| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:10.17 | Heidi Scoble | Okay, the stream is on and now we are going to admit all the participants. |
| 00:00:19.35 | Heidi Scoble | Good evening, Vice Mayor Withy and Council members. This meeting is being held pursuant to section three of Executive Order N-29-20 issued by Governor Newsom on March 17th, 2020. And all members are joining this meeting telephonically through Zoom and is broadcast live on the city's website. |
| 00:00:40.30 | Heidi Scoble | I will hand it over to Vice Mayor Withbey. |
| 00:00:42.79 | Ray Withey | Yeah, good evening, everybody. Vice Mayor Ray Withey. I'm opening this meeting. Mayor Cleveland Knowles is just delayed by just a very short period of time stuck in traffic. So as soon as she logs in, I will hand over this meeting to her. So welcome to the special city council meeting for Thursday, October 29th. Um, So we have... Let's see. The first item is obviously to call the roll, please. Hi. |
| 00:01:22.21 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Hoffman? present. Councilmember Burns? |
| 00:01:26.58 | Ray Withey | Here. |
| 00:01:27.41 | Heidi Scoble | Council Member Cox. Thank you. |
| 00:01:28.71 | Unknown | here. |
| 00:01:29.87 | Heidi Scoble | Vice Mayor Withey. |
| 00:01:31.22 | Ray Withey | I'm here. |
| 00:01:32.84 | Heidi Scoble | And Mayor of Cleveland Knowles is absent at the moment. |
| 00:01:36.08 | Ray Withey | OK. |
| 00:01:36.10 | Heidi Scoble | Okay, thank you. Oh, we have four members present and there is a quorum. |
| 00:01:41.23 | Ray Withey | Thank you very much. Next would be the approval of the agenda. We have a very simple agenda this evening. |
| 00:01:48.77 | Unknown | Move approval of the agenda. |
| 00:01:50.04 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 00:01:50.68 | Ray Withey | Second. Okay, Heidi, will you call the roll, please? |
| 00:01:54.63 | Heidi Scoble | Council member Hoffman. Council Member Burns. |
| 00:01:57.85 | Ray Withey | Yes. |
| 00:01:58.51 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Cox? Yes. Vice Mayor Withee. |
| 00:02:02.66 | Ray Withey | Yes. Okay, so our first uh the only business item. is relation to the city manager recruitment. I'm not sure. This evening, we're seeking public input, receiving presentations, and potentially selecting I'm not sure. a recruiting firm. and I think that's a good question. City manager, sir. So, With that, I think I just want to make one announcement for process. I'm not sure. the mayor and i discussed the fact that a very large Oh. Part of this is seeking public input. And therefore we would like to suggest that we actually, oh. Here she is. Madam Mayor, I was just about to explain the way in which we are going to receive public comment tonight, but I hadn't started. So over to you. |
| 00:03:13.28 | Unknown | Great. Thanks, everyone. Sorry, I'm a couple minutes late. So I wanted to propose, as I think the Vice Mayor was just going to say, that we take two minutes for anyone who is here from the public. that we'll have the staff presentation then allow up to two minutes of public comment on questions or things that we might want to seek. in a firm. And then to do all three interviews. And then prior to starting our discussion, allow members of the public another two minutes to comment on me firms. Is that acceptable to everyone? Okay, great. So, and then I understand we have Ms. Muchmore here to give us a staff presentation. to kick this item off. |
| 00:04:04.40 | Heidi Scoble | I do. Good evening, Madam Mayor and Council Members. Tonight we ask council to consider presentations from three search firms for the purpose of seeking one that will help guide the council through the highly important task of conducting an inclusive and transparent search and selection process for a new city manager. We arrived at this place after the evening of September 22nd, when city manager Adam Pulitzer announced his retirement at the end of this calendar year. Recognizing the end of the year would be fast upon us, council began to undertake two very important steps to fill the vacancy. Initiate a selection process for the next city manager and initiate selection of an interim city manager to bridge the gap. On Tuesday this week, October 27th, council appointed Marcia Raines as interim city manager. at the end of September to address the permanent vacancy and initiate a selection process Council directed staff. to identify qualified search firms. Staff identified eight qualified search firms who performed searches for public entities in the Bay Area. Presenting tonight are three of those firms. All three firms value and incorporate inclusiveness, transparency, and robust stakeholder input into their processes. Each of the three was selected because in addition to their inclusive and transparent process, their ability to select and collect a pool of highly qualified candidates. They also have knowledge of the city community, neighboring communities and the larger regional area. All three firms are familiar with the issues we face and have had positive working relationships with staff and peers in the public sector. The proposals prepared by each firm are provided as attachments to the staff report. as are the PowerPoint presentations that they will be using tonight to enhance their presentations. before we move into the presentations, I wanted to provide a high level overview of the timeline and fees for the presentation. And I have a slide that I can share that shows that. So I'm gonna see if I can share my screen. Yes. And there we go. Can everybody see that? We're good. Okay. So, Enter. This slide is kind of an overview of the proposals of the search firms. So our first presenter, Um, is going to be Ralph Anderson and Associates, our second Avery and Associates, and our third Wendy Brown Creative Partners. They are in no ranked order. They're simply an order by alphabetically by last name. If you, the cost ranges in the proposals range from $22.5 to 27, 22.5 to 27.5. And there's a $5,000 difference between the lowest and the highest cost. The timelines range from 11 to 24 weeks, which relates to about three to eight months, depending on the types of processes and the, how COVID is affecting our ability to collect candidates. All firms provide a guarantee and will conduct another search if a qualified and successful candidate is not produced during the process. Ralph Anderson and Avery's guarantee for the placement is for 12 months and Wendy Brown's is for 18 months. That concludes my presentation. I don't want to keep us long. I'd like to get to the presenters, so I'm going to Stop now, I'm happy to answer questions from council and then I'll wait for the public comment. |
| 00:07:56.82 | Unknown | Bye. Deborah, I had a clarification on Ralph Anderson's fee with regard to his expenses. So I noted that it said all related expenses, but then when I looked down in the next paragraph on note, There were some additional expenses that it looked like. Let me take a look. It's on the last page of their of their proposal. Page two of the schedule, I think. Oh, page 34. Okay. Okay. Thank you. And my thing. Yeah. |
| 00:08:38.31 | Heidi Scoble | So let's see, optional services for fees. Is that what you're speaking of or the invoice? Yeah, or also up under the note, |
| 00:08:47.86 | Unknown | Thank you. I guess. Should the city desire to conduct reference calls on more than one candidate background fee of $1,800 per candidate would be billed in addition to the above state of fees? And then Yeah, and then down there in the optional services with city staff service, survey. So. |
| 00:09:11.54 | Heidi Scoble | Yeah, so background and reference oftentimes is an additional, not included in the original proposal. It's an optional service and they'll be able to speak to that in their presentation tonight. And we do have to pay for those off. We have a decision whether we can do those reference and background checks through a firm that we use or through their firm. when they come. Okay. |
| 00:09:37.21 | Unknown | you |
| 00:09:37.27 | Heidi Scoble | you Thank you. |
| 00:09:37.70 | Unknown | All right, thanks. |
| 00:09:41.27 | Unknown | Are there any other questions or clarifications for Deborah? Okay, and then just to set expectations, Deborah, I think you alerted each firm that they would have about 15 to 20 minutes for the presentation. Is that correct? I did. Great. So I'm going to, just to be fair to everyone, I'm going to have our clerk set a timer just for the 15 minute mark so that we can just use that to keep us generally on the right path. if that is okay. I don't know if we have the clock set up. And if we don't, I will use my iPhone. Oh, great. Perfect. Thank you, Heidi. Great. So, I think we can kick off with our first search firm. We have Ralph Anderson and Associates. |
| 00:10:39.37 | Heidi Scoble | And maybe we can do that. Did you want to do public comment? |
| 00:10:44.15 | Unknown | Oh, I'm sorry, yes, you're right. I just announced that. Thank you for the reminder. Okay, so we'll open it up to public comment. Again, we'll give folks two minutes now. just on questions that we might wanna ask or things that people noticed from there. proposals. I'm not seeing any hands raised. So we will. And now we can go to our first from. |
| 00:11:12.87 | Heidi Scoble | All right, so I would, at this point, I would like to introduce Heather Rentschler and Greg Nelson. who are from Ralph Anderson and Associates, and they will be making a presentation to us first. If you think you're welcome. |
| 00:11:34.39 | Heidi Scoble | That's great. Hello, Greg. Is Heather with you tonight? |
| 00:11:38.91 | Greg Nelson | She is not. I'll be presenting others on the project team, but she was not able to attend tonight. |
| 00:11:44.11 | Heidi Scoble | That's perfectly fine. I will enjoy listening to you. Thank you. And |
| 00:11:49.09 | Greg Nelson | and I really appreciate the time to talk about our firm's qualifications and explore the helping you to recruit your next city manager. It's often said it's the most important decision that a governing board will make in hiring their chief executive. So that's not lost on us how important this decision is. Um, I realize we have about 10 or 15 minutes for the presentation. So if you don't mind, I'll just jump right into the screen share and then come back at the end to answer any questions. graphic. |
| 00:12:25.48 | Unknown | Great. |
| 00:12:29.60 | Greg Nelson | Okay. So Just a very brief bit of information about our firm. We were founded in 1972 and were one of the pioneering public sector search firms. Ralph Anderson was a former city manager who saw that need and helped pioneer the industry. Almost 50 years later, we're still doing that same work. And while we do offer some other services, executive search is the core of our business. we're very passionate about. We have a staff of 24, which I feel makes us kind of large but small. have as far as search firms go we have a pretty robust staff which allows us to not only support the surge well, through our team working behind the scenes, but also having a good network of recruiters that can all work as a team together. We're based in Northern California in Rockland. and we're truly a national firm we do work all over the country and have consultants on both coasts But being located here, we obviously have a strong focus in California. |
| 00:13:41.46 | Greg Nelson | We particularly have a very strong track record in serving public agencies in Marin County. And I feel it's really important to understand the local culture and local issues. We're happy to have conducted the search which placed your outgoing city manager. And just last year, we also worked to recruit the public courts director, but also in the area, city manager for the city of Belvedere, the city manager for the city of Mill Valley, The past two searches for the town of Tiburon for their town managers the general manager for the Sausalito Marin City Sanitary District, we've done a number of equipments for Marin municipal water district. and the county of Moran is an ongoing client and we're currently doing two searches for Marin County. But broadly, in the last five years, performed 60 city manager searches nationwide. with a little over half of those in California, about 35 California city manager searches in the last five years. |
| 00:14:48.31 | Greg Nelson | This is just a view of our executive search team. Heather and I are in the upper left-hand corner, and we'd be working very closely together on this project together. I would be the project lead be working with you as the council and handling all the client interactions And Heather is really going to add value in the recruiting piece and us really focusing on sharing our candidate networks. But beyond that, we have three former California city managers. They're also part of our search team and we all contribute together to make a successful recruitment. As I mentioned before, This is our passion. This is the core of our business. We bring public sector backgrounds. just mentioned our former California city managers Most of us have public sector backgrounds before that. and we have developed strong candidate networks, especially amongst city managers, both having them Clients and as candidates, honestly. I feel that A search firm should provide three deliverables to a client, and the obvious one are the candidates. But I think just as important is the process and consulting. And so being able to give Really good advice to you along the way is a key piece, but also developing an inclusive and thoughtful search process. is probably just as important as the candidates that you are going to consider. |
