[0:01] [Automated Captions May Contain Errors]

[0:08] Right. Felder, city clerk, you are hereby directed to call a special session of the City Council to be held on Tuesday, August 18th, 2026 at 5:15 p.m. in the historic Federal Building for the purpose of discussing the process for the City Manager Executive recruitment RFP submissions. Thank you.

[0:24] Good evening, and welcome to a special session of the Dubuque City Council for August 18th, 2026, as a reminder to be yours and listeners. Due to the nature of tonight's meeting topic public input is not accepted. However, he may contact the City Council directly from the city's web page at.

[0:38] Contacts. Attendance for the session is as follows. Mayor Cavanaugh, Council members Leyendecker. Resnick, Russell. Spring. Staver. Here. Here. City manager Van Milligan here. Thank you. And see Attorney Bromwell here. Our item tonight is City manager executive recruitment RFP submissions. Okay. So did you want to kick it off or. Yeah. Yeah. We'll have Kristen come on up.

[1:06] And what's up here. Absolutely. Good evening everyone. Kristin Deeds, talent acquisition manager in the human resources department. So to kick this off, we have the next exciting step in the city manager recruitment, which is the selection of the services in which we wanted to go with.

[1:25] So ultimately, we did solicit the services from July 1st until August 9th at 5 p.m.. Sorry. Can you do a receive and file? Can we get it? Sorry. Action item. Yep. Yep I'm sorry. Okay. My my apologies. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Please. I moved to receive and file and discuss among the council. Okay. So we got a motion by Resnick and a second by spraying.

[1:47] Thank you for stopping me. I didn't realize we needed to do that today. Chris, please. Yeah, sorry about that. No problem. It's definitely not your fault. No. So we did solicit the proposals. We did it from July 1st until August 9th at 5 p.m..

[2:04] We had a total of nine, which is really exciting RFPs that you guys get to review. And ultimately, what we're here to do tonight is the next steps, whether that is doing a full council participation to review those.

[2:20] If we wanted to do a subcommittee and only pull a handful of city council members, or if there's another direction that you wanted to go or just make the decision tonight. So we're kind of looking for additional next steps from you guys. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. So I have a question is ready to get started here. So the you kind of gave us two choices of have the full council participate in the whole process.

[2:37] And then a point two council members along with a committee with staff. How would staff be involved if we did the full council process? Can we just choose any way we like to? If it was full council, I'm going to lean over to her.

[2:55] So if it's full council, obviously being more than a quorum, they would all happen in meetings like this. So it would be all of you open to the public, posted 24 hours in advance and we would have to coordinate all the schedules. Yeah. So we literally just do all the work right here. Okay. Well answers my question. Okay. So we can go around the room.

[3:18] I'll, I'll be honest and say that I think given the scope of what we're looking at here, I really think that having a subcommittee of some sort of us to be able to bring a recommendation that we can obviously disagree with if we wanted to as a full council,

[3:33] but just to do that work up front and then come here with something that is a little more focused than what we're looking at right now, I think would be helpful. But that's just my initial thought. I can can be swayed. So, Mr.. Resnick, Mr. Mayor, I appreciate your point of view.

[3:51] I think this is something that we all have been elected to, to do, even up to the last election, that this is something that we want to be in from start to finish. Every one of us, and I do, and I don't know, but let's hear from others. I think that all are welcome. Thank you. That's great.

[4:13] I would agree with Mr. Resnick. I'd like to be involved in this one. Anybody disagree with either of these two? All right okay. So then how do we want to do this? What are we thinking? Mr. spring.

[4:30] I had envisioned that this was going to be like a series of different, similar meetings like this where we're just going to have to hash out all the details. And it would be not on a on a traditional Monday night, because I don't know how long these are going to take.

[4:46] And so, yeah, I was just planning to be like Tuesdays or Wednesdays or whatever day we decide that would work best with our schedules, that we would just be like, this is when we're here, until we get this kind of all hashed out. So that was my thoughts on the whole process. Yeah. Thanks. Mr. mayor, has HR come up with a scoring rubrics? And I really appreciate the summary that was put together.

[5:04] But have you kind of put some thought to a scoring rubrics around. Absolutely. So in the material that was provided in section four I just want to reference the RFP that was posted. So we did do a draft kind of scoring matrix associated with it. So it's going to end up be on page.

