Elapsed time was 2 hours, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds. I’m guessing on the seconds for dramatic effect. We needed 2 intermissions it was so dang long.
So what happened for it to take so long? Summarizing the big topics:
Payments under termination agreement for Water’s Edge project #
We had to walk a fine line because of prior discussions on deal terms that took place in closed session (before my time). There was some discussion in that closed session about payment timing. Nobody disputed that we needed to pay, and we passed it unanimously after some discussion. Writing big checks always causes some discussion, as it should.
Raymond project inside the boundary agreement area #
This is a proposal in the Village of Raymond. It is within 1 mile of I-94 so it falls under the Cooperative Boundary Agreement we have with Raymond. (You have to scroll down on that link to find it, or just search for Raymond.)
I keep my hair short to avoid pulling it out when frustrated. The proposal seems benign – owner wants to add an outbuilding for storage. Because the building is across Frontage Rd from 7 Mile Fair’s primary building, the outbuilding becomes a primary building and has to meet a different set of standards. And of course, the plans treat it as the outbuilding that it is. So it doesn’t meet our standards. It’s behind (west of) 7 Mile Fair so we can’t see it from Caledonia or the highway. Then we have to ask the lawyer for an opinion: is it a slippery slope to let this slide? Will the next applicant also insist on waiving our requirements? And then what good would the border agreement be? And then the rebuttal: but we waive our own requirements for ourselves all the time? Surely we can waive it here too, no? We would likely waive it if the proposal was within our boundaries.
And on and on and on…
Local government seems designed to make it difficult to do simple, practical things.
We sent it back to staff to work with the applicant to try to make it more amenable to our standards. Slipping down slopes can hurt on impact.
Candidate interviews #
First we agreed on the voting mechanism. I wanted an approach that took individual trustees and me out of the ability or responsibility of nominating someone to vote on. We agreed to rank order each of the 4, 1 being most preferred, then adding up scores, then nominating the low scorer. The prospect of a tie loomed large. Just my luck if it happened.
12 candidates had been filtered to 4. The 4 introduced themselves, answered prepared questions, then fielded trustee questions. Amazingly, we stuck to our time budget for each person, roughly 20 minutes. It made for a long night given all the other topics, but the whole process went pretty smoothly.
Paula Pintar was the low scorer, I made a motion to select her as per the agreed process. And the motion passed. We’re back to a full board now. Yay, 7 feral cats instead of 6!
Best part: we didn’t need a closed session.
Committee of the Whole #
I think we were 2h40m in when we started this meeting, but we soldiered on.
Traffic #
Multiple areas within the village have requested speed measurement, signage, or traffic calming measures. We talked about them all and concluded we needed data first. We’re going to roll out the police speed trailer thingee and determine what the right action is. Seemed reasonable.
Agenda management #
And finally I got my agenda item on agenda management over the finish line. It was a simple request: let’s review the ToDo list every meeting. Are we working on the right things? Are items languishing? Does anything look really controversial? Do we want to bump up the priority of anything? Do we want to add anything to the ToDo list?
Simple stuout ff really. Everyone said yes either because they wanted to get out of there or because it is a good idea.
Closing statement #
It was long but not longer than it had to be for the published agenda. I was happy with the interviews, impressed by the number and quality of the candidates, comfortable with the appearance of fairness in the selection process, and genuinely believe tension in the meetings is subsiding. We still have some big challenges in front of us, but I like the progress we’ve made in the short term. There’s a big task immediately ahead of us: the budget. Stay tuned.