Personnel/Administrative Affairs Committee

PERSONNEL/ADMINISTRATIVE AFFAIRS COMMITTEE JULY 8, 2010 A meeting of the Personnel/Administrative Affairs Committee was held on Thursday, July 8, 2010, at 7:00 p.m. in the Aldermanic Chamber. Chairman Ben Clemons presided. Members of the Committee present: Alderman Kathy Vitale, Vice Chair Alderman Arthur T. Craffey, Jr. Alderman Paul M. Chasse, Jr. Alderman Richard P. Flynn Members Not in Attendance: Also in Attendance: Alderman-at-Large Brian S. McCarthy Alderman-at-Large David Deane Alderman-at-Large Barbara Pressly COMMUNICATIONS – None PERIOD FOR PUBLIC COMMENT - None APPLICATION TO LICENSE HAWKER'S, PEDDLER'S, ITINERANT VENDOR'S LICENSE - None APPOINTMENTS BY THE MAYOR – None UNFINISHED BUSINESS - None NEW BUSINESS – RESOLUTIONS R-10-26 Endorser: Alderman-at-Large Barbara Pressly Alderman-at-Large David W. Deane Alderman Arthur T. Craffey, Jr. RELATIVE TO THE TRANSFER OF $15,000 FROM ACCOUNT 591-86005 “FY2010 GENERAL CONTINGENCY” INTO ACCOUNT 503-11 “BOARD OF ALDERMEN, PAYROLL – FULL TIME” MOTION BY ALDERMAN CHASSE TO RECOMMEND FINAL PASSAGE ON THE QUESTION Chairman Clemons I will note that the Budget Review Committee recommended indefinite postponement of this on June 7th. Is there any discussion? Alderman Chasse I would like to know why the Budget Review Committee indefinitely postponed this particular legislation. Alderman Deane I can’t speak for my colleagues on the committee. I don’t believe Alderman Cookson was there that night. I think I was the only one that voted in favor of the funding mechanism. I think I was out voted 501. I think it had to do with budgetary additions needed for funding to help this along. There wasn’t much discussion about Personnel – 7/8/10 Page 2 it. There was a little bit, but basically I believe Alderman Melizzi-Golja. Alderman Cox, Alderman Sheehan, and Alderman Wilshire all voted to the negative, and I believe Alderman Flynn did as well, and I was the only one that voted in favor. Other than that, I really can’t explain their positions to you. I know Alderman Flynn is here. Maybe he can help. Alderman McCarthy I would be happy to repeat the reasons that I expressed for being opposed to it at the budget meeting, which is the professed purpose is that we ought to have access to legal counsel other than the city attorney’s office. I think first that if the city attorney’s office is not conflicted it is dangerous and damaging to have two different warring sets of counsel within the city government first of all. Secondly, with regard to how that asset would be managed; this resolution proposes $15,000, which is not a lot of money if hiring an attorney so we’re looking at probably a lot more than that if we go to having someone who actually has a law degree and is admitted to the bar. The question comes up of who directs that person because I certainly wouldn’t want the responsibility of saying where the limited number of hours we pay for goes to within the members of the Board of Aldermen, and my position was when we have a case where Corporation Counsel is conflicted, we, as a board, put money aside to hire outside counsel to represent us in those cases, which is what we have done in the past, and then there is a clear majority will of the board as to what that person should be hired to do and what the scope of their services are, and we don’t have a case where we just have open-ended expenditure of taxpayer funds that is directed independently by 15 different Aldermen, which I think is probably not a wise direction for us. Alderman Flynn I am certainly going to listen to the discussion tonight, but at the Budget Review Committee my position was that I am never a strong proponent of hiring or adding growth in government. I certainly appreciate that we are adding two positions in this year’s budget; one for a $7.5 million project that seemed like a reasonable, even though I voted against the project, I certainly want to see some strong oversight in the manager of the ERP project, and the emergency coordinator I guess for the City, which the Mayor did some pretty resourceful funding and was able to find half of that money within the budget by doing some changes in stipends and whatever. That was the main reason I voted against it is I am really not convinced that we need a full-time person for this, which is what the legislation asks for. I am not a proponent of adding anybody, which certainly isn’t highly justified from my perspective. Once a person is added, it is always quite a task to resolve the assortment of tasks that they pick up along the way. I think we had that discussion in budget this year with a few positions that were suggested to be cut, and as we went along there was always other things that individual was doing. It certainly was not something I was willing to support in budget, but I am going to listen to the arguments tonight. Thank you. Alderman Pressly Thank you Mr. Chairman. If you will indulge me, I would be happy to relay the saga that lead up to this legislation, and it also relates to O-10-19, which is also on the agenda tonight. What happened was after I was elected I was over at the school department, and I thought I would like to find out who these two people are that had been identified as the two school employees that had created this huge deficit that we have all struggled with. I asked for what I have always known to be public documents. I asked for their resumes. Low and behold, the legal department said sorry those are not public documents. Having served at the State House, I challenged that. I was in the uncomfortable position of having to challenge my own legal counsel and saying I don’t think that is correct, we need to have a law to change that because any public employee’s credentials should be a public Personnel – 7/8/10 Page 3 record, and they always have been. I challenged our own attorney. He then reversed himself and gave me the resumes of Mr. Hottel and Mr. Mealey. I shared the resumes with members here. It turned out they had redacted or removed the names of the people that were their references. Again, I went to counsel, supposedly my own attorney, and I said why was that done? The distinction in a resume and a personnel file are that a resume is what an applicant fills out as their history, their credentials as to why they should have the job that they have applied for and who you could call if you would like to learn about them. Anything that is in a personnel file, let’s say you fill out a reference and they contact that reference and they send a letter telling all about you and it goes in your personnel file, that is not a public record. It turned out that not only did it take me about a month to get what I knew to be a public record; they then took almost another month to get them to release the full record because they had redacted the people that had been indicated as references. This was pretty frustrating. It took two months to get documentation that I knew was a public record. Low and behold, I have just learned within the last month that simultaneous to that, the school department had placed on their own web site the resumes of the four candidates for the superintendent; Mark Conrad’s and the four other applicants. While they were telling me it was not a public record, they in fact were putting these resumes of just the four applicants on their web site. I have been pretty frustrated. I feel a legal opinion is strictly just an opinion. To get accurate information that I know are documents that I am entitled to and every citizen in the city is entitled to, it took two months, and then to find out in another location it was used all along. This really tells me that our legal staff has many masters; you have the city, the Mayor and her staff, the school department and their people, I think the library even uses the same legal staff, and then we do. There are many times that we don’t get what I think is an appropriate decision to represent us. I understand it has been tried before, that other people occasionally have felt the Aldermen need their own counsel. I have also been told that even the school board one time felt they needed their separate counsel. I know it is a tough year. This was referred many months ago to the committee. The $15,000 was just to cover one quarter. I think the two staff people that the Board of Aldermen have work