[0:01] [Music]

[0:14] um [Music]

[0:28] um

[0:32] [Music]

[0:52] [Music]

[0:56] so

[1:10] right um

[1:36] good evening how are you doing tonight

[1:42] [Music]

[1:52] i guess basically back to you we've got three candidates to get through in a 30

[1:55] minute period so we'll give each candidate 10 minutes

[1:59] i would say two minutes per council person

[2:04] and then if you want to start or end with two minutes kind of telling us a

[2:08] little bit about yourself

[2:14] you want me yes

[2:17] well i am nicole here i work for jefferson county commission in

[2:22] their courthouse in the finance department

[2:25] nicole terry okay okay okay okay all right i'm sorry um well

[2:31] i live in newtown alabama i was unemployed for a little while um

[2:37] until i got into the marriage system with the county um

[2:40] prior to that being unemployed my father passed away and we had to kind of think

[2:44] of how i was going to get a job and so that

[2:47] came about with the jefferson county commissioner is there

[2:50] i'm sorry in their finance department so i have been there

[2:54] with them for four years i work heavily under the um cfo and the

[2:59] deputy director i'm working mainly with

[3:02] accounts receivable i get in the checks for this

[3:05] for jefferson county i handle the deposits the entries into our

[3:10] munich system with everything that comes in from there

[3:14] um not married no kids so if you know anyone that you know

[3:20] [Music] but um just let's say just me just um

[3:26] coming through the system i used to be a senior medicare auditor i did medicare

[3:30] for 13 years i got laid off there because they saw a different way

[3:34] to go so we lost the contract with the mac with that so that's how i ended up

[3:38] at jefferson county at their clients

[3:43] we still got another 30 seconds is there anything else you would like to tell us

[3:46] about you i think that's it about me i'll hold the

[3:49] book pretty much if you guys have any questions just

[3:52] feel free to ask me i don't have a problem with answering those questions

[3:55] for you okay perfect we'll go ahead and uh go in and

[3:58] worry about this manner councilman deploy yours for two minutes

[4:03] okay um one of the things we discussed as terry was the treasurer's being the

[4:09] cfo and the fact that they work with the

[4:15] bond payments because the city does have some debt

[4:18] uh and also in preparing them with our city's annual budget

[4:22] can you talk to me a little bit about your experience

[4:26] in calculating and or taking care of bond payments

[4:32] for jefferson county well currently i do not take care of those actual blind

[4:37] payments i did the reconciliation of those buying payments to actual

[4:41] statements that are submitted from the bank

[4:43] so i would look at those and we had a principal account and that actually did

[4:46] in the he did dead management and while he was

[4:50] looking for a senior accountant i just worked with him

[4:52] just to help him reconcile those bond payments to the rest of the initiative

[4:56] okay and how about the budgeting process are you involved in any of the buddy

[5:02] budding process for jefferson county no ma'am we have a

[5:06] budget department they normally get with our

[5:09] general ledger team and they are the ones that uh will talk

[5:12] about the actual budget in itself i'm on the general level team but

[5:16] that side of it no the question came from that

[5:19] thank you mr i'll go ahead and defer to captain fox

[5:24] well hi mr cherry we appreciate you coming out

[5:28] um you just said that you work in the ar department

[5:32] right okay and what all uh type of receivables

[5:36] do you fall under your domain there pretty much kind of all of them so just

[5:42] just general general accounting suffer you expensive

[5:45] specifically handle tax collections or tax collection has they have their own

[5:50] area they collected in for that what i would do is i would invoice out

[5:54] different customers and they would send in different

[5:57] payments to me i was even payments from the states in regards to

[6:01] business privilege taxes i also do journal entries from

[6:04] the tax collector's office in order to submit out the road tax which

[6:08] sydney arnold should receive that check once a year as well as the business

[6:11] privilege tax check um other ones will be just those various

[6:16] odd and end checks that come in tax collectors send

[6:18] us a lot of checks but most of them are coming from the state of alabama

[6:21] and they're also coming from those customers that are invoiced out on a

[6:25] monthly basis very good do you deal with any

[6:28] delinquent accounts or collect any of those as far as yes sir i

[6:32] actually do um before i got there um there was the

[6:35] process of changing over to that human system

[6:38] and the immune system we didn't understand at that particular time

[6:41] how to retrieve our people that were the oldest money

[6:46] so what i did was i kind of researched the system myself and i came up with the