| 00:16:28.04 | Greg Nelson | And I do want to talk a little bit about an inclusive search process because it was apparent to me that that is important to you and as it is to us as well. We believe that having an inclusive search process yields better results. You get better decisions, but also, you also get better buy-in for the person that's selected, knowing that they were selected through an inclusive process. And there's multiple opportunities to really be inclusive in a search process. And I'll touch on those later, I'm not sure. but, We have opportunities to engage staff, stakeholders, and community in all three phases of the search process. We do have to balance that with the confidentiality of the candidates. And some of those are going to be sitting city managers |
| 00:17:03.74 | Unknown | community. |
| 00:17:13.36 | Greg Nelson | I'm not sure. It is a balance, but it's a balance that we do frequently. I'll just briefly go through the search process, hoping I'll anticipate any questions you may have, but I'll go a little fast just to make sure we stay in the time we talked about. These tasks correspond to the tasks in our proposal. Tasks one and two are the first phase of the search process. And this is that really first opportunity to be very inclusive and have a number of meetings not only with you as our client, but also with the city staff, community stakeholders and area stakeholders, any area organizations or those entities that have close connections with the city of South Toledo. And through those series of meetings and information gatherings and listening sessions, we developed the candidate profile and begin the second phase of the recruitment, which is outreach and recruiting. in candidate evaluation. And that's where we as a team work to recruit candidates that align well with the candidate profile that was developed No two searches are the same. No two clients' needs are the same. And these are very customized and very tailored and so our outreach strategy is informed by those folks. that candidate profile that we created I will say that it's critically important that we deliver to you a diverse group of qualified candidates. That is a longstanding goal of our firm. It's a core value and it's something that we work very hard to do intentionally through the recruiting piece. At task five, We would meet with you as the city council in closed session and review resumes and talk about our recommendations and really give you a lot of insight into what the candidates have to offer and how well they align to the candidate profile we created. I'm not sure. From that meeting, you as a council would select which candidates you're interested in interviewing. And we would design an interview process in that third phase of recruitment that, again, has the opportunity to be very inclusive. You are the hiring authority, but you certainly can have your decision informed by other other interview panels or other interviews which will give you recommendations and advice on from their perspectives that whether they're community stakeholders, staff, Oh, or others. and then through the series of interviews, usually multiple rounds of interviews, will arrive at a candidate that you are most interested in And when At that step we do, we finish the last steps of a very exhaustive background investigation. and would handle negotiation on your behalf. with the parameters that you set And then finally, at the last step, the recruitment, we just want to make sure that we're acting as a good agent for the city of Sausalito and being very timely communicating with everyone that was interested in the process, whether they were successful or not, and handling all those candidates. communications. There are some considerations to the timeline and I'll mention that in a moment. Um, We have an election coming up and from my research I could see that there are three seats and it looks like at least two members. that will be changing. And so I think it'll be important for us to interview the incoming council members after the election to make sure that there's inclusivity there. but also time the selection components of recruitment to occur after new members are seated, allowing the new council to elect to select the new city manager And then also, What's going to affect the timing is we're coming over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. which usually are a difficult time to work around. and just the uncertainty of the pandemic that we're in. So we've learned to be agile and flexible And we certainly would in this case. I... somehow Missed a slide. I'm going to go backwards to |
| 00:21:42.80 | Greg Nelson | Hmm. I am missing a slide. But I had projected out the timeline Um, and the timeline would, have the recruitment closing. approximately the first week of January. And so we would be doing the selection processes throughout January and early February. |
| 00:22:07.16 | Greg Nelson | Just in summary, What? The question for you is why we believe we could add the most value in this search process for the city of Sausalito and the Sausalito City Council. We have a strong track record nationally, but particularly in serving Marin County communities We believe that that strong California and national networks both add value. and we can give you a lot of choices really broad networks nationally. We've had a longstanding commitment to creating a diverse and gender balanced workplace. We feel that our work over almost 50 years has significantly added to the ranks of diversity in the public sector executives. That's something we're really proud of. We have staff working behind the scenes to help identify candidates that we may not be aware of those passive candidates that are doing good work and just to make sure that we don't miss anyone that might be a good match for this opportunity And then, In closing, we have nearly 50 years of serving local government in California and beyond, and that's something that We're here to stay. |
| 00:23:22.87 | Unknown | Great. |
| 00:23:23.27 | Greg Nelson | So I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have. |
| 00:23:26.60 | Unknown | Great, thank you so much for your presentation. Are there questions from council members? |
| 00:23:35.30 | Unknown | Uh, joke. |
| 00:23:37.08 | Unknown | I'll kick off. Thank you. Hi, Greg. Thank you for your presentation. Um, I am one of the definite outgoings, so, um, I won't get to work with you as much maybe, but I appreciate you being here tonight. Um, I'm also a real estate agent and in that I've dealt with, uh, and both with colleagues as well as people moving to the Bay area and more importantly, Sausalito and Southern Marin, um, given our high cost of living and, um, |
| 00:23:37.14 | Unknown | kickoff. |
| 00:23:39.99 | Unknown | THANK YOU. |
| 00:24:08.41 | Unknown | It's a fairly unique even political style here. I found that you need to be a little bit moving here for a reason other than just a job, to usually be successful to make it in this area. Given that you have had success in Tiburon, Belvedere, Mill Valley, Sausalito, What do you do during the vetting or evaluation time with candidates to kind of prepare them for what sauce they might be, especially as you compare it to maybe a Brownsville, Texas, or a Coloma, California, we're quite different. So tell me a little bit about how, how you worked through that process with potential clients. |
| 00:24:47.70 | Greg Nelson | Yeah, you know, it's 2020, but our work is still very personal it hasn't that part of it hasn't changed since 1972 when we began And so we have a lot of conversations, a lot of in-depth conversations with our candidates, really just managing expectations. And I think, That is the goal that we have to always have in mind is manage expectations throughout the recruitment, or client with you but also with our candidates to make sure that there aren't gaps at the end that would cause a surprise. Cost of housing is certainly a huge expectation that has to be managed. Probably the biggest obstacle or the biggest impediment for the city of Sausalito, which is you know otherwise an idyllic place that probably people would want to come in droves so the housing cost is a challenge. And there's certainly strategies to work around that. may help focus the search to be a more localized search. And we see that fairly frequently that, The cost of housing is going to limit our reach of where we can effectively get our practically be able to land candidates from. But that's not always the case. There's a number of other strategies and a number of other ways that we can make that work and we have in the past. |
| 00:26:13.67 | Greg Nelson | Amen. |
| 00:26:13.96 | Unknown | you Thank you. |
| 00:26:14.33 | Greg Nelson | I'm not sure. |
| 00:26:14.42 | Unknown | you |
| 00:26:15.97 | Unknown | Other questions? |
| 00:26:17.42 | Unknown | y'all. |
| 00:26:21.10 | Unknown | Hi, thanks for coming tonight. It's nice to see you. You're welcome. |
| 00:26:24.07 | Unknown | Um, |
| 00:26:25.00 | Unknown | So do I have it? It seemed to me from your presentation and from your website that your your, your, your sole focus of your firm is public sector recruiting. Is that in placement? Is that correct? |
| 00:26:36.58 | Greg Nelson | Yes, that's correct. In terms of clients, now I'll be clear about that. Um, Our clients are 95. plus percent public sector. We occasionally will do a nonprofit that's related to the public sector, The vast majority of our clients are public sector and the vast majority of those are cities. I'm not sure. Our candidates, on the other hand, not quite as high. We do sometimes are able to make a transition from private sector to public Although that can be challenging and that's another whole conversation about expectations but we do have access to private sector talent where it fits. |
| 00:27:18.10 | Unknown | Okay. But could I actually ask a follow up on that question? Thank you. So can you just give us an example of a successful recruitment of a of someone who is not, had a career in the public sector who you might have identified to fill a position. and how you did that. |
| 00:27:40.03 | Greg Nelson | with an abundance of caution is the first thing because the public sector and the private are so very different and there are restrictions and challenges in the public sector that don't exist in the private. And so where it works best is where people have transitioned back and forth. And we see that frequently where someone has had some public sector experience, they moved to private and want to come back. That's almost a dream situation where you really get that varied experience. where you have a purely private sector transition, You know, that's a long conversation we would have. It can work, but it also could be extremely challenging. |
| 00:28:24.44 | Unknown | Thanks. Are there other questions? down. Oh, Joan, and then we'll go back to jail. |
| 00:28:28.37 | Unknown | No. I actually wanted to follow on to that as well. So you'll see a common theme. You know, one of our big priorities is we're coming out of pandemic. And we don't even know when we're coming out of it. and we're working with extraordinarily reduced resources. And so We may, you know, during your presentation you mentioned about interviewing sitting city managers. But we may actually want to look outside of sitting city managers for the scope of experience that we need to guide us moving forward. So what is your pool of resources for recruiting Um, you know, realtors or business people or business company startup experts, you know, people who would have the kind of experience required to address and unknown needs and perhaps even re-engineer the way that we do business. |
| 00:29:36.48 | Greg Nelson | Well, it all goes back to the very beginning. And so, you know, I said before, and I'll just emphasize it again. No two searches are the same. No two sets of needs are the same. And so, we begin these search really with a blank page and listen and really listen to what our clients needs are. And that's how we found success over the years. We wouldn't, we would not be successful if we just tried to, give you the candidates that we felt were the best. It's just that doesn't work. through listening and understanding your needs and wants and desires, we then go out and recruit the types of candidates that will match that and align with that. And so if you're not going to be able to do that, |
| 00:30:13.16 | Unknown | And so if- I'm actually asking what are your resources to recruit outside of the public sector? |
| 00:30:20.25 | Greg Nelson | Sure, I mean, we have all the resources that anyone else would, I mean, we have, um, all the common means of not only through our, um, ability to advertise, our ability to do staff research, our ability to use social media, LinkedIn, and so on. |
| 00:30:39.37 | Unknown | Okay, thanks. Um, Joe. Oh, no, that was it, actually. That was sort of my line I thought, too. So, thanks. Thanks very much. |
| 00:30:46.97 | Greg Nelson | Thank you. |
| 00:30:47.03 | Ray Withey | Welcome. |
| 00:30:47.35 | Greg Nelson | Thank you. |
| 00:30:47.37 | Ray Withey | Thank you. |
| 00:30:48.76 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 00:30:49.03 | Unknown | Ray, do you have any questions? |
| 00:30:51.98 | Ray Withey | Yeah, thank you, Greg, for the presentation and the discussion. Um, What is your... sort of vision for the scope of what is a stakeholder Who are the stakeholders not? individuals, but who are the stakeholders, generative? Thank you. |
| 00:31:13.60 | Greg Nelson | So at the beginning of the search, and I apologize, it was really pretty brief trying to be respectful of your time, but, In the first two steps of the search during the project management phase, one of the key tasks we'll do is work with you on a stakeholder analysis. And that's spending some time in having a conversation about who those stakeholders are. And they are most commonly gonna be the individuals and entities that interact with the city and especially with the city manager the most. And that's really a good place to start that conversation. who are the entities, organizations, and people that have close ties to the city of Sausalito And where the relationship between the next city manager And the relationship with the city is going to be critically important. And so It really is looking at those relationships to identify those stakeholders. |