really hard, and I know that they work so hard that I think Brian has told us he has had to hire people from the Clerk’s office to do some of the typing. It is not that they have extra time on their hands at all. I just think we need our own independent opinion on issues that come up, some of them rather routine. I couldn’t have gone to the board and said hey I need to hire separate counsel because I am not getting the documents that I asked for. A lot of the things we need are not the type of thing that you would hire a separate counsel for. I know it is a tough budget year. I certainly understand people not wanting to create a new position at this time. But I think we all have to be aware that if you ask the legal staff for an opinion that doesn’t ring true to you or that you don’t think is correct, I would encourage you all if you have experience to believe that is not accurate, to challenge it. What happened, they finally brought forth the legal references and it was pretty clear and easy to debate the differences. In both cases, they did agree with what I had to say and not what they were saying. The way it is related to O-10-19 is that I was really proud of the school board when I saw Mr. Conrad’s resume on their web site. It was a beautiful, beautiful resume and I thought what a great idea and what a smart thing to have every department head’s resume, just on the web site. It lets the world know the talent that we have, it sort of justifies why they have the jobs, and I think it would be a really smart thing to do. The impetus for the one that is coming up farther down on the agenda is connected to this first experience. I think it is really important to us to do this. Personnel – 7/8/10 Page 4 As an aside, when I did finally get the resumes for the two gentlemen that created the deficit, I was quite shocked. I thought they were incomplete; they were job applications for earlier jobs because they both were moved up. They were both for different jobs than what they finally had, and quite frankly I would never have accepted them. I don’t know how they ever got those original jobs. This tells me we have hiring problems and I think we really have to work hard to try to solve them. I doubt if you are going to put the money in to hire our own person, but I would hope at least you would go along with the O-10-19 because I think that is one way to encourage anyone applying for a job to do a respectable job. The ones for the Assistant Superintendent’s job, I don’t know how it got even accepted. I think it would encourage people to be a little more careful, to be more accurate. I found a lot of inaccuracies in the resumes that I did finally get. And I think it just adds to some of the difficulties that we have. I understand if you don’t want to give the money for the first one. I think the second one doesn’t cost anything and is just good government. Thank you. Alderman McCarthy The legislation that is in front of us is about hiring an attorney for this board, and if I go back to what we just heard, nothing would have changed. First of all that situation was resolved in favor of Alderman Pressly’s desires through our existing counsel. Secondly, of the 2,000 employees that this city has, 2 of them work for this Board of Aldermen. The others all work for either the superintendent of schools or the Mayor and are given their daily orders by those people. Those orders will include either following the recommendation of Corporation Counsel in the case of the Mayor’s employees or following the recommendations of the Corporation Counsel or the Board of Education’s staff counsel depending on which is opining at the moment. That is who they will follow. We could have an attorney who gave an opinion of whatever we liked, no city employee is going to change their behavior based on that opinion until corporation counsel says that is what to do. It is not going to resolve this issue unless we want to pass something and then go to court, and that requires us to take action. This needs to be worked out through the administration when it is administrative work. When there is a real conflict in the positions of the administration and the Board of Aldermen, that is when we go and get counsel for the Board of Aldermen, and we have done that once since I have been on the board I think that we needed to do that. I know that it has been done in the past when there were substantial differences between boards of elected officials and the administration, but I don’t think that it should be the norm, and I don’t think that the situations we are looking at change any if we pass this legislation. Alderman Pressly Thank you Mr. Chairman. Alderman McCarthy I am sort of confused by what you are saying. It was the same attorney that made the ruling was the same attorney for both the school department and for the Board of Aldermen. There was no conflict. It was the same attorney that somehow gave a different opinion on the same thing to different boards. To me state law is pretty clear in that resumes of people who are paid by public money are available for public scrutiny, and anybody in the city can go and ask for them. Alderman McCarthy I wish state law were that clear. I can’t find the word resume in the RSAs anywhere. I can’t find any reference to hiring credentials, I can’t find anything. The Right-to-Know Law simply says documents are public unless they fall into one of these exclusions, which includes matters that would constitute an invasion of privacy if they were disclosed. It is just not clear. In this particular case, our attorney gave an opinion that said you can’t disclose them, and then our attorney on further reflection, corrected that opinion. I don’t believe there was any opinion associated with the actions of the school department when they posted the resumes of the candidates on the web site. I don’t believe they sought an opinion before doing that. I don’t think there were any opposing Personnel – 7/8/10 Page 5 opinions. We had, at one time, one opinion from corporation counsel and then on reflection a different one that said the resumes could be made public. I’m not convinced that they are or of necessity should be public, but that is a separate issue from this one. I don’t see where having a separate counsel for this body would make it any different from the events that transpired. Alderman Pressly Thank you. I understand the major objection I believe that most people have; we would love to have our own counsel, but we just don’t have the money for it this year, so maybe we should wait for a year when we are a little more flush, but I think everyone on the Board of Aldermen should know when you get a legal opinion from our own counsel that you really don’t agree with, feel very comfortable to challenge it and ask for the explanation. You may find a different opinion. You may get a reversal. I don’t think the votes to pass are there, and please don’t hold back out of any courtesy. MOTION WITHDRAWN MOTION BY ALDERMAN CHASSE TO RECOMMEND INDEFINITE POSTPONEMENT ON THE QUESTION Alderman McCarthy I just want to say if people have disagreements with the opinions they get from counsel, by all means feel free to ask questions of them. These are human beings interpreting words written on paper. They happen to have a lot more experience doing that than most of us do so generally they are pretty good at it. But, I often push back on opinions I get out of legal. If people believe that they are not getting responses at all, please let me know, and as I have said at other committees, I will bring that up with the Mayor and make sure that the issues that are important to this board get addressed. Chairman Clemons Thank you. I would like to note for the record Alderman Vitale had business up at the Planning Board, and had to leave the meeting early. She will be back before the end of the meeting if she can. Alderman Pressly Since it is on the table now, I just would like to say I had another reaction that troubled me a lot, and that was that when I did get the resumes of the two people that were attributed with the deficit I felt that they were rather embarrassing to the school board and to the city. I couldn’t help but feel that they may have been withheld for that reason. It just concerns me. I think we all have to stick to our own hearts and souls as far as following what we believe in and I think we should