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Minutes 08-17-99 - verbatim VERBA'I'ZM EXCERPT CITY COMMTSS]:ON MEETTNG OF AUGUST 17~ 1999 REQUESTED BY ZNTERZM CTTY MANAGER WTLFRED HAWKTNS Broening: Tillman: We move to an important topic now, which has been pulled up from New Business and that is the subject of discussion and selection of the City IVlanager. Mr. Hawkins has left. He will not be here for this portion. He has elected not to stay for the discussion in order that we may have a flank discussion here on the dais. Would anyone wish to start? ! would like to start, as a matter of fact. T would like to thank the Human Resources staff, which was very helpful in the process and in providing us with materials and background information. And, also to rvlr. Fred Deal, who was the testing consultant, who helped us in our quantification of this issue. And, T would also like to thank the Mercer Group, who was the professional search firm, who also gave us the data base and some very strong advice on how to do this. T think we've had a good process and looked at subjective and objective aspects of each of the candidates. We were blessed with a lot of people who applied for the job, over 70 people. We had five very strong candidates from which to pick. We're down to the final wire and hopefully, we will have some discussion this evening and if all goes well, we will make a selection. Vice IVlayor, would you like to say anything? Yeah, first of all, thank you for the opportunity to speak, Mr. Mayor. To the public, T think this is coming to some conclusion, as T would hope that our process which was started some time ago based on the fact there was a need or ! should have said a want for a nationwide search. As part of that also, someone was employed to provide certain names and the names were provided and along with H/R, Human Resources Department, also developed a list of possible candidates which came through in-house directly to Hr. Lee and his staff. There was some collaboration between H/R and the outside agents, who provided a list also to Mr. Lee and that was compounded together and later was whittled down to ten. The commissioners were then asked to take the top five picks from that. An understanding had to be made that the information which was given to the commission, the information was of instrumental use, of subjective use, because a commissioner in a sense does not take any directives from staff. So, the information which was provided was for subjective use in order to help them determine their top five choices. Upon doing that, each commissioner submitted their five choices, which so happened to be at that time that some commissioners overlapped since we came up with four choices at the final end. That was because commissioners overlapped. However, because there was a push for having a total of five actual candidates, a fifth person again was added, which was Hr. McFellin. All right. The commission came to an agreement of an interview date, which was August 9, which was convened and Mr. Fred Deal was the facilitator brought in by H/R, so as to eliminate a credibility or integrity factor which someone could lodge a complaint. So, it clearly is now, we are after the interview process and the tally which went on by Mr. Deal, we came to see that the three top candidates. One having significant higher rating, scoring the highest, was Mr. Hawkins. Scoring also good, but underneath Mr. Hawkins was Hr. Stunson. And, then third, was Mr. Smith followed by IVlr. McFellin. My issue here is based on the process which we enacted, based on the steps which were taken, and followed all the way down the line, and with the candidate coming Verbatim Excerpt Regular City Commission Meeting August 17, 1999 Requested by Wilfred Hawkins Broening: Audience: Broening: Sherman: Broening: out with the strongest rating under the process that we enacted and put in place. That is Hr. Hawkins. T feel that is the individual we should offer the job to. When the time comes, as T'm sure everyone wants to have a discussion about it, but we need to keep in mind the legal preferences and others that we followed this process before. We have went through this whole process, one, two, three, down the letter. To violate it would be to violate something we set in motion. We set this in motion - this process. Then, not to follow our own process would be the abdication of our duties and our responsibilities. You know, [ know someone who said, sure we could throw this back out, but we can't compare. Every time we come to the end of a process where there is someone we personally might have some disdain for, we don't want to support, we want to change the rules for, you know, we can't continue to do that. If we want to be a world class city, we have to stand up and do what is right. Tonight, that is exactly what we have to do. All the way down the line, early on, sure, there was a vote call and there was 3 votes and we didn't get 4. That was a couple months ago. IVlr. Hawkins has saved us well in those six intervening months. Everybody knows that. We have someone in-house. When you go to him and ask what the different situations are going on, he has never had to pick up the phone to make a call; he knows the information, he knows the score. We have someone in-house. What more can we do? You're talking about qualifications - the man has the qualifications because he's here and he knows the pulse of the city. Ask the department heads, ask the police and fire unions. They'll tell you. Ask the citizens. Tt would be a dishonor; it would be a disgrace tonight not to seat this man