[6:50] asian report and based on that agent report we print

[6:52] out statements and send them out to our customers um those that are 60 days

[6:57] prior to the um the date so if you say we're in april now anybody that's

[7:01] january has legals in january and back into 2015 because we converted software

[7:06] in 2015 we will send them an actual statement so

[7:10] we'll also reach out to them via email in the email my name is

[7:14] attached to the email so if they want to set up payment arrangements

[7:17] they can contact me and we'll keep those emails and verify that they're

[7:21] actually having those payment branches where they should be okay very good so

[7:24] then you're very well versed i will take it in as well in

[7:28] just clear the principles of being able to administer things that

[7:33] disseminate information to the council or to department heads as directed by

[7:37] the mayor different things like that operating

[7:39] programs what all operating programs of them as far as i care excel kosher

[7:47] word we pretty much use all of them um my main one is excel i use it the most

[7:54] because i'm sending out mostly spreadsheets to different areas and

[7:57] if i need to get in touch with the department heads i would send this

[8:00] question to them and kind of tell them this is what i

[8:03] need and this is what i'm trying to attack but

[8:05] mostly you could stay over time very good thank you so much

[8:22] um thank you for coming tonight thank you for having me um

[8:27] you know we all have strength and weaknesses so

[8:30] in our jobs uh that we currently uh perform

[8:33] but what do you consider one of your biggest weaknesses

[8:37] if you were chosen as the ironyoc card my biggest weakness i think we'll have

[8:42] based on the description of the job i don't really have a lot of resolution

[8:47] and ordinance experiences resolutions i do read them

[8:53] because i do have to incorporate them into i have to do a little voice entry

[8:57] for accounts payable i have to make sure that resolution has been

[9:00] signed and is in the minute book prior to me sending out those

[9:03] information just like with the city of iowa when they receive that

[9:06] road tax or their business privilege tax i have to key in

[9:10] their information that's due to the city of irondale i also have to include that

[9:14] resolution from the commission to let them know that

[9:17] this is okay for us to go ahead and pay this because this is not our

[9:20] money this is money that needs to be distributed out to those other

[9:23] municipalities but for my weakness that would be the one that i

[9:26] i really don't have a lot of experience in but like i said i'm

[9:30] a learner so i'm very very teachable so if i get in there and um

[9:34] get started on it i don't have a problem with reading up on it

[9:38] and just now let it focus out okay thank you thank you very much

[9:45] one question that i have is basically let's talk about a time where maybe it

[9:52] was a disagreement that you might have had with your

[9:55] supervisor or a peer how did you work out

[9:58] a negative confrontation when maybe you were right the other person was

[10:03] wrong and you had to find common ground okay um well first thing i usually do

[10:09] when that happens is we try to meet together not

[10:12] necessarily in a group setting because that's not the type of place to handle

[10:15] whatever confrontation we need to handle right then

[10:18] so we would get together and we would kind of talk about it and to see

[10:21] my point and see that person's point and if if they're right

[10:25] i have a problem with it being you know hey i'm sorry i've

[10:28] maybe read that wrong or i just interpreted that and

[10:31] it's fine it's not a problem but we didn't have a conflict where we just

[10:35] kind of didn't like each other anymore and just

[10:37] didn't talk to yourself because angela jobs you

[10:39] even though you may not get along you still have to work together to

[10:43] make one common ground thank you very much

[10:47] that comes right to the end of our time here uh is there

[10:50] any last follow-up questions for this young lady before we move

[10:53] to our next candidate

[10:58] i want to thank you again mister for being here thank you thank you

[11:01] in person thank you thank you it's been it's mutual beautiful i said i hear

[11:06] names but don't know who they are but it's great

[11:08] to put face to everyone now so i really appreciate you having me here today i

[11:12] hope it's good [Music]

[11:26] thank you very much for your time miss terry and uh

[11:30] i believe mr frank will see you out and everything

[11:33] and uh have a lovely evening once again thank you for your time all right thank

[11:40] you thank you

[11:54] absolutely

[12:03] [Music]

[12:13] in there

[12:27] good evening how are you doing tonight good how are you perfect and what's your