always look for the truth and accuracy. Thank you. Chairman Clemons The motion is to recommend indefinite postponement. Personnel – 7/8/10 Page 6 Alderman Deane Mr. Chairman I would beg for you to allow me a little latitude. I just have a question I would like to ask of Alderman McCarthy if you don’t mind. Chairman Clemons Sure. Alderman Deane Alderman McCarthy you had discussed if we weren’t happy with opinions from legal or if the timelines that was being utilized just didn’t seem appealing, and I do realize that our legal staff is doing a lot more than just sitting around waiting for us to call them or notify them, but I have an attorney/client privilege question to ask you. If I pose a question to the legal department myself should that not be a privilege of mine to release to the entire board? Isn’t that the way it normally works? Alderman McCarthy Yes and no. It depends on the question I think that you are asking, and this would be a better question to ask of legal, but I will give you a couple of examples. If you ask a question that says do I have a conflict of interest if X occurs and they answer that… Alderman Deane Let me give you my question that I asked… Alderman McCarthy Let me just finish the hypothetical first. That one is one that I think it is up to you to disclose that if you want to. If you ask a question about the actions of the board; if you were to ask was the board legally wrong in something that it did in a contract for example where it can expose the city to liability or other members of the board, then I think that is an issue where the client in that case is the city or the board and the board would collectively have to make a decision to disclose that opinion. Alderman Deane Thank you. During the budget process, I had raised issues and concerns with the principal at the Charlotte Avenue School who pretty much drained the sick bank over there for a sum well over $100,000, and I had asked a few questions. At one of our meetings, I guess Alderman Sheehan had sent an e-mail concerned about my questions and how I was bordering on different federal issues pertaining to employment and whatnot. I forget all of the acronyms that she used. She brought it up at a meeting. I had asked the attorneys for a detailed opinion on the questions that I had asked and whether we had the right to know what had gone on and whether I had a right to have my questions answered by the school administration. So that is a question I asked of corporation counsel so now I am the client asking the question. You got the opinion back didn’t you? Alderman McCarthy I have seen… Personnel – 7/8/10 Page 7 Alderman Deane It was given to the entire board. It was addressed to the Mayor and then to the Board of Aldermen and to Mr. Conrad. Chairman Clemons I don’t recall receiving that, but I could have been left out. Alderman McCarthy I have actually seen two opinions on that; there is the first one and then one forwarded to us later. Alderman Deane There was the short e-mail from Attorney Clarke solely to Alderman Sheehan. She posed the question and she got the opinion. If you didn’t get it Alderman Clemons I don’t know why, but I have it and it is addressed to the Board of Aldermen. It starts with the Mayor, the Board of Aldermen, and then I believe Mr. Conrad. Now the questions Alderman Sheehan posed to Attorney Clarke that she brought up that night, I received an e-mail from Alderman Sheehan the following day. I don’t know if anybody else got it. I don’t remember who was on the header. I had asked legal for an opinion. Now that opinion was shared with everyone. To be quite honest, I think it is good to keep everyone in the loop, but the decision to release the opinion that I had requested, that was taken upon by legal on who they were going to give it to. They decided they would share it with the Mayor; they would share it with the entire board, and Mr. Conrad. The legal department did rule in my favor and they overturned the opinion that they gave to Alderman Sheehan that I was stepping over my legal bounds to ask the questions that I asked. The legal department did review it further and did say I had ever right to know, with the questions I asked, what went on and what transpired. I was just kind of confused. I know when we had the teachers’ contract and we had the illegal meeting at the Crown Plaza, I had asked for an opinion from Attorney McNamee and that was distributed solely to me. The day of that meeting I took it and gave all of my colleagues and anyone else who was interested a copy of the opinion that was rendered by legal. I was told by then President Bolton that I had no business releasing legal opinions. I looked at it as though I am the client, if I wish to give it out I can give it out to whomever I want. I just wanted to understand how they come about figuring the release and to whom when the questions are posed. Your hypothetical situations, when I had the questions about which might include actions taken by the entire board, I agree with you because you are including the entire board, but the questions I asked had nothing to do with the entire board. Alderman McCarthy The question about the sick bank does because it pertains to the rights of members of this board to get particular information. It is not unique to your situation. If Alderman Flynn asked the same question he would get the same answer. I think it is probably reasonable for them to distribute those things to the board and say this question came up and it came up in a meeting of the board, we were asked to render an opinion, and here is the opinion. Were it a question specifically about your rights as an Alderman or whatever, I would think the other way. I believe the issue that was raised by Alderman Bolton with regard to the attorney/client privilege is in that particular case the questions you were asking were about the Right-to-Know Law correct, and the applicability of the Right-to-Know Law to that meeting. Personnel – 7/8/10 Page 8 Alderman Deane Correct. Alderman McCarthy In that particular case, if the opinion indicates that we are not solidly within the bounds of the Right-to-Know Law by doing that, you expose the city to liability for someone else to recoup legal fees when prosecuting a Right-to-Know Law case, which is why I believe that communication should have been labeled as privileged and should be one that only by the will of the board can that be disclosed to the public. I think that is a slightly different case from the one we are looking at here where it is just an opinion on are we entitled to information or not where there isn’t anything that has taken place that may involve a third party and action with or against the city. I am not sure there is any solid rule on any of that, but it is just from a pragmatic standpoint we as officers of the corporation essentially have to be careful about those things when we ask questions and get answers because sometimes we are acting as members of the legislative body and sometimes we are acting as members of the corporation of Nashua and those things can be in conflict from time to time. Alderman Deane So if I put a request into the legal department to release all of the opinions they have rendered to this board, then I should receive them right? Alderman McCarthy I don’t know. I would suspect that they may tell you that there are some that involve personal issues around members of the board and they will not release those, and that may in fact be the right thing to do. Chairman Clemons I can tell you that I had an experience where I submitted some questions about some legislation that I had wanted to perhaps propose, and while I was in the process of doing that, I found out that another Alderman had been informed about my questions and about the legislation that I was proposing, and I did not want that to be shared at that moment in time with the rest of the board. I had a discussion with Attorney McNamee and was told that yes it is attorney/client privilege, it wasn’t supposed to be shared with another member of the board because it was a communication between you and the legal department and a hypothetical that had to do with something that you personally wanted to bring forward, and the only way that would have been able to have been disclosed is if you were to allow us to disclose it, us meaning the legal department, or you disclosed it