently and it helps us to solve problems differently. When I got here over a year ago where we were with both, with all three of the Bloomington Forward projects was a lot different than where we are now. The amount of meetings that I sat in on about how we're gonna get there, how we're gonna get. [1:40:31] Get to the end of this, how we're going to be able to build these buildings. It's a been a lot of work. And so for me, the, the amazing thing that I've seen in this last year is watching our work go from how are we gonna do this? Things are not feeling very good right now to I can do this. We are doing well. We have the ability to get things done. We have the trust. [1:41:00] I know I built trust in staff here. So for me, I am proud of my work with our teams to be able to get us from point A to I think we're maybe at point n, right now on, on some of these stuff. [1:41:19] I think that's the biggest thing I mean, it's been a learning year. We we did, you know, I think when, six months ago when started in the interim role, the conversation was, we're not gonna change a lot of things, we're just here to help keep things together and then like two weeks later, we're gonna do. [1:41:40] We're gonna get there. We have faith and all of you, we can do this. So it's not just sitting in a space and just seeing, seeing the things that you know can change and be done a little bit differently. It's actually, let's take a leap and and we're just gonna do this, we're gonna work together and we're gonna we're gonna get there and it's all gonna be ok. And so I'm all. [1:41:59] So proud of this last year of being able to have a vision for things and I am I'm the type of person that can see the basketball go in the bucket 2 s before everybody else and so I, I can see, I can see, a little bit further, a little bit faster, and so being able to act on that this past year has been, I've been proud of that. [1:42:22] I think we are at time. There we go. Very good. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for your time with us and, and great to learn more about you and make a little bit better and I hope you got to know us a little bit better now we go into our conversation what the next steps will be. Sounds good, and I think I'll. [1:42:40] View I know this process is hard. I also know your schedules and it's very hard to get all of you together so I appreciate you all for taking the time to be here and to leave us through this process and I look forward to whatever comes next. Very good. Thank you. [1:42:55] You guys formally takes with her NO but you know that's fine. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. I don't know which way I'll go. I was like this, go that way 1st. Yeah I'll go around for you. Thank you. Thank you. [1:43:15] Yeah. Thank you very much. Cheers. 2 min break. 2 min break. What's the restroom? [1:43:40] Almost. [1:44:15] Let's see it. [1:44:22] Yeah, we're opened to going to work conference tomorrow and Thursday so I will spend four days this week just sitting. Oh boy in listenings. [1:44:43] I'm like you. Okay. [1:44:52] Yeah, well the rain cool things off but it's 77 out. Oh, that's great. 15 degrees vat. Yeah, it was warm today. Yeah, down at 6068 overnight, 67 overnight. [1:45:20] And rain all day tomorrow, take it. Rain all day tomorrow? Yeah, it's all about noon, it looks like. Maybe not all day, maybe. Tomorrow. Tomorrow at 11:00. Rain is all early afternoon, it looks like. So we'll spend the most fun thing you've done in Bloomington since you got here. [1:45:36] Honestly, you know, people ask me all that all times where you get to travel all these really new places, but I really don't get the experience you fly in, you work, you go back to your hotel, you catch up on all the emails and things you have to do, and then you work again and you go home. [1:45:51] So that's been pretty much it. Have you gotten to lock around the mall? I did today because I missed the window to get either breakfast or lunch at the hotel so I was close enough, I just took an uber over there and City cafe. Yeah. And then walked the walked the mall a couple of the opster ground and get some stuff set. [1:46:11] Check it out. It's amazing the the walkers over there. We have a commutable I mean it's a massive community and it's funny also because there's like 13 caroboos in that building and they all open at 7aM. Even though the mall doesn't open till eleven. [1:46:29] And all the walkers, it's like west side story. All the walkers have their routes and they had their blues that they sit at and it's that's funny. Yeah, I I can see them there because they were walking all the four yeah and they walked right under there are NO stores following the walls right on the walls. Is this the wall? Yep, the MOA L n. [1:46:48] I was out there once and I saw somebody in a one of the motorized scooters doing the road and it's like yeah