[5:25] It starts on page nine of the RFP and goes into page ten. And then also page 11 will also do the tentative recruitment timeline that was also included in the RFP. And this is just an example. You don't have to go with this one specifically, but it provided some guidance.

[5:57] Thank you. I do agree that I think. It's important for all of us to be part of the process, even though it may be a little bit more cumbersome, but I also like the idea of using our staff to give us some guidance.

[6:15] And as you've suggested, using the matrix so that we all look at each of these proposals with the same sort of criteria. And that way when we come up with a result, it's going to be from the same focus. We all have different perspectives because we've all we just all come from different different areas.

[6:42] But I think having a matrix, having you maybe guide us through this process, helping us understand what should we be looking for in this large amount of information. I mean, it's quite clear that there's a lot of differences between what each person is proposing. And I see, you know, prices one of them, but it's not the top one. We want the best candidate.

[7:02] And I think our community does want to see all of us provide that, that input. So that would be my hope that we can all be involved and use guidance from our expert staff to help us get pointed in the right direction in an efficient manner. Thank you.

[7:24] Yeah, I just I do want to be included. And I think it's helpful for all of us to play a role in the process equally. I think you've done a great job of summary, which is helpful. I am ready and willing to take any as this is your specialty of work.

[7:53] Take any kind of recommendations on each step forward. If you say, okay, now I think we should analyze the next step. Okay, let's and I'm not asking you to direct it. Obviously that's on us. But yeah, I agree. I don't I don't think that cost only should be the criteria. I do think the timeline piece of it is important to me.

[8:18] I appreciate there's kind of some vast differences in some of those within the RFP options that were proposed. So I don't want to rush anything through, but I do think that that is an important piece of consideration. There's a big difference between 28 weeks and 12 weeks.

[8:42] Okay. Thank you, Mr. David. Yeah, I don't know. New to this type of process. I mean, it would it be out of line just to go around and maybe I'm swimming. Everybody looks through this and kind of off the cuff who they kind of think is the top runner or the top two.

[9:04] And we can start maybe narrowing on the ones if we all agree on or if there's, you know, one particular group that half of us agree on, maybe start there. Or is that jumping the the cart a little bit. Yeah. And I appreciate your question. So this is my opinion. I think it is jumping ahead just a little bit.

[9:23] And the reason is there's a couple things that have been said here that I think are important. I think one, your professionals in human resources and this is what you do. I would like to hear some suggestions from you on the best way to tackle this, to be just as Miss Wessel I think pointed out.

[9:39] So be able to give us some guidelines, along with a matrix that, you know, kind of explains what we're looking for in those categories, then be able to come back and do exactly what you just described. So we can we can go through and say, this is where we're at.

[9:54] This is where we've scored, you know, put those. Everybody come in with their top three scores that they got and be able to go around the table and say what those are so that we can then be able to discuss it further and hash out those final details.

[10:11] At that point, I think I'd like a little bit more of a even though we did look through these and have some idea, I'd like a little bit more of an organized process. This is again, just my opinion. I don't know if anybody disagrees or Mr. Resnick. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I would like to build on what you said.

[10:27] And Mr. Leyendecker asked the HR department for rubric, and I would consider that this is almost like goals and priorities for us, because that's what I would like for me. I would like a group that has a clear process. Number one. Number two has a relevant city manager replacements.

[10:49] So that would be a little bit of of looking around for you to see. You know what these who these groups have placed and what experience they have. And number three do they have outreach to these public administration talent pool. So those are the three things that I would hope. And then maybe you know council can talk about it.

[11:08] Those are my three things. And there may be other things. But if you can make a rubric about those and then we can talk about it now, are those the three most important things. That's just my opinion. That's what I thought about. And I've been doing some reading from other places.

[11:26] And there is a name on this list who is really highly sought after. But, you know, there may be others that I don't have names for. So, Mr. Mayor, if you were asking about how the HR department could help us, they could do a deep dive on especially city manager placements. I wouldn't know what to do.

[11:49] You know what firm landed this position in Dayton, Ohio. And that city manager has worked out for the last five years those kind of things. And he's got, you know, a strong council and community support or you know, she as well, of course.

[12:10] So he or she Minnesota or some kind of Midwest perhaps, or another place in Iowa. Anyway, that's a suggestion and I'm open to other. Goals that we're looking for besides the three that I mentioned. Kristen. Good. Yeah. So on the actual summary sheet, I do think that the Midwest support is very, very important.