yourself. I think in those cases where it is a personal question I would hope that there is attorney/client privilege insomuch as if I am asking for information about something and that information is given back to me then I can do what I want with it, but I don’t want it necessarily shared with the rest of the board. Alderman Deane Thank you. That seems contrary to what Alderman McCarthy just told us. Chairman Clemons I understand. Alderman Deane Personnel – 7/8/10 Page 9 I thank you for letting me stray deep into the forest away from the motion that is on the floor, but I would ask Mr. Chairman that you as the head of this committee, I would like you to get some sort of guidelines or even an opinion on how they come to their conclusion of what is to be shared and what is not to be shared especially on the attorney/client privilege side of it because I don’t see any difference in the item that you just mentioned yourself to what I had done. Chairman Clemons I don’t either, and I will ask for a clarification from legal. Alderman Deane Just so we know what the guidelines are and then we can just have a better understanding of it. That would be appreciated. Thank you. Alderman McCarthy I will make sure that corporation counsel gives us something on that, but I don’t think what I said is inconsistent. In the case you just mentioned, that is a hypothetical discussion of legislation that is not before the board, and, therefore, you are asking a question for you and you are the one who gets the answer. If it is a question about legislation that is before the board; for example the budget, then there is some responsibility at that point to deal with the board as a whole because the client is the board at that point. Therefore, when you ask a question about what can I ask about a piece of legislation that is before the board, it is necessary that everybody understand the same opinions about their rights with regard to legislation that is in front of us. Once something is introduced, it is fundamentally different than when you are talking to corporation counsel about drafting it. Alderman Deane Alderman McCarthy I can assure you my questions to corporation counsel were contained in an e-mail and what I have done in the past when I chaired the Budget Review Committee is a three-ring binder in the Aldermanic Office that has all of the e-mail communications in that binder. That very e-mail is in that binder and I did copy the entire board. That was the process that we had adopted. Alderman Sheehan on the other hand voted by telephone to adopt the policy that we had where everything was to be shared and kept on file, and she took it upon herself to contact corporation counsel raising her concerns about the questions I was asking and didn’t share that with anyone here. That was part of the legislation as you had referred to earlier. I was juts kind of disappointed that we had, as a group, adopted a policy to follow and then it wasn’t followed. Maybe it was an oversight or whatever. Alderman McCarthy And I think that question probably should have been send to at least the committee, but I believe that corporation counsel was correct in responding and letting the board have the final opinion on that. Chairman Clemons We are steering a tad bit…we are just a bit outside. Personnel – 7/8/10 Page 10 Alderman Deane I just wanted one follow-p. I understand your point Alderman McCarthy, but it wasn’t shared with us until after the fact. There was a phone call and then there was a one little paragraph Attorney Clarke had rendered on the questions or concerns Alderman Sheehan had raised about the questions that I had put forward to Mr. Conrad. It was kind of difficult at that time. The entire committee was not copied with that. I received a copy the following morning. I don’t know if anybody else on the budget committee did, but I did send it along. I think Ms. Lovering got one too. But the entire committee was basically out of the loop. Thank you for the leeway Mr. Chairman. Alderman McCarthy I will see to it that we get some clarification from counsel on how those things are going to be done. Alderman Deane That would be helpful. It would put everybody on the same page. It is like this purchasing manual. Chairman Clemons The motion before us is to recommend indefinite postponement of R-10-26. Is there any further discussion? MOTION CARRIED NEW BUSINESS – ORDINANCES O-10-17 Endorsers:Alderman-at-Large Barbara Pressly Alderman-at-Large Ben Clemons Alderman-at-Large Mark S. Cookson Alderman-at-Large David W. Deane Alderman Arthur T. Craffey, Jr. Alderman Richard P. Flynn RELATIVE TO DISCLOSURE OF PARTICIPATION IN AND REASONING FOR RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE BOARD OF ALDERMEN MOTION BY ALDERMAN FLYNN TO RECOMMEND FINAL PASSAGE ON THE QUESTION Alderman Pressly I would just like to comment that I think there has already been a nice result from this legislation. This was intended just that the reports that we get from the Mayor’s committees be a little more thorough, that we know who was there to make the decision, and what was their rationale for their decision. Since this has been sent to committee for some time, we have already had a much more thorough report so I think having this on the books has already had a positive affect and it makes for a much more efficient government. Thank you. Chairman Clemons I will just note that I signed on to this legislation … I will relay a brief story; I had introduced legislation to re peal the overnight parking ban about two years ago when I was a new Alderman, and the Traffic Safety Committee sent a communication to the infrastructure committee basically saying that the ordinance should be indefinitely postponed, and they did not recommend it. There was a bit of discussion as to the reasons why, Personnel – 7/8/10 Page 11 however, what frustrated me about it was, as the endorser of the legislation, I was not invited to the meeting, which I don’t necessarily have to be there but the other thing that was frustrating was that I could not get a list of who was at the meeting, who wrote the blurb about it, and how the decision was formed. I think this legislation takes care of those issues. I think that this is good legislation and I think it is going to help us understand the recommendations that come forward from independent committees. I think it is going to help the process. Alderman McCarthy I think the legislation is probably fine if I understand it correctly. I want to point out that the reason you are getting better reports is early in the term the Chairman of the infrastructure committee shared with me the concerns that members had about the traffic reports and I talked to the Mayor about that early on, and she has been working with the traffic committee to make sure that the reports do show the attendance and a better display of rationale and to make sure that everybody is going to the traffic committee so that we don’t have a case where 1 of the departments doesn’t go and then says well I didn’t like that decision, so that we are getting a unified opinion from staff that represents the best technical judgment of our staff. Chairman Clemons Thank you. Is there further discussion? Alderman Flynn Is it implied here that these recommendations would be recommendations both to the Board of Aldermen and to the aldermanic committees? Is that what is implied with this legislation? When I first read this I thought most likely of the infrastructure committee myself. It has been an interesting start to that committee I think over the first few months. As I read this here I am not sure what this exactly says. “Any recommendation made to the Board of Aldermen” so if we were to have a recommendation to sign a contract for something from the Board of Public Works for example that had to go through the Board of Aldermen because if it were a multi- year contract or maybe the dollar value of the contract, would that have something attached to it at the Board of Aldermen level and at the committee level if it was sent to finance? Usually at the finance committee they just get a note that says approved at the Board of Public Works, favorable recommendation. It doesn’t really say who voted on it or what their reasons were for approving it. Chairman Clemons What this legislation does, and this is my interpretation, it specifically states city staff. It