everything That's really not a thing. That's not really a thing. [1:47:06] I really like loves going. It's nice it's nice going on like a weekday. It's not busy though, like in the all the day today. That's when I go on like you know a Tuesday morning or something like almost always there. It's quiet, just like. [1:47:26] Plus I also I also know where the stores are. Yeah. You have to have a strategy where you go. Yep, you do. Like, like my family will come from iwond. They'll be like, I'm like, hey, what stores do you wanna go to? And they're like, I know, and I'm like, I'm gonna watch 20 mi today if you have the phone though, right? You find stuff that you don't think you. [1:47:45] You know you were gonna discover it. It's a journey. Do that but you want it's like if you want to go to these stores and we're gonna start here and we're gonna be like, well we can stop along the way, but it's like. So I didn't even leave the 1st floor I just did a couple. The 1st floor is the best. I'm sure it should come back. Actually the 4th floor is fun. I mean for like closed again. But it doesn't loop around. You kind of get you do. Yeah. And then you have to get down to the food f. [1:48:12] No, that's how they get you. I like the movie heater there. Yeah. I would never do that. What works best, do we hide around the table and give every 30 s. [1:48:35] Just to talk and then straveled or or what works best in this situation? I think that is a good approach, but I do want to frame, kind of set the table 1st, and I think this is one of those really classic times where you as a group, as a council are gonna have, you know, maybe starting off with some differences of opinion and we hopefully will come to a place where. [1:48:57] Where there's a consensus that everybody can support because whatever person that you select really deserves and needs the full support of the full council and I think that's super important anytime a decision like this is made, even if some of you initially might, might felt one way, the vast majority feels the other way, if everybody can come together and support the group's decision. [1:49:19] The outcomes better for everyone involved, so I just want to set the table with that and then I do think your approach is wise just to, you know, go around the table and let everybody have an opportunity to express some thoughts about the candidates so you can hear the thoughts of your colleagues and then we can take a straw poll and see where we're at. [1:49:37] So we're not really saying like this is the candidate I want. We're just saying like I think these are the kind of the strengths and weaknesses or I don't know if there's a a I don't I think either approach is ok. I didn't think it's perfectly ok for you to to talk about the candidates and maybe what the differentiators are and what where you're kind of feeling is the. [1:49:55] Choice you prefer that's ok. Perfectly fine. But I think it's important that all of you here from each other before we take that. Okay, it's 15 July. Who's got a birthday in July? He's got a birthday coming up? How about August? [1:50:12] 1 September., obviously both two great candidates and i'm glad we asked him both back. I was extremely impressed with Zach. He. [1:50:29] Again, obviously did the homework to know the community to answer directly he answered, I'd say almost every question in detail with stuff specific to Bloomington and his past. He did just a really good job of, of understanding that he did make the connection to what he has done, where he's. [1:50:49] That and I think for me, you know, the biggest question, he was the one that I had originally said, I'm questionable about even having him come in cause why? You know, he's got a good job in a good city there and he for me answered that question of the why, why, why he's looking to make that change. I think on the downside, you know, there's a clear advantage in for Kathy in terms of, you know, she's already got connections here. [1:51:17] She knows the city, she's got the support of staff, you know, he would have to develop all of that. So I think they're those are kind of the key differentiators. I mean, and Kathy always impresses. She's clearly a very good leader of people. She's, she's extremely. [1:51:37] I'm good with developing people and and not just in saying that today and before, but you can see it throughout the organization and all that. So, you know, I think for her, the downside is, you know, she came here not that long ago to be the assistant, and is this the right time to go for the. [1:52:01] Top job, at at this point. So those that's my feedback on both both of them kind of close and comms. Everything else in September? October? November? November what? She goes 1st. Yeah on the 8th. What are you? 16th. [1:52:22] Yeah. So, I also I'm just I'm really impressed with both candidates, great job. I I guess I'll start with