as our city manager. So, well have discussion, but that's my feelings at this point. Would anyone else like to speak at this point? Can we speak from the audience? No, this is on the dais. Well, the problem as T see it is we are down to four and we've looked them over and T think our vote is pretty much the same way it was. And, if that's the case, T'm a little puzzled as to where we are going to go. This is a very unorthodox process, probably the most unorthodox process T've encountered, T've been around a touch. We started out with 70, it went down to 10 and we were given 4. We did the interviewing process. We got the final grades. ! think we have enough to go on based on this particular process that we were put through. Any more discussion, ! would be willing to contribute to it. T think we either have to stand up and make a decision here or go and redo the process. T don't know how much more we can toy with this. Commissioner Weiland? Verbatim Excerpt Regular City Commission Meeting August 17, 1999 Requested by Wilfred Hawkins Weiland: Yes. The city has been dealing with this for the better part of five months and I know we have spent in excess of $11,000 for two different groups, not counting the time that H/R has put into this. T patiently feel that as a commission voted to hire the Mercer Group to conduct the search along with Human Resources to come up with a list of candidates. After the fact, my thoughts were anything else was going to be done in-house as far as the process to eliminate it to five and from five to pick the final pick. [ have a grave concern. No. 1, I met with .lim IVlercer, who owns the Mercer Group, who helped organize the search. One question he asked me was: Is there anybody you would like me to contact that may be interested in this position? I gave him a gentleman's name in Louisiana; I told him how to get ahold of this gentleman and he never was contacted. T told IVlr. Mercer if you have a problem contacting, get back to me and I'll make sure you can get in touch with him. T spoke to this gentleman this morning just to reconfirm that he was never contacted and he was never contacted. ! have a big problem with that. ! wonder why he wasn't contacted. A week ago yesterday, we were supposed to interview the five candidates, let me back up a little bit. A couple, three weeks ago, in the library we were going to narrow our list from ten to five. ! believe three of the five commissioners, one being included myself, didn't rate those candidates on a number basis, on a raw number and we ended coming up with four candidates. So, we figured out how we were going to include that fifth one and we came up with the fifth one, Mr. IVlcFellin from Texas. Then, Mr. McLemore from Winter Springs was unable to be at the interview on the 9th because of prior commitments. If we hadn't included Mr. IVlcFellin and Mr. McLemore couldn't make the interview, we would be down to three candidates to make this process from. IVlonday morning when we came in to interview the candidates one-on-one in the morning and then as a group in the afternoon, there was a company, Fred Deal, 20/20 !nsights, that was going to be the facilitator for this process. To my knowledge, I knew nothing about this. The whole schedule was changed from a nine-o'clock to a ten o'clock start. Everything was re-arranged. BasicallY, ! think, because of Mr. IVlcLemore not being able to come and I understand that H/R knew about this on Friday, the prior Friday, that he wasn't going to be able to be there on the 9th. None of the commissioners were contacted or the mayor to let them know our candidate selection was down to four people and that a facilitator had been hired to conduct this. It was my understanding that it was going to be with Human Resources and all the commissioners with their own questions to decide who we wanted as our City IVlanager. I really feel, us as a commission, has failed the city because the process has not been handled in the proper way and it's hard to say where we go from here. ! have a thought in mind of who my number one pick would be because I didn't know where this meeting was going to go tonight. ! think we seriously have to take a good hard look at this interview process and perhaps, the commission needs to be more involved. Perhaps, we need to re- open this, which T hate to do as it will take more time and more money and in the eyes of the public, everybody is going to wonder what in the hell we are doing. But, ! really have a grave concern about how this was handled and ! Verbatim Excerpt Regular City Commission Meeting August :tT, :[999 Requested by Wilfred Hawkins Broening: Denahan: Broening: Denahan: Broening: Denahan: think the commission needs to be a little more involved in breaking down the process of the candidates. T'II leave it to somebody else. Care to say something, Commissioner Denahan? Go ahead. T'm deferring to you, maam. A lot has been said on the process. From the onset, !, it was a hard sell. [ really wanted to maintain objectivity and ! implored this commission to consider that we use a national executive search firm exclusively. As a commission, we felt the stress; we felt tremendous pressure, but this decision needed to be expedited and not drawn out. When we decided as a commission to do a collaborative effort with our H/R and with the executive search firm, this may have been a bad decision on our behalf. It dragged the process out. Someone who had a vested interest in the process was a part of the process. It made it very difficult. I have questioned the process since the beginning, but I seem to have been the