says “Any recommendation made to the Board of Aldermen by city staff” so that would exclude for example the Fire Commission or the Board of Public Works. They are not necessarily city staff, they are elected officials. Alderman McCarthy I think the short answer to the question you asked is yes with one minor exception. The case Alderman Clemons just mentioned, if it is a recommendation that comes from another elected board, it is required to be in their minutes and therefore already covered with having attendance reported. What this does is simply says recommendations from staff committees have to list who was there from the staff. As far as whom the recommendation goes to, it is all the Board of Aldermen whether it is the board or a committee. The board is the one that has the authority. We choose to delegate deliberatory authority to the committees, but none of Personnel – 7/8/10 Page 12 that is final until the board takes action and so it is the Board of Aldermen that is being advised with the exception that the Finance Committee is a creature of the Charter and not technically a sub-committee of the Board of Aldermen. Alderman Flynn That makes sense. Thank you. Thank you Alderman McCarthy. Chairman Clemons Any further discussion? Alderman Deane So when this passes everyone can expect to receive these reports? That is one of my questions. This is last evening’s finance agenda and normally the memo that is attached to the front of it doesn’t really list staff. In times it does, but it depends on what it is. The memo does pretty much lay out the process that was used. Not necessarily attendance, but then it will give, at times, staff that was there and how they went about rendering their opinion that this was the best way to spend this money on this product. At the finance level it is pretty much in place now. For instance, we have that BID District Committee that meets and I don’t know what they have done to date. We haven’t received any updates on that. Chairman Clemons I am not sure that would apply because it is not city staff. Alderman Deane To me, when you have all of these committees that are being formed outside of this chamber – we have committees in place that used to cover the duties and responsibilities that are now being farmed out to different committees that are established by the Mayor that have no authority really, they are just rendering an opinion. I am not saying that I don’t appreciate the work that a lot of them do, but at times it makes me wonder how much of our authority we are actually giving up. Granted it is legislation that has to be passed by this board, but I struggle with some of that at times. So we are comfortable with the fact that, as Alderman McCarthy had stated I guess it is of the understanding that when these reports come they will be distributed to everyone not just aldermanic committees in which the topic may fall under? Okay. Chairman Clemons That is my interpretation. Alderman McCarthy Is that happening? In the case of the traffic committee that report is attached to the infrastructure agenda that goes to everybody. Personnel – 7/8/10 Page 13 Chairman Clemons I don’t think so. I could be mistaken. Alderman Deane I get like this personnel… Alderman McCarthy Do you get the infrastructure agendas in your packet? Alderman Deane I do, oh I am on the committee. Chairman Clemons Yes. I am sorry. Yes we do get that. Alderman McCarthy Okay. Attached to that - I believe every member of the board is currently getting the traffic committee memos. Chairman Clemons Yes. Alderman Deane Personnel, you have interviews. I am not on the committee. I don’t get resumes. I don’t get them. I will get this. Any attachments… Chairman Clemons I will start to have those given to the entire board as well. I didn’t realize that. Alderman McCarthy I will take that up with Sue. I thought she was giving the attachments to everybody with the agendas. I am actually surprised if that is not happening. Alderman Deane And how many resumes come in the night you have your meeting? Chairman Clemons None so far. Personnel – 7/8/10 Page 14 Alderman Deane You haven’t had any dropped on your desks since you have been chairing this committee? Chairman Clemons We have gotten them ahead of time. We have always gotten them ahead of time. Well at least this year anyway. Alderman Deane I can’t speak for the other; Planning & Economic Development Committee really hasn’t met in a while. I am not sure with the budget. I know with half the board on the budget committee, but I believe Sue distributed most all of the communications that we had. Granted we had the big thick book that everybody got to begin with, but anything else…I think I had talked about the fact of keeping all of our communications and everything in a three-ring binder out back and whether the entire board wanted to be included on the e-mail distribution list, and I know Sue had been doing that as well. I don’t know whether she did it all the time, but we did keep everything for people to look at if they cared to do so. Alderman McCarthy I wanted to talk about the legislation itself for a second. I think with regard to the traffic committee, which is the thing that motivated it as I understand it, it is probably fine. What I worry about is unintended consequences with groups that may not even know they are subject to this legislation and what constitutes a staff committee. If we ask a question and it gets answered by two people in the administration, does that constitute a meeting of a staff committee? In some of the cases we have talked about, the BID Committee for example is actually a sub-committee that is created by a resolution of this board, and is, therefore, subject to the Right-to-Know Law and has to produce minutes. It is not as clear with staff committees. I want to be careful that we don’t try to over-apply this. I think where there is a standing staff committee like the traffic committee that meets on a regular basis that has a defined role of giving us opinions on work that is before the board, I think this should be the case. But I think there are other cases where we simply ask the question and I wouldn’t want to see us later on come back and say well we should have had a list of everybody whose desk this ever crossed because that constitutes the committee when they might not have understood they were on a committee when they did the work. I think we need to understand that there is some flexibility in the interpretation of this. I think we have the traffic committee problem solved without this legislation. If there are other committees I think we can get it solved. I don’t think the legislation hurts unless it is overzealously applied to cases where it is not a regular standing committee that advises this body. The traffic committee is the only one that comes to mind at the moment. If there are others that we know about, we should probably make sure that they are following that same guideline. Alderman Pressly Thank you. In following up with what Alderman McCarthy is saying, when we first thought of doing this we thought we should ask that they come under the Right-to-Know Law, and it became pretty, in fact Alderman McCarthy explained oh that really poses a huge problem, so we deliberately left that out so that common sense could prevail. The rationale was that not having that in place really hindered the committee from doing its business. We had to hold something off for another meeting just to find out what the explanation was. I think common sense has to come into play. The question if it goes to a committee or to the full board, the full Personnel – 7/8/10 Page 15 board can always send it to a committee if they want to. So there is a great deal of flexibility. I think common sense will prevail. The whole purpose is to get information in a timely way so that we, as Aldermen, can do our business in a timely way. Chairman Clemons I will give you an example. I had legislation at the beginning of this year pertaining to tax cabs and Alderman Chasse asked for an opinion from the Fire Department and the Police Department on it. I went out and sought those opinions and in the end, I am sure it went through channels in their department, but ultimately the chief of each department signed off and sent the board a letter. I think that is sufficient. If the Chief of Police or the Fire Chief is signing off on