Zach. I just I mean I think that he is overall impre very impressive. Great background, I think I said it yesterday. [1:52:40] The similarities between independence and Bloomington and just the kind of things that we have going for us and challenges and opportunities and the things that he has experienced there. I think there's a lot, there's nice synergy, and yeah, had a great interview. I think both interviews were really, really good, answered all the questions. [1:53:00] And, you know, agree with the downside, kind of like we talked about yesterday, just, you know, if he was coming into Bloomington and not only be like getting to know a lot of people in the community and key partners, stakeholders, legislators, but, you know, getting to know the staff and, and building trust with staff, which takes. [1:53:21] Quite a long time, for a new leader with so, and then with Kathy, I mean I think obviously Kathy did a really good job too. Very, very impressive. I've been impressed with her since she joined the city. [1:53:37] I really think that her strength in being a people leader is why we're, where we are today. You know, I think she's obviously built really strong relationships and trust, and respect across the city. And I, you know, I was really, once you know when Jamie resigned, I was really nervous. [1:53:57] About just like the progress we were gonna make on things and and we've just made so much more progress than I expected, on the things that we had planned but then also, you know, like Kathy brought up the priority based budgeting and her initiating that and, you know, so, so I think that those are some strengths I think some of the kind of questions I had coming into the conversation about Kathy were just. [1:54:24] You know, she has a very strong background in the county and human services, and I, so I think I had questions around just like kind of maybe the finance piece and the economic development piece because obviously Zach has some really, that's his, and that's where his strengths really are. But I do feel like today in her responses, and in the questions asked and what she said, I I don't those are. [1:54:51] Aren't concerns that would, I, I think she would make a great city manager. Like I don't I think that she'd be able to do that work very well because especially because she is the relationships and people person and she has a lot of those relationships, so I can say a lot more, but I'm gonna just stop talking. Yeah, I'm gonna keep it short too. [1:55:13] I want to start with Kathy. I I, I believe that she can do it, but that has been my beliefs on the beginning cause I had the opportunity to meet her and ask a lot of questions every time we had a one on one. A lot of questions that I wouldn't ask here. [1:55:32] On regards to hot topics, you know, I wanted to hear what she her opinion was in regards to those. So I do believe that she can do the job. In regards to Zack though I I I've been impressed I mean he has an unbelievable resume that and. [1:55:52] It didn't matter what kind of question you threw at him. He he had a response for it. And I'm also impressed with the fact that, you know, there are very few people that when they apply for a job, they know the place. [1:56:07] They know the entity and he was able to, to a certain degree even recite some of the stuff that I haven't memorized yet, ok? So that's pretty impressive so that's it. I'm not gonna get into much more so I don't. [1:56:27] Give up my choice, but he's quite impressive. Anybody else? So we're, we're not doing choices. We're just doing pros and cons of each. If you want. All right. Well, I'm gonna take it a little bit. [1:56:46] In a different tack here because I think, you know, if for all of you who were a part of this early on, you know, I didn't even want to do this in the 1st place because I thought we had person in place that could do this job. So the bar for me was maybe a little different than it was for you, which was I was looking for a candidate that would change that opinion. [1:57:10] It you know what what and in this particular interview I went through in my head, what could Zach tell me that would make me choose him over Kathy? Like I was, that's what I was listening for, looking for all your questions were great. The the Zach is an incredibly talented. [1:57:30] I think he would have been the perfect fit for Bloomington ten years ago. I think he's almost, he reminds me so much of Jamie it's not even funny, and I mean that in a very positive way. I don't mean that in a negative way at all. I don't, I don't know that I heard anything as it relates to staff engagement, organizational effectiveness, priority budgeting. [1:57:55] The network of people externally to work with and everything that that from him that would would change my mind about Kathy being our best choice. But I, so the question I would pose to all of you is