only one who was questioning the process. Again, the discussions at the library, ! felt it was very arbitrary the way we narrowed down the list from ten to five. ! was concerned. We were specifically given directions how to narrow down, how to rate each of the candidates..loe Blow at the top of the list could have gotten four choices from the five commissioners, zero from one of the commissioners, 100 from each of the other commissioners. .loe Smith, at the bottom of the candidates' list, could have gotten 80, a score of 80, from all five commissioners and have not been a top choice. Yet, .loe Blow went to the final qualifying list of five and .loe Smith was knocked out of the running. I thought that was arbitrary back then. I wondered why ! did not get to meet with Mercer. Why was iVlercer's plane landing at 6:30 and our meeting started at 6:30? There have been many flaws in the process and yet, as I stated at the City Manager's search meeting when we interviewed candidates last week, I love black and white as it makes it very simple - we know what's the policy; we know what's right and we know what's wrong. Unfortunately, most of life, 90%, is gray and that's what we are given the responsibility to do up here as your commissioners. And, ! really appreciate the input that I received from the public. T treat the input as my compass to navigate these political waters. Tt is a very difficult task. This evening, I have terrible nerves. This is not a decision that I have taken lightly. T feel that the process has been flawed, it is far from perfect; but ! think that we have some excellent candidates. And, the most important thing that [ have learned from this process is that the City of Boynton Beach... No, you go ahead, please, ! am speaking - Art, just wait until you are called. The City of Boynton Beach needs a seasoned South Florida professional. That is what we need to lead our city into the new millenium. I think that we have the Verbatim Excerpt Regular City Commission Meeting August 17, 1999 Requested by Wilfred Hawkins Broening: candidate. No, the process wasn't perfect. It was far from perfect. I objected along the way many times. I did not keep those objections to myself; but as a member of this commission, we decided that we would do a collaborative effort. No, it wasn't perfect. Do we have great candidates to choose from - absolutely. And we have one candidate who rose to the top. No, he wasn't the number one choice, but redevelopment is what we are looking to do in Boynton Beach. One of the candidates participated in tremendous redevelopment in Fort Lauderdale, in North Lauderdale, Las Olas. I think we would be doing a grave disservice to the City of Boynton Beach if we do not give strong consideration to John Stunson. I think it's my turn, I'll come back. I think while the process had some flaws in execution, the process itself was a good one because the ten candidates we were given had their resumes and background information against which we had ten standardized questions that we could rate them against, giving ten points for each one. I call that the objective portion, although it wasn't entirely objective by any stretch of the imagination. It looked to qualifications related to Florida experience, South Florida experience, education, financial experience, redevelopment experience, team building, and a variety of other issues. And, that was a good exercise because it allowed us to see in raw form who was on paper perhaps the most qualified person. And, a name bubbled right up to the top very clearly. Then we entered, what I would call, the subjective phase and that was when we did one-on-one interviews with each of the candidates and then when we had a panel interview which had five standardized questions. Each of the candidates had twenty or thirb/minutes, I don't recall, to respond to the five questions. Each of us had one question we could ask that they didn't know was coming, but we had to ask each candidate the same question. And, two people bubbled to the top again. And, I must say that one of the candidates came in with a very clear advantage and that's because he had been here for a long time, knows our town. And, I find myself in the very awkward position of agreeing with The Palm Beach Post. The Palm Beach Post editorial I thought was bang-on today. The same reasons it led me in my agonizing decisions on whom I would support in this was because of the persistency of knowledge, depth of intimate knowledge about this city right now from years and years of performance, the loyalty that has been shown by my number one candidate, the loyalty to which I give very high value. And perhaps, that was indeed perhaps the thing that swung the pendulum ultimately in our Interim City Manager's favor. At the same time, I think that because, one of the questions I asked was how do you deal with the problem of permanency, of corporate knowledge, and those things and that was key in my mind because we come in with training wheels for a year and then we are gone. Or we can be around for a little bit, but it is the City manager who is the key player. The key guy, he has the real leadership qualities. We come in, we bring the kid bear in the cabin and the staff has to deal with it and we keep bringing those bears in year after year and they have to deal with them and put substance to them and make them work. Verbatim Excerpt Regular City Commission Heeting August 17, 1999 Requested by Wilfred Hawkins Sherman: Weiland: And, T agonized, agonized, agonized because T see two people with extraordinary qualifications for the job and T had to make