something to me that is following the spirit of this. They are giving a recommendation and it is them giving the recommendation, and yes they have staff that report to them that may have contributed to that, but I don’t think necessarily we need to know who in the staff it was. I think what this really is, is if it is multiple departments coming together then we want to know what departments it was. In the example of the Traffic Committee, if the police department is the only one that is participating and we don’t have input from the fire department, we need to know that. I think that is sort of where at least I was coming from with this legislation. Is there any further discussion? If not, the motion is to recommend final passage of O-10-17. MOTION CARRIED O-10-19 Endorser: Alderman-at-Large Barbara Pressly RELATIVE TO RESUMES OF DIVISION DIRECTORS AND DEPARTMENT HEADS ON THE CITY OF NASHUA’S WEBSITE MOTION BY ALDERMAN FLYNN TO RECOMMEND FINAL PASSAGE ON THE QUESTION Alderman Pressly I would just like to say I was interested in the recent discussion of resumes as far as the people being appointed to the different committees. I think a resume or a job application, anything of that sort should tell a little bit about the person, what their credentials are, and who they are. I think in the spirit of transparency and of knowing who the heads of our departments are, you can add any other levels that you think are appropriate, but I think it is just good government that we start to put these resumes on. When I read Mr. Conrad’s on the school site, it was a beautiful resume, told a great deal about him, and I think it is appropriate. I certainly hope you will pass this. I think I have spoken to the Mayor. She thought that a bio would be good. I am not sure of the different between a bio and a resume. She seemed to support a bio. In talking with members of the press, they think it is a great idea. It doesn’t cost anything. I know that the other one cost money, this one does not. I hope the committee, with all due respect, will consider this. Thank you. Alderman Chasse I will not support this. I am sorry. I feel that this suggests an invasion of privacy. The bio is definitely a better way to go, giving descriptions. There is no reason for anybody to know where I worked or why I left or anything like that. In fact, if you want to put the current resumes of division directors, what is the purpose of that? They already have their job, and they have probably been in the position for 10-15 years. There is no reason to put a resume out there on them because it isn’t going to be accurate anyway. Who is going to be Personnel – 7/8/10 Page 16 updating these resumes? If you take Dave Fredette right now, his resume is going back and forth with all of the positions that he is holding. A bio I agree, resumes I can’t support I am sorry. Alderman McCarthy I guess I am not sure that the resumes serve any purpose. I think we have sort of a view of resumes that may not be true in the modern world. I used to have one where I listed all of my work experience and everything I had done, and frankly I have had several occasions in the last ten years to be seeking other employment, and recruiters will tell you take half that stuff off of there. The purpose of the resume is to look interesting enough to get an interview and nothing else so it wants to have a few bullet points on it that make you attractive. The basic purpose is to get past the screening in H.R. so that you get to the point where someone in the hiring department looks at your credentials and says bring them in for an interview, and brevity is one of the keys to that. I don’t think we have any reason to expect that the resumes we see are complete, and as Alderman Chasse points out, if I don’t want somebody to know why I left something that is 10 years ago in my past, I may just not put it in there and you may not see it. I don’t know that it is serving any particular purpose because it is not a document that is sworn under oath as this is all of the places I ever worked, this is all the places I went to school, any of that. Even educational experience, the same recruiters will tell you if you have educational experience that is on a different career track than the one you are applying for, leave it off there because it may indicate to a potential employer you have other interests that you are going to pursue. I don’t know that resumes are particularly good in terms of indicating qualifications. Alderman Chasse I will agree with you Alderman McCarthy because if you look at my resume I started working in 1969 at a chemical plant in Nashua and it went all the way up until I got my degree in ’92. When I got my degree I took all of that stuff off because chemicals and accounting don’t have anything to do with each other. If you looked at my resume and say well this guy is way up there in age that could hurt my chances of getting in for an interview whereas if you take from the time that I graduated from college you may say he is still a young guy so I just color my hair and I might get a shot to get in for an interview. I wholeheartedly agree with you, and I don’t think the resumes serve any purpose out there on the web site. Chairman Clemons I have a question here and I am going to pose it to Alderman Pressly. You have mentioned tonight and several times in the past that the attorney reversed his opinion if you will on resumes. I am wondering if you know or if he stated what case law they may have cited to you or an RSA or how they came to I guess both conclusions, but ultimately how did they come to the conclusion that resumes were in fact a public record. You may not know the answer of how they came to that. Alderman Pressly I don’t have it with me, but there was case law. Part of the distinction was if you were an applicant and did not prevail, did not get the job, it was not a public record, which was a surprise because the school department had three people on there that did not get the job; their resumes were on there also apparently. I don’t know if they got permission for that or not. But, the thinking is that the people that are paid with public money, the public has a right to know what their credentials are. I think it is probably as simple as that. These are public employees and citizens and the universe has a right to know what their training and credentials are. There was talk of a bio. I am not sure that Personnel – 7/8/10 Page 17 I know what the difference is between a bio and a resume. You just talked about having resumes that are being sent to all of us. I think it is just really good public policy to have something about our department heads, and maybe let each one be different, let them write up what they would like to have on there, but I think it is important to know who they are, what their training is, where they have gone to school, etc. I think it is just a really strong effort in good government. If you want to mince words over the extent of it, what you remove, what you don’t put out there, but certainly there should be some indication of what their training and credentials are to have the job they are functioning for in the city. Chairman Clemons My follow-up question I guess, and again you may or may not know the answer to this, is you also mentioned the recommendations or references. The references were not a public record or they are? Alderman Pressly They were. Whenever a person applies for a job they put down who will speak for them. That is publicly known. I am sure everyone around this horseshoe has been asked if they could be a reference for somebody else, but if that person is contacted or writes a letter that is not because that goes in a personnel file. There is a distinction between a personnel file and resume. Chairman Clemons My issue with that is that obviously if included on a resume is someone’s address or… Alderman Pressly That is always taken off; address, phone numbers, social security. In fact, it was sort of embarrassing when I got the resumes from North Andover, they had not redacted that. I had to take off social security numbers, phone numbers, and any personal addresses. That is routinely removed. Chairman Clemons Okay. Alderman McCarthy Once again, at least my experience with current hiring practices, generally don’t provide references with a resume, you provide references available on request, and