| 00:32:12.34 | Unknown | Right, John? |
| 00:32:13.27 | Unknown | Sorry, I thought of one more question. And thank you, Greg, for your presentation. You mentioned closing the recruitment in early January and |
| 00:32:16.98 | Wendy Brown | to the right. |
| 00:32:17.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:32:17.06 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:32:17.23 | Unknown | you |
| 00:32:22.51 | Unknown | That concerns me because of the holidays, but also because of a pandemic. And so. Does your timeline, I saw, you know, all three of the candidates we're interviewing tonight have similar prospective timelines for the recruitment, but is there flexibility In your timeline, should we wish to leave the recruitment open beyond the beginning of January? |
| 00:32:44.62 | Greg Nelson | Yeah, absolutely. And if you did get my presentation with the page with the dates on it. you would see there, thank you for that. there's an asterisk by the January 4th date, because that's just a projected date. But I fully realize that's coming right off the holidays. And so, I don't know. in all likelihood we would probably schedule that later anyway. Um, again, especially in this environment, we have to be agile. I mentioned that earlier, and that includes our timeline. And so, If we don't feel like we have the results we need, then we extend. we do something different. We have a lot of different strategies that we can do, Um, These are interesting times. There's not gonna be a more challenging year than 2020 and into 2021, we don't see things being drastically different. I would agree with you 100%. |
| 00:33:42.01 | Unknown | And then as a quick follow on to that, you have a 12 month guarantee in the event that the initial recruitment is not successful. We got other, at least one other proposal that had an 18 month guarantee, again, perhaps because of these uncertain times. And then, and the challenge of replacing such an experienced and valued city manager. So is there any flexibility in that guarantee? |
| 00:34:06.92 | Greg Nelson | Yes, 12 months is the industry standard, but I would certainly be willing to, I know, and have the support to extend that to 18 months. |
| 00:34:15.56 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:34:16.27 | Greg Nelson | You're welcome. |
| 00:34:16.69 | Unknown | I think that's all my questions, Mayor. |
| 00:34:18.82 | Unknown | Okay, great, thanks. I had one, follow up goes back to a question that Councilmember Hoffman was asking before your presentation, which is one of your add-ons is the online survey of city staff, which seemed like it would be a really valuable part of almost any recruitment as going back to Ray's point, they are pretty key stakeholder. especially the department head level. Um, How often I guess I just would have assumed that a pretty intensive outreach to city staff would be part of a, of a recruitment. So I'm just wondering kind of why that's an add-on specifically called out and how successful you've found that to be or useful. |
| 00:35:06.84 | Greg Nelson | Thank you for that. And to be clear, you know, in every city manager recruitment, we interact with the executive team on the city on a personal level. in either one-on-one or small group meetings and that that's understood Uh, if there were a desire to have an all-employee survey, that's really what that would address versus identifying the different department heads or representatives from each of the departments. |
| 00:35:39.63 | Unknown | Can you just give me an example of when you when someone has asked you to use that survey and whether it was helpful or not. |
| 00:35:47.27 | Greg Nelson | So. Honestly, I have not had a client asked to do an all employee survey. Uh, I have had. a combination of I mean, again, we always will spend some time with the the senior leadership within the city, but also have facilitated just an open group meeting where any employee who wanted to attend could attend and provide input. And we certainly can do that in the virtual world as well. would not be any additional cost for that. |
| 00:36:17.73 | Unknown | Okay. Great, that's helpful. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions? Looks like everybody has their questions answered. So we will. Thank you, Greg, very much for your time tonight. And I think... Deborah's probably outlined the process, but we'll either give direction tonight or at a later meeting. |
| 00:36:41.75 | Greg Nelson | Okay, well, very nice to meet all of you and I wish you the very best. I hope to get the opportunity to work with you further. |
| 00:36:47.96 | Unknown | Great. Thank you. |
| 00:36:49.93 | Unknown | Thank you so much. |
| 00:36:50.91 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 00:36:51.26 | Greg Nelson | You're welcome. |
| 00:36:53.96 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:36:54.00 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 00:36:54.10 | Unknown | Okay, Deborah. |
| 00:36:55.97 | Heidi Scoble | So our next presenter is Paul Kimura and Paul comes to us from Avery and Associates. He's presenting their services. |
| 00:37:06.62 | Unknown | Great welcome, Paul. |
| 00:37:08.54 | Paul Kimura | Welcome. Good evening. Let me get my video up here. Excellent. Good evening, all of you and Adam Mayer Mr. Vice Mayor and council members. I certainly appreciate the opportunity to present to you tonight. As an added feature, a rock concert has broken out in downtown Los Gatos in the midst of your council meeting. So I apologize for any background noise that might be coming through. Thank you. Heidi, if I may ask you to move on to the second slide. wanted to speak briefly on who we are and, um, in our firm. Avery Associates is based in Los Gatos. So we are a Bay Area firm. And we find that to be very advantageous for our clients in the Bay Area that allows us to keep abreast of what's going on in our communities. There are such unique factors in the Bay Area housing. We've touched on that. The politics of the Bay Area can oftentimes be different than so much emphasis by city councils on quality of life considerations for for Bay Area residents. And so we're very sensitive and attuned to those kinds of factors. And we incorporate that thinking as we do our outreach and work with our clients. We were founded in 1982. Bill Avery, who was the firm president, started the firm largely in labor relations and personnel consulting firm. I joined in the late 90s, specifically with the intent of starting a search practice Initially, we supported both the private sector as well as the public sector. However, in the last, I'd say seven to eight years, all of our work has become focused in the public sector and almost exclusively on executive search, which has become our real sweet spot. We are a small firm. We have six full-time employees, including Bill and myself. We utilize three contract employees, but it also gives us a pretty strong capability and capacity to carry a number of searches at any given time, despite the fact that either Bill or I would be involved, intimately involved in any assignment that we're working on. And in this particular case, I would be the project lead for the firm. Heidi, if I can go on to the next slide. We are a generalist executive search firm, and typically our strategy has been to take on a number of different executive assignments rather than focus solely on one discipline area. but the age demographics that have caught up with so many communities has certainly hit the city management sector as well. And over the past four years, we've completed 29 city manager recruitments. They range from larger cities like Stockton and Anaheim down to very small communities like Half Moon Bay, LAFAYETTE. We've just taken on an assignment Fowler. And we've even done an assignment for Sand City, a community of 275 residents. So we're. have the have experience. with a number of different and the cities and the cities communities of different scales and size. But what that does is it really has allowed us to appreciate and understand what's important to each of our clients and that consideration is just so important in the work that we do. |
| 00:41:10.57 | Paul Kimura | Heidi, may we go to the next slide? The majority of our work is done California wide, although we are a regional West Coast, Western US firm. The nature of the business is spread pretty evenly between Southern and Northern California. We do have a nice track record in Marin County Over the years, we've completed 15 searches for the County of Moran. We've even done an assignment for you about four or four and a half years ago for your administrative services director So it's allowed us, I think a lot of insight into some of the challenges that are unique to Marin County, in addition to the, to the Bay Area. |
| 00:42:01.98 | Paul Kimura | The next slide talks a little bit about what we feel differentiates our firm. I didn't want to go into really the steps and processes of our recruitment effort, because that's very similar from firm to firm. But I think what's important is how we do our work and what we do that allows us to provide additional value to our clients. Let me start with the bottom bullet where we have an inclusive recruitment process WE UNDERSTAND THAT in cities that are communities that are very engaged and active, such as such as Sausalito. there's a real desire for the community to be heard and to have their inputs incorporated into a recruitment So we find several different methodologies are very effective in doing that. Most so is the online survey that we can develop through SurveyMonkey of for your resident base and we can put that directly onto your website Mayor Mrakas, M.D.: And folks during the course of the outreach period can weigh in to talk about or to identify those factors that are most important to them in a new. Mayor Mrakas, M.D.: New city manager. Additionally, as we try and identify the ideal candidate profile and what the community is looking for, in addition to talking to each of the council members individually, We like to talk to staff. We like to take an opportunity to have a group discussion with those folks that executive staff members or team members that would like to meet with us. And in some cases that even extends to the employees of the city if you feel that is a priority for you. Additional ways of doing outreach have been community outreach have been checking in with different stakeholders within the community. I know Sausalito has a lot of service and community organizations. A large, large amount based for the size of your community. And so there's a real premium, I think, on hearing. of those kinds of inputs so we can reach out to specific individuals that you may wish to have us talk to AND, UH, interview them in terms of what is important to them and the new city manager. So those are just some of the ways that we have an inclusive process. We think as well, our work product is exceptional based on several different factors. One is our outreach. capacity. But as well, the nature of our outreach efforts, I think are very, very strong. I utilize a we utilize a couple of different recruiters that support our firms in terms of going out actively through LinkedIn, recruiter efforts where we can go out and proactively identify passive candidates who are appear to meet the criteria that we're looking for and reach out to them and be very, very I think assertive and aggressive in terms of following up with them to ensure that they know about this opportunity. How we identify those that are best suited for the position is through something I brought from the private sector, and that's a methodology called behavioral interviewee. And the concept there is that you know, the best way to identify how an individual will respond or react to a challenging situation. is to see how they've handled that in the past. And so we try and factor in that type of behavioral interviewing as we talk to potential candidates and candidates that have applied in terms of considering their candidacy. The other part of that that I'll mention is it's a process by which one has to really I'm going to delve deeply. you stay away from the situational questions and really talk about how they've conducted themselves in other stressful situations and really probe and follow up and then stay with that until you get a good understanding of how they actually operate or have operated and responded to challenges in the past. All of that leads to a work product that we think is very, very strong. When we present our candidate recommendations to you, It's not just their cover letter and resume. We will also have developed an assessment. And in this case, I would have written it based on my interview with the candidate. We will also have conducted initial reference interviews on two references that they've provided know that they're going to be largely positive but what we're trying to explore is probe those areas that are so critical to the job and see how these initial references respond to those queries about the candidate we document those uh we document those reference interviews and then provide them for you so that you have three points of reference when you consider who you wish to interview that's the assessment that i've developed based on the interview as well as the two uh reference interviews So on to Heidi, to the final slide. So all that leads to why we feel we're the right firm for you. You know, we have just a tremendous database of public sector executives based on the years we've been doing this. We also have tremendous efforts towards candidate outreach. I spoke a little bit about LinkedIn executive recruiter. which is a very useful tools. and has really replaced a lot of the I'm not sure. internet search that has been done in the past. And that initially I brought to the public sector recruitment practices. You have extensive engagement by the firm principals. We're involved in every single aspect of the recruitment. There are times when we need to be there or you ask us to be there on, two three four occasions we don't have a limit of how many visits we'll make and that's one of the advantages of being relatively close to you and And one of the only advantages of the pandemic thus far is that traffic patterns have eased a bit. It makes it a lot easier to come visit you when it's necessary. And I previously spoke about the work products and results. And so we feel very strongly that all of those combined, these factors combined would lead to |