a decision that was a very tough one. And, that is where T am right now unless T hear something new tonight. We'll go back through this again. Well, T don't think we're going to hear anything new tonight. T would think we're going to be pretty much...but T was surprised by Commissioner Denahan bringing in another gentleman in the mix here. But, it just tells me further that we are not going to get this four-to-one vote. We need a four-to-one vote or we are all going to be here too late to do this thing. Why aren't we going to get a four-to- one vote? T think everybody out there might deduct that if they really think about it. So, where does that leave us? The process - T wasn't adept to the process, T guess T had that thought in my mind in the beginning. The process was a fair process, but it, upon learning what Commissioner Weiland just said and upon listening to Commissioner Denahan about the executive search firm and thinking it over a little bit, T think we are going to have to go outside and redo this thing or ask the executive search firm we have already paid to provide us with some additional applicants because far apart up here. There is nothing gluing us together up here. We need some time. We're not professional interviewers, not professional resume overlookers, not professional ............. of these programs. That's why we went outside to get this assistance. But, now it seems like we are agreeing to disagree. So, T think the commission has to take charge. ! think this time maybe we should stand up and stop passing this around to outside people, other staff people, other department heads. We are three new Commissioners and two seasoned Commissioners. ! can only speak for myself, but T didn't know what the hell was going on when we started this thing with this interview process outside. Bingo - Friday, Bingo -Monday, Bingo - Tuesday and now we are supposed to be making a decision. To clarify quick, it doesn't surprise me that we can't agree. So, we can hack this around as long as we want to hack it around, but T don't think there's four votes for any candidate right now and that's just how T feel. T've listened to everybody and know where T stand, know where Commissioner Denahan stands and T believe :[ know where Commissioner Tillman stands. Although the Mayor didn't say outright, but ! think ! know where he stands. ! don't know where Commissioner Sherman stands. ! think at some point we are going to have to take a vote and continue to discuss this further. Because ! would love to leave here tonight if one side of the table or the other side of the table could be persuaded to think about this and change their mind. ! feel as Commissioners we have a very huge responsibility to hire the best person to represent this city for what we are looking to do at this present time. Not five or six years from now because that person may be going onto another job as is the track record for a lot of managers doing their job. Right now, we are in the community development phase and we have a candidate that has a lot of accomplishments behind him, has a good track record. !'ve had someone tell Verbatim Excerpt Regular City Commission Meeting August 17, 1999 Requested by Wilfred Hawkins Tillman: Weiland: me: he's from a smaller city, half the size. That means nothing to me. With the amount of people in the city, he doesn't deal with 53,000 or 30,000 people on a daily basis. He deals with the different department heads. He deals with some of the contractors, developers, the legal end of it. When someone says, you know, this person doesn't stand up because of the size of the city. T really don't think that matters, because as ! just said, this person has a lot of accomplishments behind him and ! think it's our job as Commissioners to hire the very best person that is available at the present moment. ! give our City Manager, as the Mayor, a heck of a lot of credit. He's been here 12 or 13 years. He knows the system inside and out. He knows what we want to do. But, we haven't done anything at the present point. As ! said, we as Commissioners have to hire the person who is most qualified for this job at the present moment. T have something to say. Again, you know, ! don't believe what ! am hearing. You know, you know, this is ridiculous. Here it is again, T go back to responsibility. Okay, on one hand, you are talking about and you initiated a process; then on the other hand, you talk against it. Then, at the same time, you are talking about hiring somebody because of some one element of qualification when the interviewing process covered five major areas. Okay, now if Mr. Stunson was the strongest candidate, ! would be the first tonight to nominate him. But, Mr. Hawkins is. You can't reach past Mr. Hawkins to get to Stunson. You can't do that because we initiated the process. We initiated the process. Morally, ethically, legally, it would be wrong. We initiated the process and then you are going to shirk that responsibility and talk about somebody else, hiring somebody else. Tf Mr. Stunson was in Mr. Hawkins' position, none of this discussion would be taking place. We need to accept our responsibility. !t's time to put personal preferences aside. The man is the strongest candidate - you know it in your hearts; you know it in your minds. He is the strongest candidate and you can go all around in circles. You can play any type of technical game you want, Commission Weiland and Commissioner Denahan. You can play any type of technical game you want, but Mr. Hawkins is the strongest candidate. Everybody knows it. You know it. Okay, now that we are going to