[12:34] I did add that column onto the the summarized chart, but in addition to some of the questions that you're asking have been submitted with the proposals itself. I did not do a full deep dive. I just did a just a little generalized summary because it is a lot of pages. In total, it's 205 pages to review, which I have review all 205 pages.

[12:49] But I tried to make it as easy as possible for everyone here, but very, very important notes that Mr. Resnick noted. Yeah. Mr. spring. Yeah, I took about four hours reading all those 205 pages. So thank you. And that's how I got a feel for these groups. And like Mr.

[13:06] Staver mentioned, like I've got a list of four. And I did like the category that you created in your summary of like Midwest Iowa experience. I didn't actually look at that because when I was reading it, I was reading it all digitally, and I really wish I had this in front of me at the same time.

[13:21] But it didn't work out. So. But I had when I was going through it, all I had, I was making notes to myself, be like, okay, like this firm. I feel like they would be a good match for us.

[13:40] Some billing questions didn't quite make sense to me, so I know folks are always concerned when we hire a consultant to do these things, and I like how some organizations had a fixed flat fee and then some. I just, I felt like, oh, they would be a good match for our organization. Like they had folks that were specifically from government. They were they were retired city manager's or they were retired civil servants.

[14:03] So it's like, oh, that would be a good match for us. So like, I already have a list of four because I came prepared, because I figured we were going to be at one point and relatively soon discussing who we would like to see or get work with this RFP. So thank you. Okay.

[14:25] I, I appreciate the specific details you included. So I think there's been in the media things such as background checks to be done on folks who are going to work at this caliber and level of city government. So I appreciated that.

[14:48] You know, you made it very simple, which I appreciate, but I also feel like I need to ask questions about that because there's there is a variety of things. But. The idea of looking looking at people who are familiar with the form of government specifically that we use.

[15:19] In the function of how we as a council function in collaboration with our city manager, having ensuring that the search understands. It's a very specific kind of candidate. And I know they see our form versus strong mayor and those kind of things, but I, I think it would yeah, that's a piece of it that I think is important to me.

[15:44] The on site question, I wanted your feedback as far as what you think, you know, some of them can come on site, maybe be more available for that versus remote. And I don't interview and recruit people. And so I appreciate that sometimes it's not as big of a deal, but I do want to meet people who are candidates in person.

[16:08] The question is, is the the search organization availability to come here something that you think is of heavy value? Yeah. So within my profession, I always advocate for in-person face to face conversations, get personable things of that nature. What I have noticed in this industry specifically is over comes to recruitment services. Virtual is okay for the ones that we have used previously.

[16:27] Cameras are always on, which also helps. I like to read body language. I think that's really important. And you know, if somebody is actually intrigued and they're paying attention to what you're saying. So at least having the video portion does help, but it's not as heavily weighted like the interviews are. Okay. Thank you.

[16:47] So I Mike, I don't know if you want to chime in or Shelly, but one thought is just to tell you a little bit about what happens in other searches in the organization and the idea that there's when a committee is appointed and I don't want to step on your toes if you all want to take this.

[17:07] Well, the idea that, like, if there's a committee, everybody gets this information and they score it on their own, and then to the next meeting, they bring their top 3 or 4 rankings. And then maybe those scores get added up to determine who the top 2 or 3 are.

[17:28] And then an interview is potentially offered to maybe the top two. And then there's another ranking done later that would just be like an example of, I think generally how that works in other positions. Yeah. So what's been done in recruitment positions previously is we do utilize what we call a questionnaire.

[17:46] And typically whenever we get a larger pool of applicants in order to narrow it down, we provide a questionnaire which we can consider in this case an RFP, because we provided the guidelines in which we're looking for, which counts for the council manager type relationship, accounts for the Midwest, accounts for the size of our organization and things of that nature.

[18:02] You go through the rating on your own because you don't want to be kind of influenced by others within discussion. So then you bring in your recommendations. Typically we do top three and having a conversation regarding a candidate, and then we bring in those three for interviews and to ask additional questions.

[18:19] And then based on that, we make a final recommendation whenever we're doing an actual recruitment process. So for example, like looking at that rubric that was in the RFP that said 30, 30, 3010. So if that's what we were using for just a hiring process, everybody would be asked to go through.

[18:38] And like if you gave someone a zero, it would be you don't think they hit anything about what we were asking. And then, you know, upwards to three points because it's 30%. And for the 10%, it would essentially be we think it's zero a half or a one kind of a thing. And you could then add your points.