the protocol is typically once the company has gotten to the point where they are ready to make an offer of employment they will ask for and check references, but it is not common practice to simply make them available until that point in the process at this point. Chairman Clemons Correct. I agree. Alderman Pressly What was on file at the school department was a job application. It was part of a routine job application. I still believe it is good to have something out there. If you prefer a bio or something about our employees Personnel – 7/8/10 Page 18 particularly the department heads, I think it is good government that we tell the world a little bit about who they are and what their training and credentials are. Alderman Chasse I would like to ask the maker of this ordinance if she would have a problem if we tabled this and perhaps you get the state law and put it in our packet. It is not something life threatening where it has to be done right away. Alderman Pressly I could do that just in trying to absorb the discussion. Alderman Chasse The ordinance will not go away it would just be tabled. Once we get… Alderman Pressly I am happy to have it tabled. I was thinking though that maybe a different approach, I will certainly try to do that, but maybe be more specific as to what you would like to have said about the department heads. I think it is just really smart to have something about the heads of our departments as to who they are. Maybe you would help me put together a bio. You referenced that you did like the idea of a bio. I don’t know what constitutes a biography. Alderman Chasse Actually you talked about a bio a little while ago. Basically if I took myself and I said okay this is who I am, my job over here is I am director of public works, I graduated from such and such a college, cum laude, I belong to organizations for this, that, or whatever, I coach little league baseball in the City of Nashua, I umpire in the City of Nashua, things like that – nothing to do with where I worked, but I have been working for the City of Nashua for 22 years now, but nothing specific or maybe I started out working as a regular employee for Park & Rec., then I got promoted to supervisor, then I got promoted to that, now I am the Director of Park & Recreation – things like that. But if I happen to come from Gardner, MA, then I went to Boston, MA, then I went to Andover, MA, I don’t want to see that down there in particular with years and whatever because they will say well this guy just jumps around, he isn’t going to come to Nashua and stay here. It has a bad affect on you too when you put that out there. If you look at my resume, I went through a lot of jobs, but it is the time; places close down, they get absorbed by other places, etc. I have a pretty good sized resume, but to no fault of my own – I sure didn’t quite any of the places, but…to me a bio is the way to go; I am married, I have 17 kids, things like that. Alderman Pressly I would be perfectly agreeable to doing something like that. One thing that I had thought of, knowing there would be some objections it could be that somebody would put something on there that was so attractive to another employer that they would try to steal the person away. It can work both ways. I gather what you want is more of a definition of what to put in there. To me it should be just sort of the name, their educational background, and the credentials they have for the job or maybe anything that the person would like to present themselves. Would you be willing to work with me on that Alderman Chasse? Personnel – 7/8/10 Page 19 Alderman Chasse I don’t know. If I recollect, anybody who ran for office, wasn’t our bio out there? We had a little bio. They are already out there for us. It is not something that I would write up. I wouldn’t write up the bio for Patti Rogers or anybody else. That is something they would write up themselves, hand it over, and it goes out there. That is basically how a bio works. It is what you want to put in there. Chairman Clemons I tend to agree with Alderman Chasse as far as the resume goes. I think there is a danger in putting out, at least on the web site and making it that accessible, the division directors’ previous job history and that sort of thing because it is a good point that another city or town could come in and say wow I went to the City of Nashua web site and they have a heck of a guy working for them over in IT, maybe we could steal him away or whatever the case may be. In addition to that, when you talk about the bios, these folks are working very hard day in and day out and the last thing that I would want to do is to legislate to them that they have to write up something about themselves to put it on the web site. It is almost like a homework assignment for a 10th grader. I think it is kind of demeaning the more I think about it. Now I understand Alderman Pressly that you want to get that information out to the public, and I agree with the sentiment. I think it is a good thing, but I think maybe we need to understand a little bit more about what the decision was that was rendered by legal, and if these things are already public documents maybe we should just leave it that way, and if somebody really wants to see them then they can come down to the personnel department and request that document. Maybe making it known on the web site, I don’t think that is something that we should do. I would be willing to hold this until we get a clarification from legal in regards to how it is that they came to their decision that these were public documents and what the rulings were that came to that or what the state statute is that states that. The more I think about this, the less I am inclined to support it. MOTION BY ALDERMAN CHASSE TO TABLE O-10-19 MOTION CARRIED O-10-20 Endorser: Alderman Diane Sheehan REGARDING RESOLUTIONS TO APPROVE COST ITEMS OF A COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AGREEMENT MOTION BY ALDERMAN CHASSE TO TABLE O-10-20 ON THE QUESTION Chairman Clemons It is a non-debatable motion. I will just say for the record that typically in this committee we table things when the sponsor is not present. Alderman Chasse That is correct. Alderman Deane All this legislation does is add a redlined copy of Collective Bargaining Agreements. Chairman Clemons Personnel – 7/8/10 Page 20 I understand. Alderman Deane I am in full support of it. I was the author of the above-mentioned that required a cost analysis be done, and then Alderman McCarthy in his wisdom did a little amending on the bottom of that. We’ve got these collective bargaining agreements coming in now. We should… Chairman Clemons I understand. The motion is not… Alderman Deane Attorney Bennett has… Chairman Clemons …The motion is not debatable, unfortunately. Alderman Pressly We can discuss it under discussion though. Chairman Clemons The motion is to table. MOTION CARRIED O-10-21 Endorser: Alderman-at-Large Mark S. Cookson RELATIVE TO THE DEFINITION, ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF AN ALDERMANIC LIAISON Chairman Clemons I would like to say that Alderman Cookson did call me, and say that he would not be available this evening because of a family commitment. MOTION BY ALDERMAN CHASSE TO TABLE O-10-21 IN COMMITTEE MOTION CARRIED DISCUSSION Alderman Flynn Going back to O-10-19, there was a motion to table and that is fine, but I would like to just comment I think this word resume seems to have a little bit more of a charged language to it. It seems to be a little bit more abrasive to some of the members on the committee. I know earlier in the conversation there was some discussion that we always get resumes for the candidates that we interview. I think most of those are not resumes quite frankly. I think they are more letters of introduction, and I corrected myself several times just last week that what we are getting is, maybe it is a bio. I thought it was a letter of introduction, but they certainly weren’t resumes. I don’t know if they are required to submit resumes and we kind of casually use that word as a committee that we have resumes in front of us tonight or we received your resume or whatever, but Personnel – 7/8/10 Page 21 quite frankly we very seldom get true resumes. If there is something I can do to work with you Mrs. Pressly, it sounds like something I would do if I were passing out my campaign