go there, you said morally, ethically and legally. ! can see where you are trying to turn the table. Being brought up under New Business, back in whether it was the IVlarch business or the April business, we do have a sunshine law, this topic was not on the agenda. But, it was brought up under New Business to appoint the !nterim City Manager as our Manager and it was a 3-2 vote. Two people felt we should go outside to see what was available to us. ! really have to question how in the hell, excuse my language, Commissioner Denahan was so well prepared to speak on this topic that night when no one knew about this being brought up under New Business, but one Commissioner. !t has been orchestrated, it is clear, !'ve had x number of phone calls after that meeting wondering how that came about. And, now we are back at it again tonight. ! don't know if we're at a 3-2 which way or 4-1. We haven't Verbatim Excerpt Regular City Commission Meeting August :[7, :[999 Requested by Wilfred Hawkins Broening: Denahan: Broening: voted; ! don't know which way we are going yet. But, T think it stinks. T mean we need to know, and not that T just said, this John Stunson one great quality behind him, I feel he has others. But, T was pointing out one of the main things the City of Boynton Beach wants to do right now is redevelopment. He has the degrees, he has the experience. So, let me point that out also. T'II continue, let somebody else speak. Commissioner Denahan, would you like to speak? Resumes are simply paper as you alluded to a moment ago, Mayor, and we can use words to make ourselves look very good. Interviewing is another vehicle to sell yourself. We need someone with a proven track record to lead this city. Someone with history and stability, not in just one area like redevelopment; but, we have six or seven labor unions. We need stability and leadership and John Stunson looks good on paper, he interviewed well, he has a proven track record with experience. Yes, Wilfred Hawkins has proven to be a very capable leader. He's done a great job and I support him. But, our city needs a seasoned South Florida professional. I guess it's my turn again. If T was looking for an engineer, I would look for John Stunson. If T was looking for a leader for the City of Boynton Beach in the beginning of the millennium, I would look to John Stunson. But, I'd look at Wilfred Hawkins a lot closer because Wilfred, I thought Wilfred was the most dynamic, gave the most dynamic responses to the questions that we posed to him. And, he gave them because he had a big leg up, he'd been around a long time. He could have written those questions down himself. They were questions that we all knew were important. We could have written those down ourselves. And, he responded also as articulately and strongly and forthrightly to the questions each of us asked. And, that is really what tipped the scale for me. I saw, this is the guy we have, this is a guy who hits the ground not only running, not that Mr. Stunson couldn't do it, I have the highest regard for John Stunson and I hope he'll be my friend. But, this city, this city is Boynton Beach, it's Boynton Beach and I've learned in my 7 1/2 approaching 8 years here that Boynton Beach is a thing unto itself just about. Anybody here that doesn't believe that, raise your hand. It really is a thing unto itself and that's good, but also it takes the kind of leadership that Wilfred brings to us. That and the loyalty issue are things which threw me in his court. Tt was a very tough decision, one that is going to bother me for a long time. It really is, but I think it's the right one and I find myself, T pride myself on my objectivity and I want to see the facts and don't bother me with how you feel. But, this isn't exactly feeling, it's a more for me, more a sense of knowing that Wilfred is right for this time. T have gone through interview processes before, I have been interviewed myself many times for job, you can tell in the first five minutes who the real people are and who the ones that aren't. It's a thing you can call chemistry, you can call it empathy, you can call it whatever you want, but it's a thing you have to have. Verbatim Excerpt Regular City Commission Meeting August 17~ 1999 Requested by Wilfred Hawkins Weiland: Broening: Weiland: Broening: Tillman: Weiland: And, because we rely, we, I mean all of us not just this Commission, we all rely on the City Manager as the number one leader. The number one leader in our town. This Commission has the right to make ordinances and resolutions and have the vision for the future, but the business of the city is done by the City Manager. The real day-to-day business is done and he also provides the long term stability for our form of government and the teams that he builds, the directors that he hires, the managers that he works with, the people that report to him, the people that are subordinates, are part and parcel of that. I have seen the leadership in Wilfred that I saw in leaders that I have seen before and respected and admired. And, it's that intangible, the thing that T don't like to deal with usually, it's that intangible that won me over. [ would like to bring up another point. Basically in our process to get to this point, our afternoon session to interview each candidate as a group - each candidate had ten minutes to answer five questions. When that was explained to us in the morning time, T stated that I didn't feel it was enough time. I also stated allotments of time for the morning sessions weren't enough time for the one-on-one interviews and Fred Deal had told me, well if you