it, is it the right time to, you know, given, given where we are, given the way where the city is, how much is in flight. [1:58:15] And, and everything what what we need for the next five years, assuming five to eight years is the right answer on those cases, you know, is it the right time to, to make what I would say is a fairly big adjustment? [1:58:32] To go from somebody who's, you know, not from the state, somebody with NO connections, somebody who has NO staff engagement, somebody who might want to, to frankly come in and change everything about it because, you know, the port authority is. [1:58:51] Not, you know, maybe that he's not, doesn't know anything about that. We didn't ask him any questions about the police department. I almo I wanted to I had that on my list, but I didn't get to come come around to me and I should have maybe prioritized it because we never talked about his relationship with his police department. There's just a lot so I guess the the short answer there is. [1:59:11] Was to be blunt about it. I was, I was so impressed with him and I think he's a wonderful wonderful candidate I am like of all the people that we could have found Greg just top notch and highly, highly impressed. And I. [1:59:26] But I, I can't I can't come up with anything I heard in the last two days that make me want to change my opinion about being frankly team Kathy from the get go. So my position hasn't changed. Thank you. Anybody else in December? January? [1:59:42] February? It's me, go ahead. So I guess, you know, kind of having having been through this, you know, this is kind of my second time and the the question that I I I always ask myself is, ok. [1:59:59] What, you know, what does the city need from a long term perspective and you know just you know try to treat both Candidates equally and I, I thought both Candidates did a phenomenal job to do this and you know, you know, obviously, you know, one has kind of already built that relationship, you know, with and so from a. [2:00:19] You know, I I I wrote down here's kind of what I wanted to see and I I did some measures to kind of look at that and so you know and Kathy, you know, from a written perspective, really, really there and I thought you did a phenomenal job yesterday. I I you know also today as well. And you know even though you know when I looked at. [2:00:40] My analysis, you know, when I look at the other candidate, you know, hey, I I liked Tim, you know, I didn't have in my top yesterday at the end of that. He wasn't one of my, my, my top two, but today really did a phenomenal job of really kind of filling in some of those holes, some of those gaps that I kind of see. So, I mean, I think both of these. [2:01:02] Folks would be really excellent choices for the city's long term and for different reasons. One is kind of coming in with, I think a innovative, you know, new approach, you know, that doesn't have, you know, a lot of the, the vessages of. [2:01:22] Of of a lot of city or formal city management kind of experience and has been here for a while and built some relationships. But on the other hand, this other person has got a lot of experience, been able to get things done, has got a real proven track record, you know, for a city of our caliber that's at the seniority level that attorney. [2:01:41] Where we're at would kind of take the city in that regard or take some time to kind of get up to speed and that kind of thing, and so I think you know these are really kind of for me the the two different kind of decisions I kind of got to make is that, you know, I looking for more innovation in terms of a not formal kind of thing, and I think the council would really have to kind of work really closely with that. [2:02:01] But then I think on the other hand, you'd have somebody who really has got this experience and, you know, it's kind of similar to what I've seen in other, you know, when we looked at Jamie, you know, you look at Mark, if you look at some of the other city management here kind of coming with that, that experience, there's some advantages to that too. So, dimension is a tough one. It's a tough one for me here. I I I. [2:02:23] In a way that it wasn't yesterday. To me it was really clear what I was going to do yesterday. So March for February, what are you? I'm April. Oh I'm March, so I go 1st. So, well, I want to thank you for bringing us to a flight, a slate of four very good candidates. Thank you Mayor. And I also appreciate bringing. [2:02:43] He has I think two candidates with two, there are two outstanding candidates, but they're two entirely different skill skill sets, entirely different skill sets. And it becomes a decision for us to make about what we want. I think Zach has shown over nine years he has done it. I mean everything from the the economic development, I mean to have two to have an electric utility to do the, you know, to do the