[18:55] We could combine everybody's and then whittle it down. That would be an example. And then next part of that step would or the next part of that process would be we actually then bring the three top firms that we choose and have some sort of an interview with them.

[19:13] That is a potential option, but just given timeline, I would kind of shy against that, just to be respectful of of when the city manager is retiring. But that is a potential you can always do, like Skype or virtual interviews with the consultants as well. If there's additional questions that need to be answered outside of the RFP. Okay.

[19:36] So I just did a quick calculation on how many weeks we have left. And my math might be slightly off, but it's probably closest 45 weeks starting next week. So given the timeline that's proposed here, seems like we've got, you know, quite a bit of time based on what the responses here are from the search firms.

[19:55] But how much do we know how much overlap or. The other bit is? There's been a slight change. I think the city manager's indicated that his preferred last day is the end of May versus the end of June, so that's also moved up about four weeks.

[20:15] So if you went through the end of June, we'd actually be about four weeks less. And I think when we talked about it in the RFP, we talked about the idea of there being, I think it was an offer in April. Yeah.

[20:33] So page 11 of the RFP that was submitted, section ten, tentative recruitment timeline that has us going out till June of 2027 for the transition and onboarding. But like I just shared, we have until May 28th with the current city manager.

[20:50] But we also have to remember we have to put together the actual recruitment material and the timelines that have been factored in with the RFPs don't take into account all of our considerations that we have to, and you guys still have to come up with the final decision of it, which could also add on some additional time to it. Everyone's on the same page with it, so I'd kind of lean more towards section ten recruitment timeline just to kind of keep us on track with things. Thank you for that.

[21:07] And when I was reviewing the information that was provided in this packet, it seems like the search firm that we select will help kind of guide us in that process or the the actual material to distribute. Is that fair? Yes, that is true. Okay. Thank you.

[21:26] To chime in, my thoughts on the timeline of overlap, Mr. Leyendecker was asking. I would really like to have at least 2 to 3 months. I mean, there's a lot that this new person will have to digest, and I know our staff will be more than willing to walk them through things.

[21:42] It's just there's a lot that I would like them to have as much overlap as humanly possible. So. Mayor, this is Mike elegant. Yeah. Mike. Thank you. So, yeah, I had submitted the notice that my last day of work will be Friday, May 28th.

[22:07] But in that notice, I did offer that if this process takes longer than anticipated and there's not enough desire to overlap, if that is my last day that I am willing to stay longer. But my target is going to be May 28th. But if it takes longer, then it takes longer. Okay. Thanks, Mike.

[22:29] Well, I would just like to reiterate that I think having us all involved is important. I think that the plan that you've outlined of giving us a, a survey with a matrix that we can all in the same fashion, look at all of these and then come back with our ideas without discussing with each other and see what's the alignment, you know,

[22:53] oh, you rank this number one and I have it as number nine. You know why, you know, and I think I think that will streamline the process, have a better outcome and allow us to take advantage of your expertise in the process as well. Okay.

[23:15] One thing I would say there is I wouldn't rank them all one through nine. I try and stick to like top 3 or 4. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But that being said, I'm sure we won't have all have the same top three and then we'll have to discuss, you know, why is that. All right.

[23:35] So if we do that, what kind of a timeline are we thinking we might want to want to be on here. We have goal setting next week. So that's out the week following that I'm looking at. So the week of the 31st I know we have the annual boards and commissions picnic. One evening there's a chamber event.

[23:54] Several of us might go to another evening. We don't need to plan this right now, but I just need a general week so we can try to figure out, like, several dates that we can work with. Yeah. But do just have one suggestion. And I haven't been a part of goal setting yet.

[24:06] Yeah, but I do understand maybe the last day of gold settings a little lighter. So could we I mean, if it's a shorter time frame, if it's an hour or so, can we potentially carve that off and cover? The initial scoring component of this one. Is that too tight. So theoretically we could do that okay.

[24:29] Some others who have gone through goal setting. You tell me what you think. But I find the week of goal setting to be a heavy week of reading. And and by the time we're done with the experience, I'm not sure we want to add anything else on to that experience. And I.

[24:47] Am I wrong in saying that or is that okay? I'm seeing head shaking say, yeah, that everybody kind of agrees with that. I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, please. Because that last day will be a bunch of changes, bunch of emails trying to process.