give them more time than that, they are just going to bs you and try to sell themselves; you hold them to ten minutes and make them hit hard points. I personally, these are just my feelings, we didn't give each candidate the proper amount of time to talk. In the afternoon session, each candidate had ten minutes to answer five questions that were already prepared. Then after that, they answered one personal question from each Commissioner. They had thirty minutes prior to their coming into this chambers to answer those five questions. As I said, this is a question of mine on the process. I watched four people sit down at this table where .lanet is sitting to talk to us and three of those four candidates had their answers to the five questions hand written. One of those candidates had a typed piece of paper in front of him. Whether they were speaking off the cuff and not from this paper, I don't know. But, three people had hand written papers and one person had a typed piece of paper and ! have to question that. I have to think to myself - did this person have the questions in advance? Those are my true feelings. I have to state that. Well, let me tell you what I'd have done if I worked in this building and had a word processor. ! would have been up at that word processor like Wilfred Hawkins was and I'd pumped them out on the word processor. Does that give each candidate the fair process to answer the questions? I can't answer that, but I can answer your question about collusion. That's ridiculous. Tt's not collusion, it's about the process. Verbatim Excerpt Regular City Commission Meeting August :[7, :[999 Requested by Wilfred Hawkins Sherman: Rosenstock: Broening: Rosenstock: Broening: Cherof: Broening: Cherof: Broening:' Cherof Broening: Cherof: Broening: Let's get on this process for a moment, shall we. When Mr. McLemore couldn't come, ! asked if he could be given another date to be interviewed and a lot of statements were made. So, ! asked Mr. Deal why isn't it possible? !'m sure we can find the time, perhaps, before our next Commission meeting to interview this fifth person. He said something about well, it will be in the newspapers, the questions that were asked, and the answers given and it will give him an unfair advantage. Well, the questions weren't in the newspaper, the questions and answers. :I'd like to see that fifth candidate. We're not getting anywhere here tonight, ladies and gentlemen, we're just not. :I'm having problems with the process now. A new birdie is in my hair and it's sticking. So, !'d like to open this up to either bring in the other five that we were presented ten out of seventy by this head hunter firm. Let's look at the other five, let's get IVlr. McLemore back in the mix. Let the Commission take charge. T'm willing to devote my time to look at ten applications thoroughly, grade them myself, give them some parameters. !'m no dummy; ! can do it. Then ! can come up here and say: ! want this guy. Thank you. Comments from the public? NO, sir. T would like to have a ruling, Roberts Rules of Order, ask the City Attorney that we should have a chance to speak. I'll do that. Mr. Attorney, would you give us a ruling on that. This is listed as a listed agenda item and generally the policy of the City Commission has been to allow the public to speak on agended items. Okay, fine. There was a restriction during the Public Audience ..... Okay that was implied... Okay, fine that there would be Public Audience on it. Okay. Would you like to speak, judge? ]0 Verbatim Excerpt Regular City Commission Meeting August 17~ :[999 Requested by Wilfred Hawkins Rosenstock: I would.' My name is Maurice Rosenstock and I live at 1 Villa Lane, Boynton Beach, Florida. Maurice Rosenstock. Members of the Commission, I have heard what you said and listened very carefully. Unfortunately, I have not been in the city for the last two weeks because of a personal emergency; however, upon my return and just before I left, I did a lot of research. And I reviewed several of the applicants and spoke to some city employees. Today, I spoke to Mr. Lee and I had an excellent conversation with Mr. Lee and I have a lot of respect for the gentleman particularly after the conversation. He told me the following facts that I would like to call to your attention. But before I do, I want to tell you where I am speaking from at the point and why I'm still here this evening. I've been fortunate during my lifetime to interview not a small number of candidates, but hundreds who are making five times the salary or more of the potential City Manager. During the history of the time that I've lived in the City of Boynton Beach, this city has had four managers: Mr. Cheney, Mr. Scott, Ms. Parker and Kerry was the last one. Now, that's over a period of approximately eleven years to the best of my recollection. Well, if I were running a corporation called the City of Boynton Beach and I couldn't keep an employee for more than an average of three years, I would look very carefully at what the heck I was doing and is something wrong with my company. So, therefore, that's the basis of all. I am trying to address you this evening on what you did to screw up the process. I'm not saying you were wrong, but I think the process, as some of you have said this evening, was a bad way to do this. If you would have spent the kind of time you spent to interview a job for $85,000 to $95,000 a year, I would spend more time than that to interview a janitor or typist. How many of those candidates had a background check, a thorough background check? As an example, if I were running a law firm