| 00:49:12.03 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 00:49:14.71 | Paul Kimura | an excellent end result for you. And we would love to be the firm that represents Sausalito on this search. |
| 00:49:26.79 | Unknown | Great. Thank you so much, Paul, for that presentation. I really appreciate you being here. Do we have questions from council members? |
| 00:49:31.16 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:49:31.50 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:49:31.55 | Unknown | I appreciate your good- |
| 00:49:39.01 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:49:39.24 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:49:42.72 | Unknown | Hi, Paul, thanks for coming to see us tonight. |
| 00:49:47.29 | Greg Nelson | Absolutely. |
| 00:49:47.60 | Unknown | Yeah. I wanted to ask you a couple things that I found very interesting on your website when I was looking through it. And I think Ashley or... really strengths that you guys bring to the table that maybe some of the other firms don't. And so I saw, I liked the actual, you know, that you come from HR director for from sort of the tech, some of the tech industry in Fortune 500. and that you bring some of those practices to what you're doing recruiting now for public sector. My question is, to you as What do you see as strengths that flow in from your experience with the private sector and with nonprofit sector as well that flow into your recruiting process for public sector? And then I have another follow-up question for that. |
| 00:50:35.98 | Paul Kimura | No. It's interesting over the years that I've been doing this in the public sector, it's become very apparent that the two worlds are quite different. and that there are certain behaviors, certain of rules of engagement, certain ways in which business is conducted that are very unique to both. And as a result, Folks from either side are not necessarily automatically interchangeable. So much of this has to do with soft skills. So much of this has to do with understanding how, in this case, government works and having the ability to work with that and have the patients and tolerance and the ability to understand. the public process. that's not something that many people in the public private sector have so So it's not always interchangeable, but there are occasions when folks that do have certain skill sets and certain levels of expertise can make the affirmation quite well. |
| 00:51:47.49 | Unknown | So my follow-up question is, what do you see as the most likely attributes that would transfer from... private sector over to public sector that you could draw on from your own experience in recruiting in this area? |
| 00:52:02.12 | Paul Kimura | Mm-hmm. I would say the focus on several factors, one, the focus on results, okay, management leadership, the accountability that one must have in their organization. So the ability to kind of inspire that, I think those things are important. I think technically there are some areas of expertise, some folks are excellent dealmakers, economic development, those kinds of things are, I think, transferable. But again, the areas that I find to be the biggest challenge for oftentimes someone from the private sector is really kind of understanding, embracing, relating to and embracing the public process. |
| 00:52:58.71 | Unknown | Okay, thanks. Anyone else? |
| 00:53:08.76 | Unknown | Um... |
| 00:53:13.15 | Unknown | So I just wanted to ask, I know every search is different and every City or public agency is different, but what is a search that you think you might have done in the last five years that would be sort of the most comparable to what we're looking for here without, I mean, obviously without kind of going through, having gone through our stakeholder. evaluation, et cetera. |
| 00:53:43.27 | Paul Kimura | I think. The one that comes to my mind is the city of Monterey. And this was a good four years ago. THE FACT THAT WE HAVE BEEN But Monterey, despite it's relatively small size, small population has tremendous assets. They've got, they had a lot of economic vibrancy. They had their marina, I mean, they've had just so many assets. and so many different priorities that it was a challenge to first of all compartmentalize and really identify those that were essential and key in terms of the uh the position um i think that's a challenge for communities like yours that just have such tremendous assets and resources just in terms of you know the the attractiveness the desirirability to be there, leading to things like expensive housing and so forth. And it's just always such a challenge to try and accommodate all those things and then to find someone who can really be able to address the myriad of different priorities that are important to the city. I think the advantage that Sausalito has is I was really impressed the fact that you're, you know, you have the strategic plan, it looks like that's going to be a chore for the new city managers to update that. I come next year. And to have that type of roadmap is so valuable for a city manager and staff in terms of Um, how to prioritize and help lead the city forward. So, but beyond that, I mean, there are just, I think Sausalito is such a unique city. It's so different than most others that it'll be, it'll be interesting to get in there and figure out what it is is going to be important to all of you as policymakers. |
| 00:55:56.15 | Unknown | Great, thanks. And then that question I asked earlier, I think Jill was getting at this as well. But have you had successful recruitments from outside of the public sector? to the public sector and how did that I know you just spoke to sort of how different the two mindsets are, but... |
| 00:56:17.85 | Paul Kimura | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We have had some success and they've been in agencies that are not as traditional, if you will, public sector entities such as cities. As an example, a recent client was a energy, a county energy consortium that had just started. And the candidate that they wanted to hire came out of the private sector and would have been an excellent fit unfortunately that one didn't come together primarily they made they wanted to make the offer but economic circumstances prevented them from now moving forward on their timeline and And so they weren't able to initiate the offer, but that would have been an outstanding fit for them. And, you know, in this particular case, the circumstances were excellent for that, that particular individual. We've had a situation where we've had folks from the military, one case in particular I'm thinking of, that came aboard, did well initially, but later found that kind of the nature of city government wasn't suited to how they wanted to be an executive. So that person left after two years. So it's not that often you'll see this transition be effective, but it certainly can be. |
| 00:57:52.70 | Unknown | Right. And then last question for me is, um, How has your firm kind of sought to reach beyond sort of the typical candidates in terms of diversity, equity and inclusion and kind of what resources do you have to put to that aspect of a search? |
| 00:58:12.11 | Paul Kimura | All right. Right. Well, you know, I think we all appreciate the importance of diversity and efforts towards that end. We have a pretty, again, extensive database. We interact with a lot of folks of color. And of course, gender has become less of a challenge in that we see more females coming into executive levels and city government, which is great. So we have a pretty good contact base and database of folks that we work with. also a large connection in terms of resources where we can go to and identify. As trite as it sounds, sometimes really the best way to get a diverse candidate pool is to go to people of color or other females and ask them who they think might be best suited for a position like this. And when you have those contacts, certainly can be advantageous. So we're able to turn over quite a few rocks in terms of our efforts to find individuals. And in today's world, that's pretty important because as you've already uh probably noticed in your your hiring practices um you know there's probably more positions available than there are candidates and the age demographics have certainly caught up with a lot of us you have the added while you are a tremendously attractive city you do have the disadvantage of being in a very high cost area. And so it's not quite as easy to track folks. And I think that's why it's also important for your recruiter to really do an excellent job of vetting candidates to ensure that their reasons, their motivations, their wherewithal and ability to look at this seriously is discussed because worst thing that could happen is we put forth the candidate to you that in the end says, well, I'm sorry, I just can't afford to take that job. It's too expensive to live there or it's too expensive to live in the Bay Area. |
| 01:00:34.72 | Unknown | Great, thank you. Does anyone else have other questions for Paul? |
| 01:00:41.17 | Unknown | Well, I'll just acknowledge Paul that you have answered the questions I had coming in through your presentation and discussion. But I wanted to say thank you and great presentation and appreciate you being here tonight. |
| 01:00:53.54 | Paul Kimura | Thank you very much. the consideration and the opportunity to speak with all of you. And best of luck on this moving forward. And I guess the good news for you is there are three excellent, I think, excellent search firms that you're looking at. That's a good start. |
| 01:01:11.64 | Unknown | Thank you so much. Thank you so much for that. Thank you, Paul. you know, uh, rock. party in your neighborhood. Definitely, we're not having that excitement up here in Sausalito, I can tell you that. |
| 01:01:24.70 | Paul Kimura | Thank you. The good news is at least there are signs of life coming from from all this. All right. Thank you all. Good evening. |
| 01:01:32.75 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you so much. Thank you, Paul. Great. |
| 01:01:36.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:01:37.07 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 01:01:37.21 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:01:37.24 | Heidi Scoble | you |
| 01:01:37.33 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:01:37.39 | Heidi Scoble | Thanks. OK, Deborah? |
| 01:01:38.47 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:01:38.49 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. So we now have Wendy Brown and Sam Sakerman that will present to us from Wendy Brown Creative Partners. Great. Welcome Wendy. |
| 01:01:52.11 | Wendy Brown | Thank you. Nice to meet all of you virtually. |
| 01:01:58.45 | Wendy Brown | All right. Well, thank you so much. |
| 01:01:58.72 | Unknown | I need. |
| 01:02:00.73 | Wendy Brown | Hi, Joan. Hi, thank you so much for having Sam and I here tonight. We really appreciate the opportunity to be able to present to you. We also have a PowerPoint presentation. Should just take a few minutes to go through that. And then looking forward to answering any of your questions. I'm gonna go ahead and get that started. |
| 01:02:32.44 | Wendy Brown | So can you see my screen? |
| 01:02:35.01 | Unknown | Yes, we can. Thanks. |