[25:05] And yeah, there's a lot of changes at the last minute because just the way that it goes, because we throw things out in the discussions and also no maybe it takes and then staff has to spend all this time to try to figure out our wish list. And so yeah, that last day is kind of it could be shorter but it could it might go longer. We don't know.

[25:26] Especially with this lovely tax stuff that we have coming down. We may have to we may only be like five things and that could get ugly.

[25:45] So so I might suggest that we take a look at the week of August 31st and the week of September 7th, and have Stephanie Valentine put some dates out to see what we could possibly schedule. And then we can we can do that. Does that work, please? Yeah. Just for a note, I am traveling back home to the state of Delaware from August 28th to September 7th, but Shelly is here in available. Okay. All right.

[26:03] So that week of the 31st you would not be available, but Shelly could fill in. And that is correct. Yes. And the point of this meeting would be for us to have already done the use the matrix individually gone through the scoring ourselves.

[26:21] And then that meeting would be to make a decision together on the top, hopefully the top firm. But potentially if we would need to, if we have the top two, maybe three, we could ask those firms come back, but then we start to push the timeline a little bit. Is what you are cautioning. Us about? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Mr..

[26:37] First of all, I'd like to say whatever process we use to get our good city city clerk. I'd love to think about that too, because that that worked. We're all there. And I thought it was a really good process. I was appreciative of that.

[26:55] And as far as setting, you know, the off Mondays, we kind of leave Mondays and we would just tentatively schedule every off Monday until we get this done. Or we can always say, well, we can't meet next. You know, as you mentioned, there were some critical dates in there that might not be able to do.

[27:11] But, you know, for some folks who are not retired and have young kids, it's just hard to say, you know, we're going to jam packed these days up here front.

[27:30] But if if we do Mondays again, I'm not I don't know why I'm speaking for them, but I just thought that that would be a kind thing to do is just let them think about Mondays. That would be my thought. Thank you. Sure. There's one Monday that is Labor Day. That's going to be a problem in the next two weeks. But yeah. Fair point.

[27:50] So I threw out an idea to test some dates and schedule something where we would get together and do this and and are we being specific enough that do you have an idea of, of something that you can give to us that would help us with the matrix idea in this process, or are we expected to use what's in the RFP? I will come up with more

[28:05] of a formal outline for you to utilize. Okay. All right. Thank you. Does that work for everybody? So if I may, mayor. So the for instance in September it would be September 14th and September 28th. If we did if we went with Mr. Resnick idea of just meeting every Monday that we're not meeting as a council.

[28:28] I don't know. I'm just curious about if we should talk about feedback here, just scheduling wise or if it's too premature to do that. I'm happy to wait to and have Stephanie send it out. Just to get an idea, though, I think the timeline piece of it is pretty crucial. Yes. So yeah.

[28:43] Yeah, I'm I'm flexible in evenings. In general. Does that work for people those Mondays is your question. Yeah, maybe. Should we. Look at that. And if not we can look at other. I can make those work. Yeah. Everybody's pretty much shaking their heads.

[29:03] Would that be starting with the 31st or waiting until the 14th? So I may have a conflict on the 30. First. Potentially, but that's the only date that I'd have a conflict out of those Mondays. Mr. mayor, your idea of getting getting that we can give feedback on certain days will show whether the Mondays are the best idea or not. So we're going to show our availability.

[29:21] I think that's a good way to start. You know, a heavy, heavy crunch at the beginning might just be one to get it launched. And so I'm open it. That kind of combines to both ideas.

[29:41] Your idea to let's get this thing going and everybody weigh in and you know, there there are days that we are definitely available, but they are. And what I do like about every two weeks is that it gives HR some time to help us in between, if we if we need my question, Mr. Mayor and others are, you know, these are all fine firms.

[29:59] And when we talk in public about our, our scoring and our the qualities of these firms, I'm concerned that, you know, that we we realize that they're all good. Some are better for us, a better fit.

[30:25] And so that kind of language I would like to use and know that, you know, we're we're very cognizant of what we're doing with good companies and good companies that are better for us. Those are my thoughts. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

[30:35] Yeah. Mr. Staver yeah. I wonder if I think all of us have mentioned kind of regional experience would be kind of a heavy decider as well. And some of these that I read through, I mean, are automatically not even in the running rather than put them through the scrutiny.

