REPORT: OUTREACH, COMMUNICATIONS AND APPOINTMENTS COMMITTEE (OCA) (10/7/19)

Present: Alisa Brewer, Darcy Dumont, Evan Ross (Chair), George Ryan. Absent: Sarah Swartz. STAFF: Paul Bockelman, Town Manager, and Evelyn Rivera-Riffenberg, Human Resources Director.

Highlights

Considerable time was devoted to the tension between the Town Manager and OCA about the appointments process, including how much information the Town Manager should share with OCA and with the full Council. No resolution was reached. 

OCA voted 4-0 with one absent to recommend to the full Town Council that Shavena Martin be appointed as the new Amherst Town Clerk.

OCA tabled consideration of the Town Managers nominations for positions on the Council for Aging.

Appointments:

Town Clerk

The nomination of Shavena Martin for the position of Town Clerk was discussed. Martin has been working as an election specialist in Springfield for the last six years and was one of two finalists out of 28 applicants. 

Councilor Alisa Brewer (At large) noted that the Committee has discussed on numerous occasions that the Town Council ought to be brought into the appointment process eariler – certainly before they are asked to approve candidates. She noted that a priority of the Council has been outreach to college students in order to increase their participation in town elections and this seemed to be absent from the job  description and the interview process, and she asked Town Manager Paul Bockelman to speak to this. 

Bockelman responded that the nominated candidate has extensive experience with elections in Springfield and added that the “customer service experience” at the Clerk’s Office will include outreach to college students and other constituencies.

Brewer asked for assurance that the Town will “do better” with college students than it did in the last election, i.e.that  it will promote successfully higher participation of college students. Bockelman responded that he hopes to revive a committee that was set up to explore outreach to the colleges.

Councilor Evan Ross (District 4) asked if candidates were asked about outreach to students. Bockelman responded that this was not raised, but that every candidate recognized that this is a college town.

Bockelman said that there is a lot in Martin’s background that make her well suited for the kind of outreach the Town is looking for. He noted that the Town succesfully recruited for someone with expertise in elections, and he repeated that the Town wants to make outreach to college students a high priority in the future.

Ross pointed out that the Town Manager’s office would benefit from feedback from the Council  on job descriptions, and also pointed out that an important part of the Clerk’s job is managing records but the candidate has little apparent experience with this, other than voter records.

Bockelman responded that he prioritized elections and engaging the public, and that this importance increases with ranked choice voting looming. And as is the case with any hire, he said, “we seek to maximize the full array of skills that the candidate can bring to the job”. 

Brewer asked about Martin’s qualifications to be a department head, noting that she does not apparently have experience as such. Bockelman responded that this is not a requirement of the position. He noted that Martin has shown leadership in various ways, including having responsibility for 54 precincts and informally being the “second in command” to the election commissioner in Springfield. 

Bockelman and HR Director Evelyn Rivera-Riffenberg said  that Martin is “ready to step up.” Bockelman noted that Martin is a Spanish speaker, and that this is an asset. In response to a questions about ranked choice voting (RCV),  Bockelman said that neither of the two finalists have had any experience with RCV.

Brewer cautioned that this kind of inquiry after a nomination has been made is really unfair to the candidate,  but OCA and the Council need better information about candidates before they are asked to approve or reject them. She pointed out that this has been discussed many times but no progress has been made.

Bockelman repeated that it is the sole responsibility of the Town Manager to make certain nominations, and this is specified in the Town’s new charter, and that he is not required to provide the Council with details about nominees’qualifications.

Brewer pointed out that the nominating memo to the Council for the Clerk lacks details such as the candidate being bilingual, and said, “It shouldn’t be on me to go to the Council and convince them that the screening committee has done an excellent job.” She also said, “We have asked for several things and there has been no response from the Town Manager in response to our requests [and that] OCA just received the information about this nomination this morning!” She complained that the documentation for this nomination is poor and was not provided in a timely way, and Bockelman has given no indication that he is interested in providing more information in a nominating memo. Brewer suggested that if OCA’s only option is to vote against the nomination, then it should do so. At the very least, she said, this should be taken up by the full Council. “Are we comfortable with the Town Manager not cooperating on these matters?” she asked the councilors. “I am not,” she said. 

Councilor Darcy Dumont (District 5) and  Ross were dismayed that OCA was not given documentation on the nominee until this morning, had to vote on it immediately, and that the full Council was expected to vote on it this evening.

Ross noted that he has already expressed his discomfort with this process to Bockelman and Council President Lynn Greisemer. The process does not provide time for due diligence or writing a responsible report. 

He proposed that matters coming before OCA ought to give enough time that OCA can consider them responsibly, write a report and submit. But he  also noted that the Council is mandated to act on nominations of the Town Manaager within a 14 day window and after 14 days , if there is no action on the part of the Council, nominations  are approved by default. Hence OCA has a tight time table for receiving nominations and passing them on to the Council for action and that is a good reason for OCA to be brought into the process earlier.