[12:30] name my name is jackson

[12:34] all right perfect well thank you very much for joining us this is a 30-minute

[12:39] meeting with three candidates so we're assigning 10 minutes to each one

[12:42] there's four of us a full-person panel right now we're missing someone so

[12:46] what we will do is uh if you could just take two minutes just kind of talk about

[12:49] yourself and then we will have two minutes each

[12:51] to kind of ask you some questions we have your information in front of us

[12:55] so please explore yours so again my name is rude jackson and i'm

[13:01] a resident of birmingham i grew up in birmingham and

[13:04] went to school to age harvard high school

[13:07] there i was involved in the segment program which was science and

[13:10] engineering and also future business leaders of

[13:13] america and from there i went to college i

[13:17] pursued a degree in history as well as accounting and starting on a

[13:23] master's in public administration and from there i've been working in

[13:28] banking auditing and government

[13:47] in our discussion is that our treasurer when you fill in the

[13:50] old city clerk and treasurer the treasurer is the most important

[13:54] person uh within this newspaper because they are

[13:58] our chief financial officer and so what can you tell me about um your

[14:03] experience in calculating and or taking care of

[14:07] bond payments of a municipality you have experience in

[14:11] that and so can you please explain yes um so i do calculate and

[14:17] make the general measure injuries for our bond payments

[14:21] our bond payments are made according to an amortization schedule

[14:25] that was figured when the bond was originally issued

[14:30] and so each month that we do make those payments

[14:33] i apply the payments according to the amortization schedule

[14:37] and then at the end of the year i reconcile our geo accounts

[14:41] to the amortization schedule to make sure that the totals match

[14:45] very good do you have experience in preparing the municipality's annual

[14:50] budget i do have experience in working on the

[14:54] sales tax and business license portion of the annual budget

[14:59] of course i do monthly calculations as far as

[15:02] sales tax revenue and business license revenue

[15:05] and also quarterly and we send those projections

[15:09] to the revenue manager and the finance director

[15:12] and so those numbers are used in preparing any variances

[15:17] and any reports that are used to prepare the annual budget

[15:20] and comprehensive annual report all right one last question based on

[15:25] your experience what is the most challenging task for

[15:29] you when dealing with the public and how do you approach these challenges

[15:35] um so the most challenging task is just providing the answer the right answer to

[15:42] the question a lot of our taxpayers and citizens

[15:46] come in wanting a simple answer and we do have to find out what the complete

[15:50] picture is before we can answer them and provide

[15:54] assistance a lot of them come in wanting to start a business

[15:58] and they want to know how do i start a business do i just get a business

[16:01] license and there is a whole process that we

[16:04] have to take them through but of course i do provide information

[16:08] about the business license process of that and

[16:11] the sales taxes that applies to their business

[16:14] and giving them the information that they need to

[16:18] do what they need to do in their businesses

[16:30] um you have said this you are currently a city clerk

[16:43] and how does that interface with your city clerk's job

[16:50] so i recommend certain items to the city council to be placed on the agenda

[16:54] mainly dealing with abc licenses for the city as well as other

[17:00] information regarding the budget and i give that information to the city

[17:05] clerk and they prepare it for the agenda um we

[17:09] also have penalty waivers that if they are over a certain amount

[17:12] they have to be proven approved by the city and so that goes on

[17:16] the council agenda to be approved and there are certain

[17:20] other majors that have to be able to counsel very good uh and do you have any

[17:26] accounts receivable or any invoice or building experience in

[17:29] or any i guess

[17:37] and really the last question i have is as far as operating systems what

[17:41] operating systems are you proficient and familiar with

[17:45] in the job you're in now or even outside that

[17:48] well there are a lot of there may miss a few but um

[17:51] i'm familiar with oracle quickbooks we use munis

[17:59] microsoft dynamics and lotus notes um peoplesoft

[18:07] i can't think of all of them but those are the primary ones that i've used

[18:10] as well as microsoft office for

[18:20] thank you thank you jackson for for coming tonight uh taking the time

[18:25] to come and talk to us one of the questions i have is we all have

[18:30] strengths and weaknesses as we perform our daily duties but what

[18:34] would you consider one of your biggest weakness

[18:36] if you want to become a simpler idea um i think one of my big biggest weaknesses