| 01:02:37.03 | Wendy Brown | That's right. Thank you. Set it in presentation mode. All right. So I wanna start a little bit with a little bit different. I think it would be important for me to talk a little bit about Thank you. myself how i got into public sector recruiting prior to public sector recruiting i started in orange county in 1998 Prior to that, I was all private sector. In private sector, I was in marketing and branding. That's the background that I had. And that's really, I think, the biggest success that I've had. in the work that I've done in public sector recruiting. So I was working, I initially started with the County of Orange working in employee relations, they were rolling out a new performance and center program. It was across the entire county. So at the time, 17,000 employees, 25 decentralized departments. I was working for the CEO, or excuse me, Assistant CEO, HR Director, and working in employee relations And we had to put together a communications campaign. We were working with Deloitte and Touche and I was Deloitte and Touche Tush's internal uh orange county representative helping support that communications plan so uh we did that that's where my marketing communications piece fit in After that was done, they had, I coordinated a train the trainer program and then put together a a training program that we needed to train 17,000 employees in 12 months, so I coordinated that. So once that was all done, I, they put me into HR still in the CEO's office Um, and asked me to do some recruitments. They were going to start building me up as a generalist. Well, when they handed me a recruitment, I was like, oh, this is marketing and branding. So it was my wheelhouse. It was a comfort zone for me. that morphed into an internal HR consultant for the County of Orange. I worked on everything from individual contributor hard to fill positions. all the way up to executive management positions so I was doing department heads as well as helping out the 25 decentralized departments with any hard to fill recruitments that they had at the time things were moving from a traditional um, post the job on the Orange County register to online advertising. So I was helping the organization transition into Um, thinking about recruiting differently, recruiting for competencies, behavioral-based interviews. marketing a position, you know, targeting an audience, those kinds of things. So I also helped them with redoing their selection rules, which had been outdated for 25 years. So all of that, and then I decided to move to Southern Oregon. That's where I'm based out of right now. I'm in actually Gold Hill. which is, sorry about that. This light usually isn't so bright. So I'm based out of Gold Hill, which is about five and a half hours from the Bay Area. Sam is in our Morgan Hill office. So she's an employee of mine. Um, I moved here, I moved to Southern Oregon for family reasons. Orange County asked me if I would continue working for them, even though I moved, so I was the only employee out of 17,000 at the time. It was kind of unique, today is not so unique, Um, I worked, uh, for three years from Southern Oregon, supporting them, continuing to do that work as their internal HR consultant on all things recruitment. So then they had a new HR director that came on and they asked me to report back to California and I couldn't do that. Folks were leaving and they went to Irvine and Santa Barbara and they started calling me and asking me to do work for them. And that's how I started my business in 2004. Since then I've built the business up. We have over 50 clients, most of them repeat. both nonprofit and public sector, but the bulk of our businesses in public sector, we have done some private sector recruitments. Usually that's because a board member that we've worked with through private sector wants us to help them out with some things. So those are, you know, right now I have seven staff, seven core staff. full time and I have several consultants that work with me, usually because of their subject matter expertise, but one consultant in particular that works with me regularly actually two that works with me regularly on recruitments to help us out with facilitating Um, Panels, mostly if we have multiple panels, those kinds of things. But Sam and I are the recruiters that you'll have on this recruitment. And I'm the lead, so Sam will be supporting me. So we've been in business now since 2004. I kept my business fairly small for a long time because I had some family needs to not travel. For the last three years we've doubled our business every year. because I was waiting for my kids to go off to college, which they finally have. And I'm having fun growing my business and it's been great. So I'm gonna, we also do class and comp studies. We do competency modeling, job description redevelopment, some very innovative forward thinking things that a lot of cities and have been incorporating into some of our organizations. So talk a little bit about the process. It's not a whole lot different than what you've heard already this evening. So I'm not gonna spend a ton of time on it. Um, I think that there are some unique things about our organization. I'll talk about in a little bit, but I just want to quickly just cover the process. Uh, the stakeholder engagement is the biggest, most important part of just identifying the ideal candidate. I have a pretty good understanding of your community. I've worked with Marin County, with the city of San... San Rafael. I love Cavallo Point, I go there whenever I can. I have also spent some time in Sausalito downtown as well. So I also did some research before this meeting to find out where you have some pain points right now. So I think you have a pretty good idea there. The stakeholder engagement could include anybody and everybody. Um, we recently did a town manager for the town of Truckee. And we did actually a community survey as well as an employee survey to find out what their top competency skillsets and interests were. We also did a... Um, I guess you would call it, it's more of a town hall, but it was a virtual virtual Zoom meeting to allow people to be able to verbally talk with me and bring up their concerns or questions about the recruitment process. So the stakeholder engagement piece can be just as broad. And there has to be a point where you say you have to cut it off, |
| 01:09:10.18 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:09:26.64 | Wendy Brown | But it could be broadened as inclusive as interest and reasonability are, or it could be more reduced and it really depends on the interest of our client. And we could talk about that. That really comes to the consulting part of what we do. Competency based recruitments during the process for collecting information and identifying the ideal candidate. As previous recruiters talked about, it's not just necessarily the technical skills, it's the interpersonal skills that you look for that really makes the, the candidates successful and I often say you know when was the last time you let somebody go because they weren't technically capable it's usually because of the other skill sets you're lacking But, So we identify both the technical and interpersonal communication leadership skills that you're looking for. and we measure against those. |
| 01:10:19.96 | Unknown | Mm. |
| 01:10:20.27 | Wendy Brown | into our strategic marketing campaign, which I think is the, um, the strength of our organization. We do a comprehensive marketing campaign Again, not much different, a little different than some of the other folks we're talking about. We are LinkedIn recruiters as well. So we use that. That is a great. Um. opportunity for us to be able to be successful. It has really been able to help us get the passive applicants, but we also are very strategic about that. So knowing where you're looking and if you're looking at potentially private sector, I think that's amazing. But identifying where our client is looking and going after where those folks are. um there's also associations there's the um know League of California Cities and CSAC the California Counties Association so those lists are available I could get the city manager list and I will do a direct mail piece to all the city managers and we have a list of their phone numbers as well so we'll do the headhunting the direct headhunting to the folks that we think are possibly a good match. and And then, so we'll do direct mail, online advertising, head hunting, and the LinkedIn. We also screen candidates as we have them coming in. So we have a really good idea, even mid recruitment, whether or not we have some good candidates. So that's the marketing campaign into the candidate screening. We also conduct phone screens, usually with the top candidates, which are Typically on average 20 to 25% of the applicant pool For this recruitment, I would not be surprised if we get about 100 applicants. About 25% of that applicant pool I'll be talking with. Again, not different from the other candidates identifying the cost of housing, their interests, identifying the soft skills, technical skills, all those other things. So not only identifying what you're looking for, but also securing them as a candidate as well, talking about all the opportunities as well as the potentially perceived challenges that somebody would have. And then we have, of course, the interview panel coordination. That would be something we'd also consult with you on. We could have multiple panels and different makeups of different panels. There's lots of strategy and ideas behind that that I could pose and we could come up with a strategic plan for that. developing the questions, behavioral based questions, definitely the way to go, as Paul mentioned. Those are the best indicators of future performance. But we also would encourage you, depending on what you're looking for, to consider other things to include besides questions. For this recruitment, definitely a presentation. The topic of that presentation would probably stem from what you're really looking for. You're looking for that creative, innovative, forward thinking, strong economic development, posing a question and giving them a week to respond and actually having them present. We've also done other things where people have done writing exercises or even emergency management exercises. So those in basket exercises that might help you identify how somebody would actually respond or react. if they were already on the job. Um, And of course, we'll be facilitating that. Our price does include background and reference checks. We do a 360% reference background check. We don't do it until after an ideal candidate has been selected. That way it doesn't slow down the process and it doesn't expose the candidates. And honestly, at that point, the candidates are going to be giving references. My perspective is they're going to be giving references that aren't going to be Um, ones that would be exposing them anyways so it would probably be more personal or other references but of course at the end once a candidate is identified We will be doing a 360 perspective to people they reported to a couple to the side, hopefully elected official. if they're coming from another organization and two employees that have reported to them. And then the background is basic criminal background. You might want to do a live scan, which is something that we could send them to. Um, We also could potentially do something that would be in addition to these services, which would be more of an investigative background check. We do have a consultant on our team. That's a former, um, chief of police 30 plus years of experience and doing those kinds of interviews and he's also a private investigator in California so he can conduct those So that's a little bit about the process. I'm going to just quickly go through the next slides, but I would say the thing that I think that you should pick us for is because clients trust us. They trust putting us in front of elected officials, in front of their community members, in front of your businesses, in front of your department heads. We communicate effectively and we communicate often and we're available and responsive. We don't just think of communication on the client side, but we also recognize we can't do our job. unless we are successfully communicating with our candidates as well and treating applicants with respect even if they're not qualified. So we communicate with our applicants and I'm always available. I have my number and email on everything I do. So people can call me at any time. I'm also knowledgeable. I mentioned already that we've done several recruitments in California. And while I'm not based out of California, I lived most of my life in California. I know the Bay area. I grew up in Sunnyvale, Cupertino. Sam is still in California. and I'm regularly there. So, um, during COVID not so much, but, um, when you know things go back to normal I could be gone for months at a time so so I know California very very well at both northern and southern California Um, results. We have, uh, excellent track record. We have done a great job, um, with with recruiting. And I know I just have a couple more minutes left, so I am I'm gonna quickly just go through, we've done a town manager recruitment for Truckee, City Manager recruitment for the City of Petaluma, City of Phoenix here in Oregon, the City of Oxnard, City Manager, City of Ventura, And here's just some things I just want to show you very quickly. Just we are marked my marketing background definitely shows And I think the materials that we provide and produce to really sell why a client wants to pick us. Diversity is a question I've heard already bring up. For an RFP that we responded to recently, we had to put together what our, our diversity of clients hired in the last three years is. And we found that we had 40% of executives that were hired. coming from a diverse applicant pool. And that's it. |
| 01:17:20.22 | Unknown | Great, thank you, Wendy. Great presentation from Sam. Okay, are there questions from council members? Do you mind? Yeah, thanks. |
| 01:17:31.57 | Unknown | All right. |
| 01:17:32.35 | Unknown | No, that's okay. |
| 01:17:33.40 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:17:33.70 | Unknown | Thank you. Great questions for Wendy or Sam. |
| 01:17:40.72 | Unknown | Nobody? |
| 01:17:42.53 | Unknown | So, ah. |
| 01:17:42.54 | Unknown | So, oh, |
| 01:17:43.07 | Unknown | Thank you. Well, I'm going to go. |
| 01:17:43.69 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:17:43.71 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:17:43.86 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:17:43.93 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:17:43.94 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:17:43.96 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:17:44.05 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:17:44.06 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:17:44.08 | Unknown | Thank you. Hi, Wendy. Hi, Sam. Uh, I know that with LinkedIn and obviously online portals and everything, it's really easy to kind of recruit and cast a net. nationwide. What really is the the chance of somebody coming from Boston, New York, Philadelphia, or small towns around the East coast, Midwest, what, what are you seeing? really in that. chance or. coming to city government jobs. or even coming from out of state, especially to a city manager position. where state laws are a little more specific. |