work that he has done. [2:03:09] In in a traditional very solid city like that, and in the city manager's role, he has done a number of different things. I think all the things that we we want. I even do think, I mean for the number of things that he actually named up again, I I just there's this in the in the back of my mind if he's gaining it somehow because everything he talked about we have done here we've. [2:03:29] Talking, you know, I mentioned it yesterday, the brain health and the the reinvestment that they needed to do and today he's talking about june teenth for the 3rd time and you know all these different things in the parallels are pretty impressive. So that there there's that one side and then there's Kathy who, who has not done it, but who has obviously the skills to do it and has the the the people and the relational skills to to make an impact in a lot of different ways. And, I appreciate what she has done. We, we have seen it the the staff. [2:04:02] Building the the bringing folks along, the keeping this all together when it could have gone sailing out of the, you know, sailing off the rails easily and she and Elizabeth have done such a strong job with that and and I do appreciate that. But as I said, it's two entirely different skill sets I think that we're, we're looking at and trying to decide what we want to. [2:04:22] We want to make a decision with. I mean I I will say and I'll just put it out there for everybody. So Dwayne asked the question and I appreciated about Kathy's decision to actually apply for this job. I mean she told me in our discussions that she would not run, she would not apply for this job. She told me that and and I said, I didn't want. [2:04:41] A an interim to apply for the job because it complicates things significantly. And I think we saw that. I mean to have a, to, to chill the entire Minnesota market out because of an interim applying for the permanent job may have changed the the outcome of this entire. [2:04:59] This entire search we don't know, and just the fact that again she told me one thing and did another. And so I it's it's something that I is factoring into my decision and I'm thinking about, but, I just wanted to lay it out there for everybody to hear and to understand and you you know where I might be coming from, so. [2:05:19] Hence it off, Finish it off. Everyone said it, two incredible candidates. I want both of them. That's the 1st time. I think what for me was Zach. [2:05:34] He's shown that he's, he might be new somewhere, but he's committed to that place for him to stay ten years in casey, ten years in independence, like that shows the level of commitment that frankly, we don't see a lot of times in this space in in in. [2:05:54] I have an industry in general. Everyone's hopping around every 345 years for him to stay ten years in each place, chose that commitment and I don't have any reservation that if he chose to come up here, if we offered and he chose to come up here, he would stay long term, and this isn't a pit stop for him. What I really liked hearing is that. [2:06:18] City hall doesn't have to do everything, and I feel like that's a problem we have here is that we like to do everything and having that different different mindset of how can we do, how can we allow others to do better work than what we can do here, I think was was something that was refreshing to hear. [2:06:37] As far as Kathy, she's fantastic. She's doing, her job assistent city manager really well and she's come in and been the interim city manager and done that really well and we've all seen it in the communication and how staff is responding, the, the two things she said that makes me have. [2:07:00] She said, I say yes to things I know I can accomplish. That concerns me. There are gonna be a lot of things as a city manager you don't know if you can accomplish, but the city council has asked you to do it. And so that gives me hesitancy of. [2:07:17] Are you willing to take that leap of faith of just knowing without knowing if you can accomplish it? 2nd thing she said, I've always been pushed into these roles. And then her explanation of I didn't want to do it. [2:07:33] I had a lot of conversations with the senior leadership team and they pushed me into this role. To me it felt like a lot of undue pressure for someone who wasn't really considering it to get into this opportunity. Not that it's good or bad. [2:07:50] But I would have appreciated better if this was from the start, I know this is the next step I want to be at, this is what I want to do, and this is just the opportunity that showed up that has allowed me to do that. [2:08:06] Cause I've Just me personally in my own career, that's kind of how I used to do it. We kind of just fall into things, people push you into things and that's what happens, and since my dad passed away, like it shifted how I view the career progressions