[18:45] is that i'm very analytical and um some may think that i'm too

[18:50] analytical but i like to present all sides of the

[18:53] issue and provide as much information as possible

[18:57] so it might seem like information overload but i just like

[19:00] to be able to provide what is needed to fully understand the big picture of the

[19:07] problem okay i noticed on your resume you stated

[19:12] you're a certified revenue examiner so it's that um

[19:16] as far as the classes or or any uh conferences well not conferences but

[19:22] uh to be certified is this an annual

[19:26] recertification or every six months it's an annual recertification

[19:30] i have to take 40 hours of trouble and eight of those hours i take through the

[19:36] altus board and then the remaining hours i usually

[19:40] take to the alabama society of cpas and so i'm taking classes almost on a

[19:45] monthly basis to maintain my hours and there is a county

[19:50] so forgive my hatreds but you said cpa so you're served by cba i guess

[19:56] no i'm not a first-rate cpa but we can't take classes through

[20:04] that organization because they are a certified body

[20:07] okay um classes that are regarding your county

[20:11] or anything dealing with taxes um policy that will uh that meets the requirements

[20:18] for the cra certification okay okay

[20:22] that's all i have thank you sir just one question for me

[20:26] i see you can be a little over analytical i know the detriment that

[20:30] that comes up just bring to the table how give me um

[20:34] an example uh i'll leave the names out obviously

[20:38] but a time where you had to boil down a complicated

[20:42] potentially negative situation to either someone you worked with or possibly a

[20:46] citizen that was asking a question so a lot of times we have citizens who

[20:53] will come in and they've already started

[20:56] operating their business and they don't know where to start

[20:59] because they didn't obtain the proper licenses they didn't

[21:04] get the proper education and they didn't set up a sales tax

[21:09] account in most cases so what i have to do is

[21:13] just understand where they are find out what it is that they're doing in their

[21:18] business and then communicate with them what i

[21:20] think that they should do going forward making sure they get the business

[21:25] license they set up the tax account and they meet with the sba or other

[21:29] departments in the city that can help them

[21:32] and that usually will help resolve the problem are you guys going to do that

[21:36] process yes all right thank you very much

[21:40] one minute left for any follow-up questions mrs jackson i just want to let

[21:44] you know that i'm delighted to personally meet

[21:46] you finally and i want to thank you for your interest

[21:50] in filling this position thank you i too want to thank you for your time ms

[21:55] jackson and thank you for your interest in this position

[21:58] bless someone see you now

[22:24] um

[22:34] good evening how are you doing tonight good evening council members it's a

[22:38] pleasure

[22:44] we've got about 10 minutes here um and so and there are four of us we've got a

[22:47] gentleman that is missing so feel free to take about two minutes to

[22:51] describe yourself tell us a little bit about yourself and

[22:54] then we'll take about two minutes to ask you some follow-up questions

[22:56] okay um would i like to [Music]

[23:02] introduce myself on vanita brown i'd like you to know that i

[23:06] am a very driven person i think that i i

[23:12] lead from integrity i have

[23:18] extensive background with acting as a liaison between various

[23:24] departments

[23:27] and i also currently work as a senior accountant

[23:34] where i am responsible for

[23:37] [Music] bookkeeping also responsible for

[23:44] bank reconciliations

[23:48] making reports that we need to turn into the state every month

[23:55] i have experienced leading i have experienced um

[24:04] dealing with the public

[24:07] conflict resolution

[24:10] and if if you choose me for this position i

[24:16] believe that i would be a great fit because i am able to

[24:22] um i'm able to just uh i'm sorry i'm nervous

[24:30] i'm not able to um act with precision

[24:37] and my in any given duty that i'm i'm assigned to

[24:44] and overall i just i think that i would be a

[24:50] good fit because i'm able i'm ready

[24:54] and eager to learn new things and also bring the skills that i currently have

[25:02] to the city of irondale in this position and i guess that's it

[25:11] council on customer [Music]

[25:17] and i want to thank you for your interest in this position

[25:20] um we've done phone interviews and so i'm going to focus on the questions that

