HomeMy WebLinkAboutCommittee of the Whole April 24 2007I WHATCOM COUNTY COUNCIL
2 Committee Of The Whole
3
4 April 24, 2007
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7 Council Chair Carl Weimer called the meeting to order at 5:45 p.m. in the Council
8 Committee Room, 311 Grand Avenue, Bellingham, Washington.
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10 Present: Absent:
11 Barbara Brenner None
12 Dan McShane
13 Sam Crawford
14 Seth Fleetwood
15 Laurie Caskey- Schreiber
16 L. Ward Nelson
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18
19 Nelson moved to go into executive session for 20 minutes to discuss the first two
20 agenda items.
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22 Motion carried 4 -0 with Crawford, Fleetwood, and Caskey- Schreiber out of the
23 room.
24
25 1. DISCUSSION WITH CHIEF CIVIL DEPUTY PROSECUTOR RANDALL WATTS
26 REGARDING PENDING LITIGATION (AB2007 -017)
27
28 2. UPDATE ON OPEN COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AGREEMENTS (AB2007 -207)
29
30 3. DISCUSSION REGARDING THE HIRING PROCESS FOR THE COUNCIL'S
31 PLANNING AND POLICY ANALYST POSITION (AB2007 -017)
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33 (Clerk's Note: The Committee came out of executive session at 6:05 p.m.)
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35 Dana Brown- Davis, Clerk of the Council, stated they will not discuss specific
36 candidates for the position, only the hiring process.
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38 Crawford asked what happens if a candidate is untruthful on his or her application.
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40 Karen Goens, Administrative Services Department, stated that is grounds for not
41 considering the application, if they can verify the untruth. The County would not hire the
42 applicant.
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44 McShane asked if they do that for all applications, or for the field of applicants once
45 it's narrowed. Goens stated they review qualifications once the number of candidates is
46 narrowed. They take the applications at face value, unless there is a glaring inconsistency.
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48 McShane asked if that review is automatically done through the Human Resources
49 Division. Goens stated the Council has the authority to hire the position. The Human
50 Resources Department will guide the Council through the process. They will look at things
51 that the councilmembers may not see, such as the affirmative action data, and make sure
52 they are not artificially removing someone who appears to be qualified from the slate of
53 applicants. They will do that kind of review in every hiring process. When they get to the
Committee of the Whole, 4/24/2007, Page 1
1 point of making a job offer, they will verify employment, education, and other factors. Once
2 the County has a signed application, they can check references. She sometimes checks
3 references in advance. She will put a lot of effort in the most promising folks. If there are
4 ways to weed out some folks, she recommends doing that.
5
6 Weimer stated that all councilmembers are now present.
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8 Nelson asked how the Human Resources Division reviews information in an
9 application. Goens stated they do extensive reference checks. She won't make a job offer
10 without verifying an applicant's application materials and strengths. The application has a
11 limited release. When they narrow the field of applicants, they get a full release from the
12 applicants so they can talk to their references fully.
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14 Caskey - Schreiber stated hiring practices at Western Washington University and the
15 Northwest Clean Air Agency include a request for names of coworkers and others in the
16 same industry who they can talk to.
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18 Brenner stated she isn't interested in the names of references that applicants provide
19 because those people will support the applicant. Goens stated they talk to both kinds of
20 references. They get a broad release. She asks to talk to an applicants' supervisors,
21 coworkers, and subordinates. They have made job offers contingent upon a positive
22 reference.
23
24 Weimer stated the councilmembers have rated all the applicants and come up with
25 three top candidates. He asked what happens next. Goens stated someone will review the
26 slate of candidates and look at whether they meet minimum qualifications, so there is
27 independent concurrence with the Council's findings. That will give the Council some
28 protection.
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30 Brenner asked if the Human Resources Department will eliminate any applicants.
31 Goens stated she will double -check the three top candidates to make sure they are
32 consistent with the qualifications.
33
34 Fleetwood asked about giving the candidates time to present during an interview.
35 Goens stated that public presentation skills are important. If an interview is at a certain
36 time, the applicant can show up a half hour early for instruction and time to think about
37 their brief presentation and assignment. The Council would decide the content of what it
38 wants to hear from the applicants. It's a tremendous tool she uses to find out who would
39 be a good trainer, who knows how to make information interesting to an audience when
40 they don't know their audience, and who connects with their audience.