and that's just not something that I believe. [2:08:26] Is sustainable long term when you're, when you're doing the jobs that are as important as the city manager. So those are the two comments that she made that give me a little hesitancy. I know she can do the job. I frankly think she'd be an incredible city manager. [2:08:43] In about three years. All right, what I want everybody to do is take a deep breath. I've got my stop watch open. We're gonna sit here, just sit here with your silence and your thoughts. We're gonna do it for about a minute. [2:08:59] And I'm gonna do a show of hands, ok? Okay, everybody be cool just within yourself. [2:09:59] I, I don't want to go around the room. I would rather we do a show of hands so we, you know, nobody's come noises or anything like that, let's do a show of hands and we'll take a straw poll here and if we I'm assuming we're gonna since we have seven people here, I will be able to come to the decision. [2:10:27] Alright, we'll go in the order we talked to them. Folks who are in favor of appointing Zach to the city manager position, please raise your hand. This is like our vote. [2:10:44] Like, yeah, ok, yeah, thanks. And folks in favor of Cathy to the city manager position. So I'm seeing four three and, I I think what what Greg said earlier is a very important point here. [2:11:02] That this needs to be one of those occasions of my vote, our decision, that we need to be as a council united behind this decision both here in this room, but certainly as we step out of this room as well. And I think it will be especially important here at the city hall. [2:11:19] Given the internal candidate and the, and the fact that staff is, is I know probably listening right now and we will have a lot of people with comments and thoughts on this. So as we have to move forward, as we do move forward, we do have to make this again my vote, our decisions the city council. [2:11:37] And so just to clarify, so if somebody, I mean if we're asked explicitly, because obviously people listening can't see, I mean maybe they'll be watching up there and can tell, we can say like I supported can't Cathy, so e.g. Kathy. [2:11:54] But I'm in, you know, I'm in agreement with the decision, like I'm, you know what I mean? Like, it's not that we can't not share who we supported. I think that is correct. Do you have anything to add to this? It is correct Mayor, but I think again that it's really important to frame it cause I heard from all of you. [2:12:13] All seven of you not trying to butter me up, but stating very genuinely that you had two excellent excellent choices. Yep. And it wasn't a four or against, it was a difficult decision picking between two excellent choices and so whoever. [2:12:30] You know, ultimately is appointed at the end, needs to know that they have the full support of the council from that sentiment and it wasn't a four or against situation. Yep. Yes, I guess I'm also thinking about. [2:12:51] Obviously yeah, I I'm thinking about staff morale too, right? Like I just I want people to understand and I think that that framing obviously is the truth and it will be helpful for staff to hear that too. [2:13:05] Yeah. My my reservation and the whole thing is that that reality that I gave that example yesterday as we were having our conversations alone, that he was impressive how Jamie knew lots of people out there. And I think. [2:13:26] Due to the fact that the city's looking to accomplish all these projects that I'm only part of it now because I'm part of the council, but I had nothing to do when they originated, it's. [2:13:42] To elect Zach, I see it more as a hindrance because it'll take him a year or more to get to know the people that play key roles, not only at the city level, business wise, but county, state. [2:13:59] At the national level, you know, it's the way I see it is it's limited what we can accomplish. We get to know people, we get to learn things, like in my position with the national committee. [2:14:14] I learn things, but I don't really I get 1st knowledge of things that are happening before it's public before it trickles down to the cities, states, but I don't have any effect on that. [2:14:29] At this point. So to me, getting Zack in here would be more of a hindrance in in the 1st one or two years. On the other hand Cathy already has a lot, knows a lot of people that. [2:14:45] Can influence decisions a lot quicker. So I have a a lot of reservations from making that call and and I appreciate your input and I appreciate your opinion there, but this is exactly what we're talking about in terms of my vote our decision. [2:15:03] That for for you to share that with others would undermine the work that we're trying to accomplish Victor. I'm just gonna say it flat out. If others that will undermine everything at the same time and I know you and you've said it and we've all had our