and somebody told me he graduated from Harvard or business, where he got a master's of business education from the Harvard Business School, I would call them and see. Because, believe it or not, on more than one occasion, are even jobs of that grandiose scheme.are found many falsehoods on applications. What you did was delegate the responsibility to somebody where you should have taken some of the responsibility as Mr. Sherman has pointed out so well. You should have rolled up your sleeves and had somebody previously, normally an outside consultant, spend the $2.00 as they say, to verify everything on every application. Now, isn't it interesting per Mr. Lee, who can verify this from my conversation, that his advertisement brought 70 applicants. The consultant gave you ten. That's 80 individuals. You only looked at applications from ten. Shame on you in my opinion, because you are leaving it to someone else's judgment to hire somebody that is going to have to report to you. Elect anybody else, this is a strong City Manager type of government, weak Commission. So, you want somebody that is going to be hired to follow up the principles and theories that you want advocated. You didn't do that. You just looked at a few of the applicants. In addition to that, anybody with a half an education can give you in a textbook answer to preset questions. In my opinion, that is not the way to interview a $90,000 a year job. What you do, is sit down with the resume and not look at preset questions, and 11 Verbatim Excerpt Regular City Commission Meeting August 17, :[999 Requested by Wilfred Hawkins you go through every item on that resume after it has been verified. Why did you leave this job - was it for higher pay, were you fired. By the way, you the background checked to see why that individual left the job and not bother checking the named references on the bottom of the application, because there isn't a human being in this room that is stupid enough to give a reference of an individual who is not going to give him a grandiose reference. So, you want to talk to the people that he works for, that know the individual backwards and forwards. You didn't do that and neither did anybody else. Now, rvlr. Lee tells me he hired the facilitator without your permission and without your knowledge, because he was worried about the perception, note the word now. that there might be bias. T'm not standing here negating the candidacy of any one of those 80 people. What T am saying to you is that you neglected to carry-out your responsibilities as members of this Commission to personally check who is going to be narrowed down to ten. You never did it. You didn't give enough time for interviewing. You didn't ask questions through your own volition, but you gave them manufactured questions that anybody who had a half a brain or worked for a city could answer. Now, that's not the way to find a candidate where T come from and sometimes, it's not the answer to the question, but it's the character and ability of the individual handling themselves in answering the question. There are so many nuances to interviewing that most of those were not accomplished. Now, isn't it interesting also, and IVlr. Lee himself told me, that of the seven that were narrowed down from the ten that were narrowed down from the larger amount, seven of those candidates came from the city, only three came from the consultant of the ten that he gave you. Something smells, but T'm not saying anybody is dishonest, but T'm saying maybe the consultant did a bad job or maybe he was just asked, T don't know this, to only give you ten. T would have never done that. Why did you narrow it to ten to start with? Tf just the advertisements in the newspapers brought you 70 candidates, T'm sure a consultant could have brought you 110. Now, somebody should have been charged as members of this Commission to do that. But, what ! am saying in essence and T am finishing now, is that you ought to do this: either table it so everybody still has a fair and square deal and go back and start this process over again the correct way. What T am telling you now from my opinion: nobody is dying here, there is no emergency or you must operate tomorrow, or a bomb is going to explode. You better have a closer look at who all these candidates are. Have them checked out and take the responsibility on your own shoulders to do it right. And, if you need advice, T know where you can get it. Now, by having pre-set numerical valuations of answers to questions, and T do this almost every day for Palm Beach County on requests for proposals for vendors, Ym telling you now we are not going to get a straight deal of the best candidate or the best vendor. You got to sit down and negotiate with them eye ball to eye ball and ask the questions with them looking right into your eyes and you better be satisfied with their answers. Until the day comes when you do that, you are never going to have a good candidate. You are going to keep changing over every two or three years for a better City Manager. Now, there's not a question 12 Verbatim Excerpt Regular City Commission Meeting August 17, 1999 Requested by Wilfred Hawkins Broening' Kal:z: Washam of personalities here. There's not a question of individuals, whether they are qualified or not. The question is: did you do a good job. Tn my opinion and do respect everybody sitting up them cause it takes a little more guts than us sitting in the audience here to criticize you and ! don't mean this as criticism, mean it as constructive comments to try to help you and help the residents of this city to get a good