| 01:18:25.51 | Wendy Brown | Yeah. Um, So talking with other executives, other city managers, people who work in public sector, I've never held a city manager position before, but I certainly worked with a lot of them. um that If you can get somebody from California, it makes the transition process much easier. So that's always been, but it also there, you also can have, you have less risk depending on what your leadership team looks like. So that administrative services finance director, those are where the biggest issues lie. um and not having california experience or city manager experience for that matter And so if you have somebody with those strengths as well, planning, I know plenty is a big thing in your community. So if somebody who has a strong team that can really keep the functional parts of that up, I think there's a little bit more opportunity for you to be more creative by picking somebody out of state or for that matter, somebody who doesn't have a city manager background. |
| 01:19:31.17 | Unknown | Great. Thank you. |
| 01:19:32.31 | Unknown | you Okay, other Questions? Yes, John. |
| 01:19:40.73 | Unknown | Wendy, there was such a huge list of placements that you've recently made. I was wondering what your workload is like, because we are super Well, We want to do this urgently but thoughtfully. |
| 01:19:57.58 | Unknown | Right. |
| 01:19:58.23 | Unknown | You know, Adam's last day is the end of December. I'm not sure. We have a great transition interim city manager, but we do want to Oh, my God. move as quickly, I guess, as circumstances will allow. So I just want to understand your capacity to take on this assignment. |
| 01:20:18.72 | Wendy Brown | Yes, we can take it on immediately. So we have capacity to be able to do that. So thank you for the question, Joan. And the reason why I put that list together is our biggest challenge in support is in getting elected officials to consider our organization and I'm really glad I got an opportunity to actually meet with you but a lot of times we don't really even get a chance to actually get this far because We haven't. been an Avery and associates or you know Bob Murray. We don't have hundreds of city manager recruitments that we filled. So it's difficult unless our client knows us or has heard about a reputation. to pick us when we've had seven. You know, so while we've had several executive directors and I've worked with a lot of boards and elected officials, Um, unless somebody actually calls our references or takes the time to kind of consider us. I think I'm very competitive. I think I bring a lot that my competition doesn't bring not to say anything negative against my competition, but I think that, I can bring a little bit more to it because of some of the strengths that I bring and our values that we have as a business. Yeah. So I guess just to conclude with that, so I just put a whole list in there. So you can see I actually do lots of recruitments, not just city manager recruitment. |
| 01:21:33.66 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 01:21:36.82 | Wendy Brown | Thank you. |
| 01:21:37.22 | Unknown | And I, you know, that and your experience with the private sector, I think, is really helpful to a well-rounded. background. Thank you. |
| 01:21:48.26 | Unknown | Wendy, can you talk a little bit about the difference in recruiting for the nonprofit sector? I know that's not as big a part of your work. |
| 01:21:59.19 | Wendy Brown | Yeah, I definitely can. So, nonprofits Um, Boards tend to have board members, nonprofits that are very passionate about the work. They're also usually full-time employees someplace else. They have a very active life. so not much different than city council members but But I think the combination of passion, maybe not knowing the business part of it as well, and then also having very busy lives themselves. creates a little bit more of a challenge in just helping support them because it's always kind of hurting and getting people coordinated or giving project managing people in the process to make things move forward. But honestly, it's not much different because it's still an organization that needs a leader. It's either appointed or elected to the positions. And it's actually very similar, which is why we work so well with nonprofits. |
| 01:23:06.63 | Unknown | And then what about in terms of the candidates? |
| 01:23:09.41 | Wendy Brown | kind of Can you ask me what's different about the candidates? |
| 01:23:14.56 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. Well, I mean, we're doing fine. Sorry, if you were, you know, the other two, we talked about kind of private sector versus Right. Public. But, you know, nonprofits, a whole different Yeah. |
| 01:23:26.99 | Wendy Brown | Yeah. |
| 01:23:28.30 | Unknown | follow. |
| 01:23:28.78 | Wendy Brown | So it's really not that much different. It's more program based. I'll pick a couple of recruitments that I've done. One was maybe food bank was a little bit more, I think of a private sector focus that was not. |
| 01:23:28.84 | Unknown | That's it. |
| 01:23:45.00 | Wendy Brown | Fresno. a very large food bank and they were trying to figure out how to improve logistics, operations, They had issues with refrigeration expansion. Funding, so that's a big one for nonprofits, right? Somebody who has to do a lot of fundraising. So, it's really no different because we are able to recruit based off of identifying the idea of candidate and putting together a good marketing plan. And then it's about identifying what's the strengths and weaknesses and opportunities in the organization. And when I say weaknesses, it's not necessarily something that I think is a negative because those create opportunities for the right candidate. |
| 01:24:27.49 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:24:28.74 | Wendy Brown | So I know that your city is struggling with some things right now because of COVID. And that's going to translate into finding somebody that's going to have the right competencies and skill sets that you need to accomplish the goals that you're looking for. And it's just identifying what those are and then looking for those candidates that have those skillsets. So applying marketing strategies and communication strategies in any recruitment is not much different. |
| 01:24:59.62 | Unknown | Thank you. Thanks. Other questions? Ready, Jill? |
| 01:25:01.72 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 01:25:06.56 | Unknown | Great. Great. |
| 01:25:08.87 | Wendy Brown | There's just a couple of questions I had. I mean, because you mentioned private sector. Can I ask just a quick question about that? Are you actually considering potentially from private sector. |
| 01:25:22.91 | Unknown | I asked that question and I've had feedback from a number of leaders in our community about expanding our search beyond the traditional parameters. Thank you. to include skill sets not always found in typical city managers, given the challenges of COVID-19, there also has been criticism about, you know, not refinancing some of our bond financing, you know, there have been different criticisms that are more business oriented as opposed to municipal. I'm not sure. although not outside of municipal finance. So anyway, that's where the question came from. There seems to be some interest in the community IN EXPANDING the typical parameters of a city manager search. |
| 01:26:12.71 | Wendy Brown | Yeah, I think that one of the recruitments that we've done that I would say is probably a little bit more innovative that might be similar to something that you might be looking for, Um, is we did a director of innovation and economic development for the city of Livermore. And we're really looking for somebody who encouraged innovation and drove the economy. Um, They had to have a focus of business attraction and retention. workforce development and attraction, tourism attraction and promotion. Sustained and grow a vibrant downtown. Um, those were just some of the things that they were looking for, but they were really looking for innovation, which was a new thing for me. that I didn't know that there was this like magical innovation thing out there in the tech world. And, um, and that there were these labs that people would put together and all those good things. And we did a little bit of exposure to that. We did our city manager recruitment in Ventura, but this was all innovation and economic development. And we have some great people from private sector. Now, I don't know if they would actually be able to be a great city manager for you because you're taking a lot of risks because there's other things. And like I said, those are some things that you hopefully have developed in your staff |
| 01:27:16.83 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:27:28.97 | Wendy Brown | I did have your staff list there here, but I don't know. know what their capacity is and where the touch points are, which would be a concern. But I think that you could probably find a great city manager that's a great innovative, economic development person that could bring that spice and that innovative approach that you're looking for. So, I just want to encourage you to kind of maybe think about that. I don't know what all your things are and we'll find if we're selected, we'll find that out when we do our kickoff meeting. about what you really are all looking for but that seems to be something that might hit some of the pain points you have right now because of COVID. |
| 01:28:06.18 | Unknown | Well, it certainly, some of the things you called out are some of the things that are Sausalito's top priority right now. helpful to hear that you were looking for a municipal employee with some of those features. Thank you. |
| 01:28:19.49 | Unknown | Great. All right, well, thank you both. Thank you both for being here tonight. It's great to see you. and I appreciate the conversation and the conversation. |
| 01:28:27.77 | Wendy Brown | I do too, thank you so much. |
| 01:28:29.18 | Unknown | to see you. Thank you. Bye. |
| 01:28:30.91 | Wendy Brown | I do. |
| 01:28:30.95 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:28:30.98 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:28:31.32 | Wendy Brown | you |
| 01:28:32.11 | Unknown | Thank you. Good night, everyone. Thank you. Oh, not us. |
| 01:28:38.03 | Unknown | Hey. Nice try, Jo. |
| 01:28:45.22 | Unknown | Okay, Deborah, is there anything else that you... |
| 01:28:48.58 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. had for us before we get started. The only thing that I wanted to point out, I wanted to CHRISTIE WOODWARD- Thank Councilmember Hoffman for a question earlier. I went back through these proposals to verify and in listening to the presentations, I wanted to revisit that quickly because it is unusual, uncommon for an organization to have a licensed investigator on their staff and we just heard one that does. So I wanted to point that out. And I also wanted to say for the most part, The reference checks are included by everyone. The piece that isn't is that criminal background, formal background checks. That's all I had to add. |
| 01:29:32.66 | Unknown | Great, thank you. Okay, well, I think we had, I think, you know, this is really encouraging that we have three qualified Great. search firms that we were able to interview. I THINK WE WOULD DO WELL. with any of the three, you know, I think it's kind of mainly a question of a good fit, sort of for us. I... I have to say just personally that I kind of gravitated towards the two smaller firms, you know, really appreciate the expertise that Anderson brings, but just kind of like the smaller the two smaller firms that direct contact with the principals, I think either of, again, I think any of the three would be great and we would get a good result. from them, but I did just personally gravitate towards the two |
| 01:30:28.40 | Unknown | I did. |
| 01:30:32.38 | Unknown | to smaller firms. seem to be a little more personal talk more about the kind of some of the more innovate, you know, just talked more about the innovative approaches, the more personal approaches, the behavioral interviewing, |
| 01:30:40.24 | Unknown | you know, |
| 01:30:40.33 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:30:40.35 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:30:46.44 | Unknown | type of, of, um, and aspect to it. Thank you. |
| 01:30:53.86 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:30:53.96 | Unknown | THANK YOU. |
| 01:30:54.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:30:54.10 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:30:54.20 | Unknown | AND, Yeah. You know, I like, so I'll just start off and then other people can kind of go in. I really thought our last interview with Wendy Brown, you know, woman owned business, kind of starting from scratch with that has a lot of experience in the private sector. Um, you know, really, talked about competency, you know, the competency based approach. has done some pretty interesting recruitments and not just kind of focused so much in this one vein of city managers and other top level department heads. So I thought that was, That was good. I also really liked Paul Paul's discussion, he seems quite thoughtful. And so I thought he might be a good fit as well. um Again, all three. seem like they're well qualified to do the job. And, you know, I think all three hit the main points that I think we've talked about before, but, you know, really robust public outreach, stakeholder outreach, um, diversity, you know, looking really going out and not just going to the usual sources. So I think that was important as well. Anybody else want to? start or have preferences, strong preferences or strong Thank you. Non-preferences. |
| 01:32:34.77 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:32:34.88 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:32:35.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:32:36.21 | Unknown | Joan. |
