Hopi H Stosberg

Bloomington Regular Session — Feb 25, 2026 · 94 segments

• 0:00 Given our time constraints, if it's okay, we have quorum, I know one member is on their way, but we're just going to call this meeting to order. We have a special session of the Bloomington City Council on Wednesday 25th and the time is 5 p.m. Who is serving as the wonderful clerk? Okay, um, Clerk Bolden, will you please call the roll?
• 0:33 here.
• 0:36 Here. I don't understand. I jumped.
• 0:39 Okay here
• 0:44 I hope you, did you all have time, I know we had very limited turnaround here, but have you all had time to review the draft charge that was put online?
• 0:59 If you haven't okay, that's fine. So I'm gonna just ask that we do one small adjustment if it's okay With the body to amend the agenda to first go over the charge and then we can make Appointments to the committee. So changing point a and point B. Is there anybody opposed to doing that?
• 1:20 Okay, excellent.
• 1:22 Just going over the charge, so we're here for the general public's perspective so that you are read in. We are authorizing a hiring committee to lead and coordinate the council's processes for recruiting and recommending candidates to fill vacant council legal and administrative roles and to ensure continuity of council operations during the transition and advise on the appropriate long-term structures of these positions. And so I wrote up a charge in hopes of really outlining what it is that we want this committee to do, how we want them to report back to us as a body and what limits they should have. I think most of these are fairly straightforward, but would it be helpful if I read it just for to bring everybody up to speed?
• 2:18 and what anybody wants.
• 2:22 Or a summary, okay, so in terms of the summary, the way that I've just drafted this up, but this is up for discussion here, is that the scope of the work is obviously to evaluate whether, is to get this position posted and eventually to present candidates to the council to vote on, and to do all of the administrative work that's required between this moment and that outcome. One of the things that I've added that's maybe outside of our standard operating procedures is that the first deliverable of this committee is to consider the structure of our council office to make recommendations to the broader body on whether or not we should continue with the current structure that we have, which is two attorneys and one legal researcher, and whether we should, for example, explore separating the role of attorney and council administrator, but then most importantly figuring out how we might do that, and so I'm recommending to the body some options of ways that we might go about doing that so that we all can vote and approve on that.
• 3:43 And then moving from there, then starting the process of allowing us all to give comments on the job descriptions, then working with HR to get those posted. The second thing that's sort of outside maybe of how we were forced to run this process in the past, and I emphasize that we were forced to do it this way because the last time that we had a committee, it fell during council recess, and it was quite difficult I think to put everybody together, and our council president at the time did a valiant effort then. But the other side of this is sort of creating a council-wide engagement structure to make sure that everybody has multiple opportunities to engage at each stage here.
• 4:31 including, for example, opportunities to meet candidates before we present them to a vote.
• 4:41 Other than that, I think everything's fairly straightforward. Some ideas about record keeping and documentation. But.
• 4:49 Did we have any thoughts or things that we wanted to add? Council Member Piafra?
• 5:25 Agreed. Agreed with that. What's your suggestion on what we could do instead?
• 5:47 Yeah.
• 5:52 I think that's a great idea.
• 6:03 Yeah, that's under five, it's a point under five if you're looking for that point.
• 6:10 Yeah, it's five, they should have been lettered, but five B, I guess.
• 6:16 That's a great point. I would have no issue with actually amending that to be either a single person, just at least as a liaison, like a clear liaison line to the rest of council, unless anybody has another idea for that.
• 6:33 Okay, any other thoughts on the charge? Anything else that you'd like to change? Please, Councillor Staspar.
• 7:05 to authorize it.
• 8:19 So I think, and so tell me if you, and I'm glad that we're having this conversation, if this, to me, I feel like that's addressed under the bullet points under point one, which is that the task of the committee is to make recommendations for, and ideally present some options for what a new structure would look like, and then wait for, we can wait for further direction. I mean, so I could imagine, as this one example, where we were to say, yes, we wanna change, we have three lines, we wanna change line one to full attorney, line two to an administrator, this is one example, I'm not saying this is what we should do, and then we bring that to the council, and the council says, yes, we as a body agree that this is the way forward, and we can determine at that point whether we want to post those positions.
• 9:58 Right
• 10:06 Yep, super helpful. Council Member Flaherty.
• 10:59 That's exactly how I intended it, yes.
• 11:13 I agree. Thank you so much other other thoughts on on these questions here or any other things within the draft charge
• 11:22 I have a thought.
• 11:23 Go ahead.
• 13:01 I think that's a really good point. Then I think we could add this to subpoint one as the immediate charges to also bring what options, what that would look like and what that would mean, what implications that would have on timeline. You know, I've, yeah. I mean, I think that's a great point. I think that should be something that's on the table at some point, especially if it's something that we can do in an agile and quick way.
• 13:26 My concern would be.
• 13:43 Yeah, yeah, totally. Totally. Thank you. Thank you for that point. Okay, other other thoughts or reactions to any of that
• 13:51 Any other considerations on this draft charge?
• 13:59 Please. Councilman Sasseberg.
• 14:20 your thoughts are related to that.
• 14:25 appointment kind of thing? Yeah, I think we should take somebody separate from the committee if possible, if we can come to some agreement about that, I think that that would be a good way forward.
• 15:13 I see what you're saying.
• 15:18 Yeah, to have a single person who, and you're right, actually.
• 15:23 Yep.
• 15:34 Yeah.
• 15:37 Got it.
• 15:38 Yep. Yep. I think I think that's a brilliant point. Councilmember Zulek and then and then have a reflection on that too.