literature door to door of who I am. I have some things, accomplishments or facets of my life that I am particularly proud of or things that I think people could use to get to know who I am. If this is something I could work with you on I would be willing to do that as well. Alderman Pressly Thank you. Alderman Flynn It is tabled now, but we will have a chance to talk about this again. Alderman McCarthy I agree with that, and I think that is sort of the way it should be. If we are looking at resumes for people who are being considered for the planning and zoning boards I wouldn’t want what their professional resume was because if I were applying to be on one of those boards I don’t think the 30 year history of my conversations with inanimate objects in the IT field has much bearing other than my problem solving abilities on whether I would be a good fit for the zoning or planning boards. I would want something that was more tailored to why I was qualified for that particular job. I don’t think we are talking about resumes in the hiring sense when we look at appointments. Alderman Pressly Thank you. I agree and I really welcome the debate that you have. I think everyone likes the idea of having something there but have it be more appropriate. In asking for a resume, whatever anybody fills out when they are getting a job, sometimes it is just an application/form that the company puts out. There are many different things. I appreciate your being willing to work with me. Hopefully we can get some sort of a format that is acceptable, that is not a big homework assignment as you say. It is a word that has changed I think over time and maybe it is an antiquated word, but it is the one that is sort of still out there. I will be happy to work on it. Thank you for the debate. Chairman Clemons I would just like to say, on a completely different note, to Alderman Deane if you would like to co-sponsor legislation with me to make the table motion debatable, I would be happy to co-sponsor that with you because I feel myself it is something that merits debate at time… Alderman Pressly What are you speaking to? Chairman Clemons Just in general, I am speaking about the motion to table. I believe that it should be a debatable motion, however, it is not. Alderman Deane Thank you. I believe we brought that in before and it got crushed like a small bug. I have a request to Alderman McCarthy and I don’t know if legal has done it, could you please request from the legal department Personnel – 7/8/10 Page 22 redlined copies of all collective bargaining agreements brought in from now until such time as this is acted upon? Alderman McCarthy Yes. Alderman Deane I understand the courtesy of the prime sponsor, Alderman Sheehan, not being here, and holding it so we can listen to her concerns. I think the language that was put in the ordinance was pretty clear. At times in the past, we have gotten redlined copies and other times we haven’t. I know that Attorney Bennett had more or less given us a small memo with the article changes, language changes, and things of that nature most of the time. I know at the committee level we had received those from Attorney Bennett. That was mostly police, fire. I think McNamee does public works stuff. I wanted to speak briefly on O-10-21. This is something I would have tabled because this is pretty detailed. When I went down to the third bullet item, which requires a reporting mechanism, at one point in time a couple of terms ago or whatever I was chastised for not updating as a liaison so I brought in reports to the Board of Aldermen. I think Alderman McCarthy might have been President back then, and I was the only one that did it. I was serving on the police project, the fire project, public works things and things of that nature. It is going to be an interesting piece of legislation depending on what the liaisons do. Some of us are liaisons to boards that have a tremendous amount of oversight like I am the liaison to the public works commission, and when you look at their day to day affects on the quality of life are huge between the parks, the streets, wastewater, traffic department, street department – you can go right through the whole park & recreation, when you go through the whole thing it has an affect on your daily life. They do have some discussions on a lot of things at their meetings, but I don’t have a problem with reporting back to the board, and I try to supply information especially at the finance committee level on what I understand. I did not attend any of their budget meetings because I thought that was something that board should have done with the Mayor themselves before submitting it to us because we were going to get a crack at it anyway. Any questions we had pertaining to their budget we could get answers to the questions as everything was readily available. Thank you. Alderman McCarthy I was President when we did that once or twice, and it was not wildly popular with the rest of the members of the board. Alderman Deane Nobody else participated if I remember correctly. Alderman McCarthy There was some concern that adding those as agenda items was not appropriate without change to the ordinance. This may be different, but I think it is plagued with some other problems. With regard to the motion to table, I simply want to point out if the maker of the motion wants it to be debatable the proper motion is to postpone definitely to the next meeting, which is a debatable motion at least to the appropriateness of postponement. If the maker of the motion wants it to be non-debatable and makes the motion to table, if a majority of the committee wants to debate it, vote no. The parliamentary procedure that we have covers all of the cases. Chairman Clemons Personnel – 7/8/10 Page 23 I understand that Alderman McCarthy, but the problem is that sometimes you have, especially you have either co-sponsors or you have people that are interested in the legislation that are not members of the committee that do have debate, they have reasons to talk about it that evening. We can agree to disagree because we are not going to agree on that. Alderman Deane I understand what Alderman Chasse made his motion I think. I think he did it out of past practice and respect to the sponsor. I don’t think he did it to slight discussion on it or anything like that. This is where the debate and dialogue is supposed to take place. Chairman Clemons Correct. Alderman Deane I think it was more of a courtesy from his standpoint, and you basically enforced the motion as you should. You allowed a lot of leeway in other areas. I always look at the committees I chair to let it kind of flow and let people have the discussion, and yes I try to keep the boundaries somewhat palatable for everyone. It is like the motion to call the question. That is another motion I don’t like. I think when you are debating something to call it, but then it is the majority rules. But that can’t be used at committee level. It can be used at full board level. Alderman Pressly Thank you Mr. Chairman. Under discussion, I think this liaison legislation is really going to be interesting. I would hope to attend and to listen to your discussion on it. What I find interesting is the difference of the different types of liaisons. You mentioned the Board of Public Works. Planning Board, many a time the Aldermanic member on the Planning Board can be the swing vote on something really significant. Some of these liaisons they are voting members, they are critical players, and others are not. I would hope when this comes in it might be nice to sort of separate which ones are actual critical voting members of the committee that they are the liaison to and others that they just sit in on discussion and bring information back and forth. I think there are many different types of liaisons, and maybe we need to even given them different names so that it is clear to everybody. I know I am the CTAB liaison and the first thing I said was do I have a vote on this group, and they said yes. I think it would be interesting to make it really clear which liaisons are voting and which ones are just information sharing. Chairman Clemons Any further discussion? Personnel – 7/8/10 Page 24 ADJOURNMENT MOTION BY ALDERMAN CHASSE TO ADJOURN MOTION CARRIED The meeting was declared closed at 8:25 p.m. Alderman Arthur T. Craffey, Jr. Committee Clerk