[30:59] I mean, wouldn't it make sense to kind of knock some of those out of the running just out of bat? Yeah, I. Think based on the conversation so far, my suggestion would be that we we go back individually and just look through what we have and score those and see where things land first and then come back and.

[31:17] Well, maybe we'll only be scrutinizing the top 3 or 4 anyhow, so maybe there won't be any negative comments towards the others or whatever.

[31:32] So are we are we clear enough on what our. So here. Yeah. Go ahead. What I wrote down was asked Stephanie to do polls for availability. The weeks of 831, 979 14 and 928, just to possibly find more than one date and to get some holes on calendars if we all align. I would. Actually throw. Out.

[31:59] All the Mondays after that that are off Mondays. Okay. So all the way October, November, December. But yes. In addition to what I just said, I think is.

[32:17] And anything else. Miss. Miss. This question might be for Adrian. And is there any sort of, as we have a certain guideline and timeline to publish our documentation for our meetings? Is there anything as far as timeline for which that will be published publicly? I'm just curious about what the process would be. Like, the the agendas.

[32:49] So the agendas, would it. Be. The same? If everybody is participating, the agendas will always be posted, just like a regular special meeting agenda. So if they're on off nights, it'll always be considered a special city council meeting. Great. Thank you. Mr. Mayor. Yeah.

[33:13] Were we considering a a rubric from our HR department talking about certain aspects of these? I was hoping that, as Mr. Staver alluded to, there's some that would not necessarily score high on the three Mensch. The three characteristics that I mentioned.

[33:35] And I was wondering if if what the rest of the council members think of those three and then maybe would add one more or take one off and then that would really kick start the process. And maybe we don't want that. But it was again, I was wondering what the council would. And you, Mr.

[33:57] Mayor, would think about maybe putting the rubric about clear process, relevant city manager placements and strong outreach to the public admin talent pool. Those are the three I recommended, but some kind of starting point for us, please. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm just going to refer back to page nine of the RFP.

[34:18] So underneath the impression scores I did have because you have experience alignment, proposal quality and overall price, I did put out the general kind of rankings in which the lens that we should be looking at each proposal. So underneath the experience, we should be looking at the qualifications and experience, demonstrated experience conducting executive searches for city manager's or chief administrative officer positions, knowledge of council manager form of government. Track record of successful placements.

[34:38] Relevant experience with Iowa municipalities or communities of similar size and complexity. And it kind of goes down into each one. I won't read it word for word, but it's very similar to the conversations that we're having, and I can put it into a little bit formalized matrix to make it a little bit easier

[34:53] for kind of like those key points that you guys are indicating that you're looking for. Thank you very much. And what about the clear process? Nobody's been through this process, you know, not for this position, but you have a process when we hire folks and you can know what a clear

[35:10] process is or something that is not so clear. And that's not been by yourself yet. And I don't know if that's important enough that we we go back for that or what the council members say.

[35:34] It's not just me, but is that important that they have a clear process that our public as well as we can understand? Absolutely, from a public standpoint, but also an internal standpoint with you guys and then the firms that we do go with, we do try to standardize the process to make it as equitable as possible and ensure that we're not missing any components while also providing full transparency.

[35:48] We do the same with the hiring of any position within the city as well. You good? Mr.. Well I'm good. I was wondering what the other council members would like, any kind of rubric from the HR department about anything besides what they have furnished so far? Yeah, I think I think part of what I'm hearing too, though, is that we already gave these firms

[36:10] the general idea of how we're going to evaluate them, and we can't really we really shouldn't deviate too much from that by adding other layers onto it at this time.

[36:25] But I do think what I'm what I've heard, the concerns I've heard, like what you just mentioned, and then the idea of do you have experience in the Midwest, for example, are included in these in some way? I think it's something that's there. We just need to, you know, as we have something that's a little bit of a clearer matrix to look at. I think we'll be able to make those scores based on those details. So yeah. Yeah. Mr.

[36:41] Mayor, to that point, I was going to say I think it's a little bit of interpretation on what what's being said here and what's being read here. And I think the the nature, the general direction is there in these.

[36:58] And so maybe what we can do is just build these out a little further, you know, potentially not not change them, but just add like a little more color to what that means from a process standpoint.

[37:15] You know, when we look at, you know, conduct experience, conducting executive searches for a city manager, I mean, that in essence is a process just said differently, right? And so the one thing, though, that I was going to bring up related to this is I do think we need to be very mindful, and I'll let you manage this accordingly.