Ryan asked, “What message do we send by not acting today?” He noted that there is no new information that OCA will get that might change their decision so he suggested that OCA ought to vote today.. 

Brewer suggested that OCA recommend approval of the nomination for Clerk to the Town Council as no new information would be forthcoming and the only thing that would be accomplished is to frustrate the candidate. 

Dumont offered a motion  to recommend the appointment of Martin to the Town Clerk position and that motion passed 4-0 with one absent.

Council on Aging

The tension between Town Manager Bockelman and the Council about the appointment process was evident in the subsequent discussion of his nominations for appointments to the Council on Aging. 

Ross, reminded those present that OCA has asked for more information in nominating memos, including how a candidate will contribute to the success of the body but that this additional information has not been consistently forthcoming.

Ryan said that while the Town Manager’s memo was not exactly what OCA hoped for it is better than what OCA has received in the past and that OCA should move on it.

Dumont pointed out that the Council on Aging is really anxious to get going again after a hiatus and recommended a vote to move forward with the nominations.

Bockelman noted that the charter does not mandate that he write any memo but the Town Council does have a right to ask for that information and indeed the process might work better if the Council had the information that it requested. 

Ross said that since April, OCA has been saying that it should move forward and not hold things up and “now we have seen some improvement but not what we need. We need to decide – are we going to rubber stamp things or are we going to get the information that we need to make reasonable assessments for the Town Council before we pass on our recommendations?” He continued, “we don’t have to move forward here: We give the Town Manager a lot of deference but we keep asking and not getting what we ask for. So either we need it (the information) or we don’t.” 

Ryan responded that he saw no point in getting into a battle with the Town Manager over these memos. For candidates who are up for reappointment – all he (Ryan)  wants to know is that they want to serve again he said, adding that “we don’t need to be micro-managing the Town Manager” . He noted that Bockelman had provided 5 out of 7 acceptable profiles in his memo and that Ryan saw this as a work in progress. He noted that we are all learning and we are moving forward. 

Brewer said that she was willing to move forward this time, as long as everyone understands that “this is the line. We have now filled a lot of committees”. She proposed moving forward but agreeing that OCA and the Council will not move on future nominations without more cooperation from the Town Manager. She underscored that OCA needs to communicate this clearly to Bockelman but OCA did not propose any specific actions that would insure that this would get done. 

Brewer asked whether OCA is actually evaluating these nominations or not.? And if not, then why is this stuff coming before us. Several Councilors agreed that they saw no point of OCA and the Council simply being a rubber stamp for the Town Manager’s nominations.

Because this matter does not need to come before the Council before 10/30, the committee decided to table the issue and continue the discussion at their next meeting.

Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) Appointment

OCA considered how they will fill the vacancy on the ZBA created by the resignation of Matthew Wilk. Ross reported that there have been no additions to the pool of candidates since OCA last discussed the matter.

Ross offered: 3 options for addressing the vacancy.

1. return to the original pool and see if there were candidates who were not brought forward whom OCA would want to consider now.
2. take one of the associate members of the ZBA and move them to a full membership.
3.  leave a vacancy on the ZBA until OCA and the Council have revised and/or adopted a new appointment process. . Associate members would continue to operate as associates for “some time” under this arrangement. 

Ryan suggested that OCA should not move forward with addressing this vacancy until it revises a process “that none of us are happy with”. He further noted that the new associates are very new and perhaps not ready to step up. He favored Option #3.

Dumont said that she would like to look at the full pool again.

Ross reported that he reviewed the pool and that many of the candidates had also been Planning Board candidates He said that when you remove the people who have been appointed to Planning Board and ZBA, plus the one candidate who withdrew. it’s a much smaller pool. (note: he did not reveal the exact size of the pool and no one asked).

Brewer said that she prefers to leave the position open noting that she is adamantly opposed to returning to a process that no one is happy with and which OCA plans to revise. 

Dumont noted that the Community Activity Forms (CAFs) are supposed to remain on file for 2 years. She would like to see a query on CAF’s on file to see if there are earlier candidates who might be considered. She also asked if anyone knew why Wilk resigned.

Ross responded that any questions concerning Wilk’s resignation should be directed to the chair of the ZBA.

Ross reported that he has set a goal of coming up with a new process by December or January..

Ryan offered the motion to postpone consideration of appointment of a new member to the ZBA until OCA has adopted a new appointment policy. The motion passed 3-0-1 (Dumont abstain and Swartz absent).

Dumont indicated that the reason she abstained is because there are a number of people who are willing to serve right now and it seems unfortunate to delay appointment for a few months when there is so much work before the ZBA.

OCA’s Report to the Town Council was briefly mentioned. It includes recommendations for appointments to the CDBG advisory committee and the Water Protection Board as well as a proposal for a new process for distribution of CAF’s to the entire Council can be found here.

Ross noted that the following items will be on the agenda for OCA’s next meeting.

• How do we decide which committees get a liaison (from the Council)?
• How do we decide who that liaison should be (OCA will be making those recommendations to the Council).

The next meeting of OCA is on 10/21