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42 Fleetwood stated the implications of that test are huge. Someone will lose the
43 position based on their poor effort in the presentation. They are putting a huge weight on
44 this one little thing. He can imagine a scenario in which someone reacts badly, but it might
45 not reflect at all how they actually perform. Goens stated this is a suggested method for
46 testing. She does not suggest what weight the councilmembers put on this method. They
47 could say that a presentation will not be weighted as highly as other factors.
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49 Brenner stated this person will be a liaison with many people and groups. It's
50 important to have someone quick on his or her feet. Get someone who is diplomatic.
51 Goens stated the Council could give an applicant a scenario and see how the applicant
52 would frame an issue.
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Committee of the Whole, 4124/2007, Page 2
1 Crawford stated he is not excited about this process. The field has been narrowed to
2 three. The councilmembers have discussed amongst themselves whether the full Council
3 can watch all the phases once they have reached this stage. He suggests that they go
4 through this process. When they get to the interview stage, the full Council will be present
5 at the interview. Goens asked if all three applicants have made their current employers
6 aware that they are looking for work. Once this goes before the full Council, it becomes a
7 public process. Divide this process into private and public portions.
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9 Crawford stated he suggests that they find that out about the three applicants, and
10 then reconvene.
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12 Not all the applications, tests, and interview questions for public employment are
13 public record. She advised that they divide that out carefully. Get the preliminary stuff out
14 of the way.
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16 Crawford stated all three candidates have agreed to allow the County to contact their
17 current employers. He suggests that they hold the interviews, skip the step of narrowing to
18 the top one or two candidates and go directly to checking references. They may not need
19 the phase two interview, but they can decide that later.
20
21 Fleetwood stated the question is to what extent the presentation test emulates what
22 the employee would actually do with the Council. When the employee actually presents to
23 the Council, they will probably be in a relaxed, private environment. He doesn't see how or
24 why a high pressure situation would necessarily call out whether a person is best qualified.
25
26 Crawford stated it is simply up to each councilmember to weight those issues in their
27 individual decision- making process.
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29 There was discussion about the importance of presentation skills to the position.
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31 Goens stated that the Council will decide the content of the presentation test.
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33 Crawford stated they should look at each candidate and choose a presentation test
34 subject that is relatively neutral for all of them, to be fair. Goens stated she agrees. The
35 Council can supply the candidates with data such as news articles or other information to
36 formulate a presentation.
37
38 Brown -Davis stated that the councilmembers should give her their ideas for
39 presentation test content. She will work with the Council to figure out how to implement
40 the test.
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42 McShane stated they must have a clear policy, before the person is hired, on how
43 this employee is managed.
44
45 Weimer stated that a good question for the candidates is how well they would work
46 for seven people.
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48 McShane stated that there must be a democratic process for managing the position.
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50 Crawford stated that the test should include issues that are out of this geographic
51 area. Two candidates are from this area.
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Committee of the Whole, 4/24/2007, Page 3
1 Fleetwood stated he would like the applicants to discuss real -life scenarios before
2 Whatcom County. It would inform him on the ways the Council would use this person.
3
4 Crawford stated that would give a bias to the local candidates who are more familiar
5 with the local issues.
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7 McShane stated come up with something from another jurisdiction. It would test a
8 person's ability to do research. It would be fair to the candidates and to the
9 councilmembers.
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11 Goens explained how the presentation test would work, given the research
12 component.
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14 Brenner stated she doesn't want to put a lot of energy into interviewing a candidate
15 before they've checked references. Goens stated one purpose of the reference check is to
16 verify the things they learned during the interview process.
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18 Brenner asked what happens if no one passes the interview and reference checks.
19 Goens stated they would re- advertise until they can hire a person they are satisfied with. If
20 they are going to bring an employee to Whatcom County, she prefers that the Council agree
21 on the hire unanimously. They need someone that they can all have confidence in.
22
23 McShane stated that the tasks this person works on should also be approved with
24 more than a 4 -3 vote. That should be a written policy they can hand to the applicant.
25 Then, ask the applicants what they would do if a councilmember approached them
26 independently. He would write up ideas for an administrative policy for managing the
27 position.
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29 There was discussion about scheduling the interview day, choosing the interview
30 panel, and whether they are allowed to conduct the interviews in executive session.
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32
33 OTHER BUSINESS
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35 AD30URN
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37 The meeting adjourned at 6:58 p.m.
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41 Jill Nixon, Minutes Tran cription
42 %% %J11ttitrr,
43 `,� otc &proved these minutes on May 8 , 2007.
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51 D B s! Cou it Clerk Carl Weimer, Council Chair
Committee of the Whole, 4/24/2007, Page 4