[37:30] But I do think we need to be very mindful of the direction that we give to council in terms of the scoring range, how we're going to score them within these respective areas, and who all maybe to Mr. Stevens point here, who all we're going to score here, if it's going to be all the names that are here.

[37:54] Because what I don't in I appreciate Karna's comment about the the not scoring them all, but I do think if we don't score them all, we could run the risk where we could run up with, you know, having six firms that all have the same score and then if timelines are concerned, you know, just making sure that we have this, the rubric

[38:10] and the scoring really defined so that I think that would be really helpful. So I'm sure it's already on your radar. But just as I was thinking about it, I wanted to bring it up. So no absolutely. Thank you for that. Yeah. Just formalizing the matrix.

[38:23] So providing examples that you would typically be looking for or what was requested within the RFP and doing a cross examination and then having those notes would better provide you with the structure to to essentially provide your judgment with each proposal receive. So I can put that together.

[38:41] One thing to add to the matrix tool that you might send to us, if you could include place for us to put our notes, so that when I come back to have my discussion, I can remember, oh yeah, this is why I rated this in this way. So that would be helpful to me. Thank you. Absolutely. And I think scoring all of them is great.

[38:58] It's just the idea that I don't want you at like the next public meeting each to go through all night. That's really what I was getting at, was let's not go through that.

[39:13] Let's have everybody say who their top 2 or 3 were to see if we've got agreement so that we're not we're not waiting for each and every one of you to go through the nine so that there could be some time savings. So yeah, if we could just whittle it down, I think that would be awesome. I think that aligns with the approach that you're suggesting. Yeah, I think. That's good.

[39:30] So maybe as we announce our top three, we start with the highest scoring down to three. Okay. So number one would be our highest scoring. Okay I mean you can get real mathy with it too. I mean if you wanted to actually give it a number and add it all up and do averages and things like that, you can do that.

[39:47] I'm not necessarily suggesting it. I'm bad at math, but there are lots of different ways to to do this. Okay. Thank you. So I like what we're doing so far. I appreciate this clear direction.

[40:10] And does that mean that the the the firm with the highest number is my first choice? Well, I suppose that's how we have to do it because but I just feel like there's some kind of intangible out there that. It can't be just a bunch of numbers, you know.

[40:30] So how do you capture the intangible? That's a great question. So within the questionnaire process, I, I do sometimes put in a little quirky question to kind of capture personality to a certain level. Obviously whenever you submit an application, we understand the knowledge, skills and abilities to perform the duties. But the other kind of component with it is the fit overall.

[40:49] Ultimately, this a little bit trickier whenever we have like this, because you're not interviewing first, you essentially did the RFP. One of the nice things that we did include in the RFP is we can interview.

[41:05] I did just confirm in looking back that we may ask the firms to come back and have a virtual interview or in-person interview, which would then kind of more align with what you're sharing with that, because it's more than just what's black and white on paper.

[41:21] It can be a little bit harder, and you don't want to misconstrued something that someone said or kind of put tone or put maybe something funny into a proposal when the intention is not there.

[41:27] Do you ever do like bonus points for those intangibles? You know, the candidate does has all of these qualities, but there's a plus because this or maybe there's a minus or something. Is that possible or is that kind of screw things up? Yeah.

[41:50] It's not typical in the process just because it's how do you know it's you can't track it ultimately, and you have to do the same for every single one that you review. So if you have the same standardized question, like for a questionnaire, if you have five questions, all five questions are the same. Of course you might you might score them a little bit higher based on how they respond.

[42:04] If it's something that you can relate with, or if you found something funny, or if it's something that you highly believe in, that's also possible. But we just have to make sure that we keep it. And if there is that bonus point or the bonus kind of takeaway that it's standardized across the board.

[42:18] That makes perfect sense. Thank you.

[42:24] Any other questions or discussion? Now you're clear on enough on what you want to do next. And you all feel like you have clear direction from us. Okay, okay. All right. So I think we are set then. Okay. So we. Just have to vote. On the motion. Oh, there's a motion. Keep forgetting about the motion.

[42:45] Thank you very much. All right. So we do have a motion here. We'll vote on that. And that'll be our last action. So Adrian, would you call the roll, please? Kavanaugh, Russell Staver sprang a Resnick. Leyendecker a motion passes seven zero. That is all the business we have here. So we will be adjourned for tonight. Thank you.

City Council Special Meeting - 8/18/2026

Transcript