say. [2:15:18] But, and you also said you said it and I am just expressing my concern about it. I, you guys have your position, I have my position and I see it from that point of view. And again, it's not that I will go against the consensus, but at the same time. [2:15:35] Just like council Member said, it's it's gonna be very difficult to deal with the stuff. I and I tell you because I had the opportunity to speak to a lot of the stuff asking them how they felt about it. [2:15:54] Without making a lot of noise about it. I make the time to come into the city, into the city plaza to speak to a lot of people and ask questions about it. And I think it'll be. [2:16:08] Kind of a detriment to make a decision like this. I will just say that when, when Zack comes in, I mean I think that that's gonna be, have to be his top priority like right away is working with staff because, yeah, I just think it's gonna be. [2:16:27] I mean I have concerns just about people's willingness to stay and things like that, not just Kathy's but like, you know, people who really wanted his secret in this position. And so, and I will say, you know, just from my experience in. [2:16:48] Doing this work, people are genuinely kind and open enough to give people a chance get to know them and I think that there is always fear and apprehension of change but people move faster. [2:17:11] Alright, I just want to say that I I'm I'm hearing what what each of you are saying and I appreciate what you have to say about this decision, not easy decision. That's why I appreciate that. I think those are all really important things and I hope we. [2:17:27] Consider that as we move forward with this decision. Mayor if I could make a suggestion for the motion so you know we since Zach is an external candidate there are a couple of steps that had negotiations and the final background. [2:17:46] Reference checking. I don't expect any situations there, but it might be appropriate since there is positive sentiment towards both candidates, to have direction to have the executive committee work with Zach on negotiation and and have the consultant do. [2:18:07] The final steps of background and reference checking, and in the alternative, should there be complications have the alternative to pivot to. [2:18:23] Kathy, and I need some wordsmithing obviously but one motion that provides that alternative might be helpful. [2:18:39] Does this recording get published? It is real time? It is fly. Yeah yeah ok ok there's a possibility that the negotiations may not work out and it's rare, but. [2:18:58] Where's the possibility so how do you phrase it and if things go sideways, how do you, how do you phrase that and ask the city attorney to help you with or Melissa are you there? [2:19:20] I Remember as I am? Any suggestions? I'm assuming you're listening in, any suggestions as to how to yeah. [2:19:28] Just typing a motion at the time actually. I would say off the cuff here, authorize, let me see my words here, authorize and direct the consultant to work with staff, to work with. [2:19:43] The designated, staff and members to prepare and work with us selected candidate to reach an agreement and if unsuccessful to begin negotiations. [2:20:03] With, 2nd candidate with a goal of bringing the agreement to the, the council meeting on August. I believe it's 26th. That was the previously discussed date, but it doesn't have to be that date. Okay. [2:20:23] Do you have that typed out? I do not. I began typing it and then I went off and started talking live. Sorry about that. That's. [2:20:32] Okay. [2:20:40] Just because 25 August 25. August. And only because I didn't write it down either and I want I liked the wording and we could simply say, you know, I I would make that motion, we could vote on that, and then if you could give the, the text, and include, give that to Priyanka in the morning and include that in the, the, the meeting minutes here. [2:21:00] I can do that. Thank you. Okay. [2:21:06] So without did everybody, would everybody here and understand that the motion that Melissa brought forward? [2:21:13] Mayor the one other question I would have is for the consultant, Greg, to see if that meets his needs. [2:21:18] It does, it does, ok. So I would make that motion and I would look for a second of second. Got a motion in 2nd to to move on the motion as described by our city attorney Melissamander Shine. [2:21:35] Any further council discussion on this? If not, all those in favor, please signify by saying I opposed? No, NO NO. Motion carries four three. All right? You got that Melissa? [2:21:52] Yes I did. Thank you mayor. We will re listen and get the words locked down alright so we're all done. Is there any further business, anything else we need? [2:22:08] No further business, I would look for a motion to adjourn tonight. So moved. Second. Motion to second to adjourn all in favor? [2:22:28] Okay.