• 16:01 I think it's, well, I mean, I'd love Councillor Stasberg's thoughts on this.
• 16:51 Thank you. Mindful of time. Curious. Clerk Bolden, if you have any thoughts on this particularly, I would welcome them at any time, obviously, throughout the conversation. But do you have any thoughts on this question in particular?
• 17:10 No, the of course anything your your your thoughts are always welcome on all thoughts, but the question particularly about our continuing interns People who are currently in in the office. So at the end of the period of our staff attorneys what? Do you have any thoughts on how to support them?
• 18:35 Yeah, that's very helpful. To your concerns. That's very helpful.
• 18:41 Yes, and I think and I think I think to that point I think it also solidifies the idea that having having sort of a single Point person is the liaison between council and the and the current fellows That that person can also be the liaison in addition to president I can I can be helping with that with with clerk's office Please council P. Mott Smith and then we should round up this part and yes
• 19:09 Thank you so much.
• 19:10 Okay, final comments, thoughts on this draft charge.
• 19:20 Um, so pending, pending the, um, the, uh, amendment of removing the, uh, job of overseeing and supervising the work of council interns, um, um, the, the, um, element of liaising with external entities that might be our pinch hitters, if you will, um,
• 19:42 Pending those two changes. Are there any it can I have a motion to approve this charge? Please council member stasberg
• 19:56 and then
• 20:34 And seven includes authority and limitations, yes.
• 21:03 authority no but I do think I do think that we want to start I mean I think we've we've started this informally but I do think that it would be good to be able to engage with you know potential people who may be able to fill in in the short term and we I think we don't want to delay on doing that so
• 21:20 Yeah, that's really all this is saying at the end of the day it would come to the to the body I think for authorization like we wouldn't nobody could do that by themselves But we do want to be able if we find a person to to make a quick decision on that
• 21:36 Yes.
• 21:37 You imagine imagine we want we want somebody outside of city legal for it. Yeah, right. So right Is there a second and then sorry, sorry, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, okay But I don't know if she's finished the motion though
• 21:51 the motion. It was authorizing.
• 21:54 Okay, thank you. Thank you. Good point. So is there is there a second and I see the clerk
• 21:58 for the motion as is.
• 22:01 Okay.
• 22:04 No.
• 22:05 I don't
• 22:17 I think to revisit it.
• 22:43 Yeah.
• 22:47 Yeah.
• 23:32 Okay, there's a motion and a second.
• 23:36 We'll write that down. There's a motion and a second. Can we suspend our rules to not have a individual vote? We can't? OK, so in which case, can the clerk please call the roll on that, because we have folks online.
• 24:07 Yes.
• 24:10 We can revisit it next week, just so we can get started.
• 24:18 Yes. Sorry. Yes.
• 24:21 Yes.
• 24:25 OK, fantastic. So I now.
• 24:29 Sorry?
• 24:30 I'm so that that was that passes unanimously I'm now going to appoint four people to the committee and I'd like also to appoint the person that will be the liaison I I would like to appoint councilmember Piedmont Smith councilmember Zulek myself and councilmember Rallo to be on the hiring committee and I would like to appoint Councilmember Daly to be our liaison with current staff
• 25:20 via the four people you mean or how.
• 25:34 Yeah, I'm asking for a vote on on on all of the above actually but but we can if you want to wait till next week Well, you get to a
• 25:43 Yeah, but I'm open. I'm open for you all to approve it. So it's just is everybody okay with those with that with that for as the as the committee. Council member Pema Smith. Are you happy to serve on the committee.
• 26:14 Okay.
• 26:15 One thing one thing that I just just for for the good of the order I intend to rotate the committee a little bit as we get to different stages here So for example when we're actually doing interviews I would like councilmember Flaherty or Rosenbarger to be in those interviews So just just for for awareness here and similarly if it gets to too much work or something we can rotate Out we'll bring next week then to the meeting. Oh councilmember Rosenbarger We have two minutes. Go ahead
• 27:25 All right, thank you.
• 27:29 Yep. Yeah. Yeah, and that is a clear, I mean, that's a clear.
• 27:33 I mean, FERPA thing. I mean, so we need to, I think we'll take as the first issue some training for the committee to make sure that everybody is fully up to date on data protection and the rights of people applying to things. Thank you.
• 27:51 It's critical, yep. Okay, so we will bring the question of liaison then in the packet for next week's meeting.
• 28:03 Yep, are we all, would you like to vote on the committee? Let's do a quick vote, or rather, I have motioned to do it, is there a second?
• 28:13 Okay, there's a motion and a second. Clerk, will you please call the roll, and then we can adjourn.
• 28:33 Yes.
• 28:36 Yes.
• 28:41 that
• 28:43 Yes. That carries six to I believe. All right. Thank you all so much. This meeting is adjourned. We'll continue and I'll reach out and I'm chairing the committee for now. I'll reach out with some next steps and and the edits to this for our next meeting. Thank you all for meeting at such short notice. We'll also try to schedule an executive session for next week. Can I just see while we're here and we have literally one minute. Actually we still have two. Are there any council members who are not able to attend an executive session that is tentative for six o'clock right before our meeting next Wednesday.
• 29:29 Did that work for you all?
• 29:32 Peace.
• 29:37 You think 530 would be better?
• 29:40 Okay. Okay. So thank you. Thank you council members and barter So I'll just just confirm with all the parties make sure that we can notice it correctly I'll work with the clerk and council staff on that And we'll confirm hopefully tomorrow that that meeting has been scheduled Thank you all again so much for all of the service that you do this city. It's a pleasure working with you all we're done