| 01:32:37.34 | Unknown | Sure, I'll endorse what the mayor just said. I did like sort of the personalized approach that I felt from the Two smaller firms. And the last firm was quite impressive to me, and I have previously revealed I have I'm going to go ahead and see how with that firm in the past on recruitments for my municipal clients. as well as been recruited by that firm for different county council positions in different counties throughout the state. Um, I liked the fact that they do a community survey and an employee survey. I think that in our really active with our really active resident base that's going to be important. I liked that, I liked her conversation about other skill sets beyond the technical, And then I really liked the way that she picked up on one of the questions we asked a prior applicant and carried it forward to really better understand what we're looking for and then offered some options to consider. in that regard. So, um, I think we did a great job of narrowing it down TO THREE. but I am aligned with the mayor in terms of what I think my preferences would be. Thank you. |
| 01:34:08.99 | Unknown | Thank you. Jill, looks like you're trying to speak. |
| 01:34:12.92 | Unknown | Yeah, or I'll, you know, if Ray wants to go, that's fine. Yeah, same conclusion really. I mean, I think the last two, Paul and Wendy were you know, my top would be my top of the three. I think, but I kind of fell out more for Paul just because he's local. And he's right in Silicon Valley and he's right in that, you know, sort of in that community. And he's from, he's done recruiting, like substantial recruiting. and private recruiting in that community. in Fortune 500 and in the tech community, which not to say that that's where we want to pull from, He might, those things that Joan was talking about, you know, he, I think, might understand that mindset a little bit more and understand the language that we're talking about and what we're looking for. or focusing in and the fact that he's here just you know that kind of edges it out a little bit for me I I thought when you gave a break great presentation and I don't think I don't think she would be a bad pick for us at all, but I just think when you weighed it to, I fell out. for those reasons with Paul. And I understanding that she has an office down there, but I did look her associate up on LinkedIn and she's, of like, super new recruiter. You know, on our LinkedIn, it says that she just started in August as a senior recruiter there and before that had not done recruiting. I think it would, you know, we would be relying on Wendy to do most of the work and you know, So that would be of the concern for me with her. you know, not saying that that I didn't enjoy. you know, our virtual meeting and her interview, but that's why I fall out a little bit more with Paul. So that's just my concern. |
| 01:35:56.21 | Ray Withey | So I'm happy to go next. I again generally agree with what's been said. |
| 01:35:56.28 | Unknown | I'm not sure if I'm not sure |
| 01:36:04.56 | Ray Withey | I think any of the three firms would do a good job for us. So, I'm happy to go with what the majority is here. If I, I would probably, if you force me. I would probably lean towards some of the reasoning of council member Hoffman. and have a very slight preference for Avery, You know, it's... There's not much between them. |
| 01:36:45.88 | Marcia Raines | for Avery? |
| 01:36:46.69 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:36:47.55 | Ray Withey | the Yeah, Paul. Paul. Oh, Paul. |
| 01:36:50.41 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:36:50.43 | Marcia Raines | Thank you. |
| 01:36:50.63 | Unknown | HALF. |
| 01:36:50.72 | Marcia Raines | All right. |
| 01:36:50.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:36:50.99 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:36:51.17 | Unknown | . |
| 01:36:52.74 | Ray Withey | Yeah, Avery Associates. |
| 01:36:55.06 | Unknown | well ditto across the board I will note that given the format, the, the interviewers got to see the previous interviews. So they got stronger simply because of some of the information they were exposed to, but we knew that going in. Um, that said, it doesn't really change my lineup necessarily. And I think I'm, um, in agreement that it would, uh, I kind of hitched toward the final two, Avery and Wendy Brown. Jill brought up some really good points. it is a lot working with our stakeholders and our staff. And I think, you know, Joan's question about, private industry looking at those types of candidates is probably something we may discuss as a group further. I thought it was really interesting that economic development would be one of those veins that that person could come out of. And assuming who's not happy with the current use of city manager. I think economic development would be the backfire herd across you know, the canyon, because that's not imagining the group that I want, that I think would want economic development as being our... our direction, but I think that's a... a thing that we should probably talk about a little further when we pick somebody. after we pick somebody. So I'm on board with, which I think where we're headed, but it looks like we probably need to vote given that we're kind of, had you been towards the |
| 01:38:32.49 | Unknown | Yeah, I see that we've got both, got our current city manager. We have our interim city manager and Deborah's still on the line. I don't know if they have anything to add. um, But, |
| 01:38:47.41 | Unknown | I would be interested in hearing, Mayor, because I know they've worked with some of these firms in the past. Yeah. |
| 01:38:55.14 | Unknown | Yeah, I think it's fantastic that Marsha's on the call. As you all know, I have a tremendous amount of respect. for Marcia and her experience in this area. I've shared with you all in the process as has Deborah that we have confidence in all three of these firms. And I think as the mayor said at the very beginning of the evening, It really is about fit. I think the points that were raised tonight were outstanding. I have worked obviously with Ralph Anderson and associates They were the firm that recruited me to Sausalito. and then we've used them several times since. Same with Paul Kermine. and Avery and Associates have worked with Paul on several occasions. And then I've sat on interview panels that Wendy Brown has led and I've been very impressed with Wendy. and her team as well. So I don't believe you can go wrong. But if you'd like, a fresh set of perspective, I think it'd be great to ask Marcia if she has any thoughts on it. |
| 01:39:56.97 | Unknown | Great, Marsha, do you mind weighing in? |
| 01:39:59.80 | Marcia Raines | No, in fact, I am online and I did unmute. You know, my sentiments are very close to Adams, as you might not be surprised. I have been recruited by ARE to two organizations, but have interviewed with Anderson and hold them in high regard. Having said that, I've not met Wendy before, but sitting in on her interview, I don't see how you go wrong with any of the three. The one piece of advice I would give is, any, they give my perspective of dealing with the top firms is they give you their perspective on what they've done and what works. If you want to pick one of them that you happen to be more comfortable with and ask them to do one extra task or two extra tasks she picked up with another consulting firm I am imagining would be more than willing and more than happy add the community survey or the staff survey or anything that they left out in their presentation to their package any of the three of them So. |
| 01:40:56.81 | Wendy Brown | Thank you. |
| 01:40:56.98 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:40:57.82 | Marcia Raines | I would say pick the one you feel most comfortable with as a group of five. and then put together the list of things that are musts for you in this recruitment. secondary list of things that would be nice to have. and ask that top firm. to provide you with that package. That would be my recommendation. Great. |
| 01:41:20.55 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:41:24.30 | Heidi Scoble | I just want to add on to that, that's exactly right. their proposals do not preclude that and do not list any specific type of process for any of these. any of the actions, the development, the gathering of information, the interviewing process. That is all developed through conversations with you So it's your desire to and how inclusive you want to be. They've already included that in the price of their proposal. Yeah. |
| 01:41:54.72 | Marcia Raines | One thing I would add after thinking this through is, this is part of what I was saying to you when you were interviewing me. You're in a position as the city of Sausalito, Your council is viewed very positively throughout the state. believe me, of the councils that I have dealt with, You do well working together. In addition, You are a prime location. You have a an extremely talented staff. Your reputation of a talented staff is again top notch. these firms are gonna wanna come, you have, recruited. two that I know of, of the top firms. And Wendy, I would say from her, her presentation is right up there. So you're in a position of strength. So figure out where your comfort level is. And don't be shy. |
| 01:42:51.45 | Unknown | Right, thank you for that vote of confidence. Um, Great. So we can't go wrong. We just need to have fit. It sounds like, um, you know, I, I think I could work. well with either Paul or Wendy. Um, I guess the one thing that I gravitate towards Wendy Brown and associates with is their marketing materials. Um, Anderson included some in their package as well, but, um, I think, uh, she does a really great job on a clean. modern look, and I think that would attract kind of a an interesting group and, um, you know, be very kind of, um, a big asset for us in terms of just kind of following up with what Marsha was just saying. kind of putting us at the taking our image and our um you know what we kind of love about sausalito and and using that to our advantage to attract a qualified candidate, so I would you know, unfortunately I didn't I know Jill did some more online research than I did. didn't look at Avery's, um, marketing materials. I didn't include anything in their packet, at least in what I have in front of me tonight. really did like the look of Wendy's work. and would probably give her the edge on that. |
| 01:44:27.96 | Unknown | And if mayor, if I might, I will say I've worked with her on a couple of recruitment. I would never know if you didn't tell me that she's not local. because she's a really active presence in whatever locale the recruitment takes place. Of course that was pre-COVID. So now everything's by Zoom anyway. So, but she really does have the, knowledge and understanding and love for California, such that I wouldn't even know where she lived unless she told me. |
| 01:45:01.09 | Marcia Raines | Well, and along those lines, one of the things as I was suggesting, you could specify You want to work with her. It's not that you mind her associate. but that you find in the review, the associates experience doesn't meet what you're looking for. You want 90% of this to be done by her. That's one of your options. If you go that way, I'm not expressing a preference for any of them. I'm just saying, what I hear, the council member Cox saying is She has exhibited, Presence. demand it if you go that way. |
| 01:45:40.58 | Unknown | on. So I, I think I still fall out with Paul. I liked what he said about targeted aggressively looking for people as well as passively. I think Wendy might have mentioned something about that too, I like that he was focused on that. And again, I like that he's just physically and he's part of part of the community. that has certain habits that I think we want to access. And even though you know, when you, used to live here, I don't think she's as connected with that community as he is. with the experience in that community he has. And so that's just, that's why I fall out with him. I, like I said, it's nothing, nothing negative with Wendy. It's just I think he. for me and what i'm looking for for us and moving us forward i i think i he just edges he just gets the edge that's you know that's just my vote |
| 01:46:37.21 | Unknown | Okay, so it looks like we are a little split. Joe or Ray, do you have anything to... |
| 01:46:43.60 | Unknown | I'll agree you're a little split. |
| 01:46:48.02 | Unknown | Thanks. Super helpful. |
| 01:46:51.87 | Ray Withey | anything. You know, I mean, it's an interesting situation because I literally could go with either of Thank you. firm. I mean, Yeah. |
| 01:47:03.30 | Unknown | Thank you. like, |
| 01:47:04.51 | Ray Withey | So... |
| 01:47:04.53 | Unknown | So, yeah. |
| 01:47:05.83 | Ray Withey | I'm not going to be the one to, you know, It's You know, I'd like us not to have to vote on this, but you know, I'm, So I'm happy to go with your suggestion, Madam Mayor. However, if it looks like there's some serious interest beyond one council member for Avery, I'd possibly go there as well because I think they're both really good. So anyway, um, can't go far wrong. So, um, |
| 01:47:44.37 | Unknown | No, I don't think we can go wrong. I'm comfortable with both of them. Thank you. you know, It's interesting that Marcia said she's been recruited twice by Avery. You know, she's obviously held some pretty, high positions, city manager world. So that's a good reference there. I, you know, Amen. |
| 01:48:15.42 | Unknown | I'm happy with both. So I guess that's not that helpful at this point. |
| 01:48:20.03 | Unknown | I'm sorry. |
| 01:48:20.08 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE Thank you. |