[25:25] i've asked of all the two prior candidates yes and

[25:29] that is your experience as because i'm looking

[25:33] at it for the treasurer you have you've given

[25:36] me information on city clerk the treasure is my concern here what is

[25:41] your experience in calculating and we're

[25:43] taking care of bond payments of the municipality

[25:47] if you have it can you please explain what you do

[25:50] in bond payments

[25:54] we [Music]

[26:03] i have experience in cash management i also have experience

[26:10] in um receiving payments from municipalities

[26:17] and also giving payments to municipalities

[26:20] as far as bond payments in particular i don't have

[26:27] that kind of experience

[26:31] do you have experience in preparing the municipality's annual budget

[26:49] we're all just so real quickly um you did say that you worked some

[26:55] with i guess receivables in some of the cities and then also

[26:59] payment processing for those correct that's correct okay

[27:02] and how does that dovetail into any administrative or clerical leads

[27:07] which you know as the treasurer as councilmember taylor is alluding to

[27:11] that's going to be a very important part of the position

[27:14] but the city clerk part of being able to disseminate the information

[27:18] what operating systems or tools you have in that realm or is that

[27:23] something you rely more on a team today we do work as a team and in the tax

[27:29] collector's office but we do utilize the

[27:34] earring system and [Music]

[27:38] what that does what we what it does is we'll um

[27:41] enter the information into the e-ring system

[27:45] and it will determine what the millage for each parcel is it really

[27:51] breaks down all of the calculations for us

[27:56] so that we're able to pull that information um

[28:02] after we're able to navigate once we're able to navigate through the software

[28:06] we're able to pull up that information with ease okay so you're fairly

[28:12] comfortable using several different platforms of

[28:16] information dissemination and also calculation or retention

[28:19] that's correct because the we use e-ring there's also munis that we use

[28:26] we also i have experience in some of the gis mapping software

[28:34] that's used at the city as well all of that information we use

[28:38] to get whatever the situation is we use it

[28:42] to get an overall understanding of the big picture and

[28:48] we're also able to get

[28:52] disseminate that information into various reports that need to be sent to

[28:57] the state every month and the reader as well

[29:04] yes good evening thank you for coming tonight thank you for having me

[29:12] the question i have is you know we all have a

[29:15] strength and weaknesses when it comes to performing our jobs

[29:19] what would be one of your biggest challenges

[29:22] or weakness if you were chosen as the city clerk here in ireland

[29:30] one of the things that i have been working on

[29:34] is i tend to be an introvert speaking in front of people may

[29:41] sometimes come off a little a little

[29:46] um challenging for me i understand councilman

[29:49] we're just right but we're just regular people

[29:52] we are we are but one of the things that um i have done is i've taken

[29:59] speech classes to help me um

[30:05] to help me speak better and portray my thoughts better to

[30:10] everyone and also i've joined the toastmasters my local toastmasters

[30:15] club that i'm able to speak better and feel more comfortable speaking in

[30:21] front of an audience regardless of what the

[30:24] subject is how long are you man i've i've been in

[30:29] it for a year now okay yes birmingham city classic

[30:33] massachusetts manchester um

[30:36] [Music]

[30:41] so that would probably um be my biggest challenge

[30:45] um it's something that i continue to work on

[30:50] vigorously so that it isn't a challenge for me anymore

[30:56] well thank you and greetings and thank you for your interest in the position in

[31:01] your time tonight one question uh you mentioned conflict

[31:05] resolution previously um can you kind of take us

[31:08] through a time maybe where you had to enter into

[31:12] some conflict resolution with either maybe a citizen that was

[31:16] going through some things or possibly a supervisor or work here

[31:20] and how that was handled and resolved sure

[31:24] um there was a particular instance in the department that i

[31:31] currently work in and there is a particular way

[31:36] that my new supervisor wanted me to a new a particular format that my

[31:43] supervisor wanted me to turn in for bank

[31:47] reconciliation and it was

[31:52] it wasn't um it wasn't a hard thing to do

[31:57] but it would have at the time we were at the height of our tax collection

[32:03] season and some of the things that she wanted me to do

[32:08] would have been it would have been more time consuming than it normally was