| 01:48:23.06 | Unknown | Avery Wendy. I mean, it's just probably just a little bit more towards Avery, but, you know, like everybody else said, right? It's almost dead even, but probably just a little Boy, it sure was easier getting an interim, huh? |
| 01:48:41.29 | Unknown | . |
| 01:48:43.53 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:48:44.11 | Unknown | easier. |
| 01:48:44.41 | Unknown | I mean, you |
| 01:48:45.09 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:48:45.10 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 01:48:45.59 | Unknown | Thank you. One other thing I will say is that I've been interviewed by Wendy. on the phone, I participated in the phone interview which was comprehensive, challenging. So I would. appreciate that level of attention and detail being paid to our candidates. |
| 01:49:10.31 | Unknown | Okay. Um, I'm sorry. To me, it comes down to someone being here and local. That's why I like it, like, but I'm, you know, like I'm kind of with you guys too, right? Like, I really like them both, but I just, that's why I just fall out with Avery. So I don't know how, how do you guys want to put it? We do us all to close our eyes and we do not. |
| 01:49:33.13 | Unknown | David Vogelpohl- If it's cheaper than if it's just a tie. |
| 01:49:37.20 | Unknown | I don't think so when you add all the services and the 18 month guarantee. Well, yeah, but Avery's cheaper. |
| 01:49:43.96 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:49:47.44 | Unknown | I thought you were gonna ask that across the board too. Thank you. |
| 01:49:49.82 | Unknown | Yeah, I forgot. Uh. I forgot to ask Avery. |
| 01:49:54.98 | Unknown | Well, I think the cost is so minimal. I mean, the difference in the firms, like that's not really, I think kind of a distinction for me. I mean, I thought about that at the beginning and it is COVID and we need to watch our pennies, but, um, They really are all so close. you know, Anderson was a little bit farther above, but even so that's, it's not. So, you know, to me, the local, you know, Bay Area or... I don't, you know, that doesn't sway me that much. I think it's... Thank you. |
| 01:50:39.90 | Unknown | Um... Well, let me... Let me throw one more thing in. And that was that he said in the last four years, he's done 49 city manager searches. So I know Wendy had pages of people that she had searched for but I only saw four or five city manager searches. So these guys focus, I mean, this is just something that stood out to me was that they focus on executive searches and city manager searches. So I mean, that's... you know, that's kind of their thing. even though you know when he does, obviously does a ton of searches and a ton of placements, their thing is Avery's and Paul's commerce thing is city managers. So that's- |
| 01:51:26.16 | Unknown | Yeah, that's true. And I'm glad you mentioned that because I really did like his answer to the question about the search for resources. you know, in Monterey. And Monterey is not Sausalito, but I think he picked out some really interesting aspects of that city manager search in the sense that it has also like Sausalito has kind of a tourist aspect some industry marinas. |
| 01:51:48.79 | Unknown | industry. |
| 01:51:50.97 | Unknown | um, So I thought that was a good idea. a really good response to that question. Um, Okay, well, I know we're, you know, I think we've exhausted |
| 01:52:08.84 | Unknown | I think staff is having a good time watching this. Struggled. |
| 01:52:12.33 | Marcia Raines | Again, I hate to interrupt your great conversation and you're coming together as a team and getting to consensus. I did not review the proposals. Did Avery give you a guarantee? And if not, that's one of the things that when I said earlier You might pick him and ask him to give you the guarantee of whatever Wendy gave you or whatever you feel is appropriate if that piece was missing and then with Wendy You know, you might, ask for more information in terms of I think it's a good thing. that they Are these candidates that she successfully recruited? Are these candidates that have been placed in the last two years or have they been in place for I for another Adam tenure. where, you know, how long have her managers been in place and are they stable? And You know, those types of questions. I happen to know the answer with Avery, otherwise you could ask him too. um, But where, you know, it'd be great if you made a selection tonight i'm sure adam wants you to make a selection tonight if you have more questions Ask them. |
| 01:53:11.31 | Unknown | Yeah, I think we would like to make a selection tonight. And I guess at this point, I... I think it's a really, really close call, but I would probably come down with Avery. and in terms of solid city manager recruiting. But I think Wendy could do the job as well. Amen. So I guess Joan, it sounds like that's a slight edge with Joe. Joan, do you have any? Yeah. |
| 01:53:42.90 | Unknown | You know. |
| 01:53:43.56 | Unknown | I like the fact that you've worked directly with Wendy before and you really have her in high regard. Yeah. |
| 01:53:52.19 | Unknown | Yeah. So, and I just, I know she's dynamic and creative. He struck me as not that dynamic, but you know, we don't need him to be dynamic. We need his work to be solid, which he has a solid resume, so. I'm not sure. I'm not going to go against the flow here. |
| 01:54:18.18 | Unknown | Yeah, and I think it's There's no strong... strong flow. I think we're all kind of could do both. All right, so why don't we, if we've got, kind of consensus here why don't we direct staff staff to pursue um every um contract with the elements from some of the other proposals that we really liked. Um, |
| 01:54:42.58 | Unknown | The 18 month guarantee. Particularly with COVID. |
| 01:54:45.42 | Unknown | particularly. Yeah, and I think the staff and community survey |
| 01:54:52.68 | Unknown | Yep, and confirm the background checks of the selected candidate. |
| 01:55:01.59 | Unknown | Were there any other aspects that came up that we wanted to |
| 01:55:09.04 | Unknown | make sure that we're included. |
| 01:55:14.31 | Unknown | Hold on. Hold on a second. Let me look and see here real quick. I'm looking at the summary chart that we have. |
| 01:55:21.67 | Unknown | And then I guess we would say for any reason, the contract isn't completed. you know, for some reason Avery is not available in our timeframe or something falls through that our clear second is Wendy Brown and Associates. |
| 01:55:35.39 | Unknown | Yes, agreed. I agree on that 100%. |
| 01:55:37.68 | Unknown | So we don't need to come back for a conversation. |
| 01:55:37.70 | Unknown | So we don't need to. |
| 01:55:40.15 | Unknown | something happening. Okay. |
| 01:55:43.28 | Unknown | And if it did go to Wendy, would we ask for a certain number of physical visits, two to three or something written into the contract? |
| 01:55:50.96 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:55:50.98 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:55:51.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:55:51.05 | Unknown | Sure. |
| 01:55:51.43 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:55:51.55 | Unknown | I'm not sure. |
| 01:55:51.86 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:55:51.97 | Unknown | and |
| 01:55:52.50 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:55:52.51 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:55:52.55 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:55:52.73 | Unknown | Thank you. I don't know if anybody is going to be doing... on site. Does it sit this point? So... |
| 01:55:59.35 | Unknown | No, I think Jill's point was more to the contacts and understanding of |
| 01:56:04.87 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:56:04.88 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:56:04.95 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:56:05.27 | Unknown | Thank you. Yeah. |
| 01:56:05.85 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:56:06.77 | Unknown | of that community, yeah, for sure. I do think |
| 01:56:08.65 | Unknown | I do. |
| 01:56:09.73 | Unknown | If Wendy were to be selected, we should insist that she be the point of contact and the workhorse for the recruitment. |
| 01:56:16.54 | Unknown | I agree. |
| 01:56:18.28 | Unknown | Okay, so is that sufficient direction to staff? We're gonna pursue the contract Avery and associates with a, for some reason they can't work on our timeframe, which I think they can, but if they can't, Thank you. Then we'll... pursue the same list of items that we just said with Wendy Brown |
| 01:56:44.99 | Unknown | Sounds good. |
| 01:56:46.43 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:56:46.46 | Heidi Scoble | Can I clarify that list? May I clarify that list? I have an 18 month guarantee staff and community survey. And clarify on background checks and that would be with Avery and if they're not available on time in a timely manner to make this happen then we move to Wendy Brown. And in Wendy Brown's, we ask for a commitment to be um, available when needed for, meetings and but she's our primary point of contact she's the primary thank you okay great |
| 01:57:20.33 | Unknown | Yeah. Yeah, I suppose the point if COVID restrictions are lifted that that we would want to talk about. specific, you know, physical being there for a certain percentage of time, but we can do that. I think, if we get to that point, right? |
| 01:57:36.19 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:57:36.97 | Unknown | Yeah, and given the timeframe, I think that's Fairly. |
| 01:57:40.48 | Unknown | Unlikely. |
| 01:57:41.26 | Unknown | Unlikely, but Maybe things will get better. Sooner. Okay. Great. So I think we are, we can conclude this item. We're not taking any votes tonight. The contract will be brought back. to a meeting in the near future. Thank you very much to Deborah, Adam, and Marsha for your input and your thoughts tonight. I'm glad you are all. here. That was great. Thank you. And then I am going to ask Adam since I was late getting home from the valley tonight. I didn't have time to. I know we had another item on our agenda tonight, but it seems like... we don't need to vote or to take any action on that tonight because I as I understand it she is vetting the policies around the use of body worn cameras with some of the groups that have commented on those to us in the past and he plans to take that policy to our community. |
| 01:58:48.99 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:58:49.28 | Unknown | disaster community disaster preparedness committee for public meeting. Adam, do you have more detail to add on, on that or any dates or. I mean, |
| 01:59:02.91 | Unknown | Thank you, Madam Mayor. You didn't need my help at all. You hit the I notes there. and council member Burns had shared earlier that the public safety disaster preparedness committee I met earlier today and they got the overview of the body worn camera. policy and what I suggested And what I am recommending is that we let the the disaster, the public, sorry. we let the Community Safety Disaster Preparedness Committee. We have a long title there that we changed not so long ago. We let them run with this issue. I did send the draft policy to our friends uh with active allies of sausalito and we'll continue to ask them to participate in these public meetings but because the community safety disaster preparedness committee is a formal committee of the city already You just appointed some really dynamic and great committee members to serve the city. The meetings are public and the meetings are recorded. So I think it would be helpful to start there I know that their next meeting, which is on November 11th, Joe, I don't know if the meeting is scheduled, if it's still at four o'clock, because I think they were trying to make that decision at the end of the meeting tonight. So you may not have gotten the confirmation, My understanding is their next meeting where they'll have more robust discussion about the policy as it was just introduced to them tonight. We'll have more robust discussion on the 11th. and then they'll make a recommendation to staff and we should have the chief and the chair of the the Community Safety Disaster Preparedness Committee, come to the council meeting on November 17th and just give us an update. And if we need to take a more formal action at that point the mayor will be able to reserve the right to do just that I hope that answers your question. |
| 02:01:07.05 | Unknown | Okay. Yeah, no, that's great. And I think that's much better to use an existing committee now that we've um, made sure that they have a quorum. That's great. I don't think we need another uh, Committee. So, That means that we don't have a second item on our agenda. I hope we had any... You know, I just realized that I forgot to ask for public comment on the second part, but I see that we only have one additional person. weigh in so I'll just ask if there is any additional public comment at this point in our discussion tonight. not seeing any hands raised so i think that concludes the business before us at this special meeting tonight and uh Reminder to everyone to vote. And we have our next meeting on a November 10th, I think. See everybody then. Thank you. |
| 02:02:15.97 | Unknown | Thanks everybody. Okay? |
| 02:02:17.35 | Ray Withey | Thank you. Bye now. |
| 02:02:18.78 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 02:02:18.80 | Unknown | Good night. |
| 02:02:19.41 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 02:02:19.66 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:02:19.88 | Ray Withey | Yeah. |
| 02:02:19.90 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 02:02:19.93 | Ray Withey | THE END OF |
| 02:02:19.96 | Unknown | Well, |
| 02:02:20.18 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Thank you. Good night. but |