[32:12] what i did was simply get a make a copy and of the format of how

[32:19] she wanted me to do it as opposed to what it is now

[32:23] and also explain how that what changes that need to be made

[32:29] and how that would affect my time management

[32:32] with other deadlines that needed to be met

[32:35] so after speaking with her about it we were able to come up with a

[32:41] resolution where we can incorporate some of the ideas

[32:44] that she had wanted me to incorporate into

[32:48] performance as well as keeping without me having to spend a lot

[32:54] of time doing it so and that well that's the charge with

[32:58] the supervisor there's been times when i worked in the

[33:02] tag unit with jefferson county where we would

[33:06] have specific different customers that may

[33:10] come in and they don't realize that they have a fine

[33:13] that they have to pay in order to get their tenants they may

[33:16] get really upset and they're they're they're wanting to take

[33:22] it out on the cashier that's in front of them and the

[33:26] cashier is really just doing their job telling

[33:29] them this is i can't take your payment unless you pay the whole thing

[33:33] there's been plenty of times that i've had to come and just explain it to the

[33:37] customer again just to let them know it really

[33:41] isn't anything that we can do but we want to help you in every way

[33:45] that we can so after explaining to them and also making

[33:51] suggestions how they can go about resolving the

[33:54] issue and even going as far sometimes as to

[33:58] even like speak with someone in montgomery to

[34:01] get them to maybe extend the payment period so that

[34:06] this person can actually save money to make a payment without

[34:10] having to incur further fines and that kind of thing so

[34:16] i've done that many times and it really helps when

[34:20] the customer knows that they're being hurt

[34:23] and also that you genuinely want to help them

[34:27] you're not just passing them along or just saying that

[34:30] we can't do anything for you they really want to know that you're there for them

[34:34] and and you're listening to them and you want to help them

[34:39] and most times when i have gone through that process

[34:43] we've had a smooth transition you know we've made it so that they can come back

[34:47] and make their payments and get their tags so that they can drive to

[34:51] work and continue life as it was before perfect thank you very

[34:56] much you're welcome uh before you let the

[34:58] show let you go is there any final follow-up question

[35:00] no questions but thank you so much mrs brown for coming and for your interest

[35:05] thank you so much thank you very much

[35:28] um that concludes our our workstation for

[35:33] the evening we're now going to go ahead and transition into our special call

[35:36] council meeting uh councilman boxing if you're not going

[35:38] to open this up

[35:41] everybody would join me for a moment we thank you that you're allowed us to be

[35:45] here thank you that you've provided a pathway

[35:47] to join you again help us to understand and know the

[35:51] things you have us to do helps to serve the citizens here's the

[35:54] best of our ability give us your ability to do it what

[36:04] [Music] for which it stands one nation under god

[36:10] indivisible with liberty and justice for all

[36:16] thank you sir we'll go ahead and go into roblox

[36:23] council wilson and myself president john mullen is absent this evening

[36:28] all right so our one and only uh agenda item

[36:31] tonight uh basically the members of the city council

[36:34] the city needs to convene an executive session for two purposes

[36:38] number one to discuss with the attorney the legal ramifications of legal

[36:43] of and legal options for controversies not yet being

[36:47] litigated but immediately likely to be litigated

[36:50] number two to discuss preliminary negotiations

[36:53] involving matters of training or commerce in which the city of irondale

[36:57] is in competition with other governmental entities in

[37:01] alabama and thirdly to discuss the consideration the city

[37:04] council is willing to offer or accept when considering the purchase sale

[37:09] exchange lease or market value of real property ms danielson has

[37:13] provided the city council with a written statement

[37:16] that executive session is appropriate under alabama code

[37:20] 36-25a 83 and 8-7 to discuss pending litigation

[37:26] therefore i need a motion to go into executive session

[37:30] i'll make a motion to go into exactly session

[37:33] wilson has made a all right we have a second

[37:37] mr pennington uh please conduct a roll call vote of this motion and record

[37:41] each councilman's council person's vote

[37:47] council owned bear yes councilman box yes

[37:50] joshua wilson yes and myself yes thank you

[37:54] those presidents are advised that this body has voted to enter into executive

[37:58] session as required by law any deliberation

[38:01] between the members of this body relating to these issues will be

[38:04] conducted in an open meeting this council will not reconvene

[38:08] after this executive session the city council will now enter executive session

[38:16] thank you

City of Irondale Special City Council Meeting 4/14/2021

Transcript