City Manager. Thank you. Thank you, judge. David Katz, 714 NW 11th Street. Someone please hold Mr. Rosenstock down because T am about to agree with him basically, except on one thing. ! don't think they should table it; ! think there should be a vote and let the people know how they feel. X'd like to add a couple of things, not necessarily in order of importance. One, Commissioner Denahan mentioned Mr. Stunson in North Lauderdale. Well, the work ! do, T go to North Lauderdale about once every three weeks. As the song from the show said: Greenacres is where ! would rather be. North Lauderdale is not economic development at its best by any stretch of the imagination. ! would personally consider Mr. Stunson the politically connected candidate. He worked for E. Clay Shaw, when E. Clay Shaw was Mayor; he worked for E. Clay Shaw, when E. Clay Shaw was in the Congress. tt sounds like a political connection to me. The fact that he's in North Lauderdale sounds like he went down; he didn't go up. T think for him to come to Boynton Beach would be a big mistake for Boynton Beach. Some people earlier in the Public Audience spoke, what T would call as elitists. There are many great people, and ! am not saying Wilfred isn't a great person or is a great person, but there have been many great people in our history - Abraham Lincoln didn't have a college degree; there was a newscaster, Peter ]ennings, did not have a college degree; there are many wealthy people who have not had four year college degrees. T believe, and it's my opinion, ! participated in the selection of the City Manager once and we chose Carrie Parker, because she was seated during the budget process and it was the right decision to have her be City Manager. What ! think what Boynton needs is not somebody to come in and sweep with a new broom. This is a man who has given loyalty to the city. Maybe what Boynton needs is a steady influence. And, ! believe, Wilfred would be that person. We don't need some rocket scientist coming from Texas, from Washington state or Kalamazoo or anywhere or North Lauderdale. T think Wilfred would be the choice and T would like to see this Commission take a vote, up or down one way or the other. Because, T think we should have Wilfred Hawkins as the City Manager because he has proven, and ! too have spoken to employees and departments heads, and he has proven to be as somebody has said: bubble up to the top and he would be the best one. Thank you. Ron Washam, 112 S. Atlantic Drive, Boynton Beach, Florida. We have a unique opportunity here tonight to do exactly what each of you said each of you wanted to do, which was to bring the city together, to put all the differences aside, and 13 Verbatim Excerpt Regular City Commission Meeting August :L7, :/.999 Requested by Wilfred Hawkins Edwards: to move forward. You have that opportunity now to do that. It's time. We went through the process. A couple of you brought the process on and as Commissioner Tillman said, you went through that process. You reached the candidates that you reached. And, it's time these folks in this chambers and the other 53,000 people that are outside deserve a City Manager. And, as you heard tonight, you need to do the right thing. You all have gone through the process. We've gone through the process with you. We've waited, sometimes not patiently, but waited. It is time to reach a decision tonight, not to go back over, not to make the process more important than the man or the woman in this case. The process has been done and we need to move ahead. Because the last administration, it was no fault of their own, laid and pushed the City Manager issue back a little bit, not through any fault of their own; but what T am saying is that City Manager never got off the ground running because of that delay, because of that speculation. You all have the chance to do this tonight. Put it aside, make your vote count and let's move Boynton ahead. Thank you and vote for Wilfred Hawkins. Brian Edwards, 629 NE 9th Avenue. I'm always a little nervous about getting up and speaking in public because you know you are accused of being a spring butt if you do it too often; but if anybody accuses me of being a spring butt tonight then by golly, I'm all for it. T am definitely for Wilfred Hawkins. T have been here, T have only been out of the military, for a little over a year, but I've tried as hard as T could to be active in this community in every way that I could help, whether it be image in redevelopment, neighborhood association. You name it, T try to be involved as time allows. Every single time that T have had to approach IVlr. Hawkins about anything to do with this city, whether it be in the element of the city environment, work related, in business or in this community as just a fellow citizen, to where he has represented the city, he has gone above and beyond to do that, without any prompting from anybody. That, where loyalty comes into me, that weighs in heavy. And, T have heard the comments regardless of where the meeting may have taken place or who might have said it, in terms of the one way or the other, which way T am going, for what reason. And, when T come here tonight, to be quite frank, T am surprised. T knew there would be some discussion maybe about the process, because there was discussion when the process started. As far as I was concerned, there should have never been a process. But, T tell you right now, if you start the process all over again, you are going to be here in seven months and you're not going to please every cotton-pickin' body in this city by when you finally decide to vote for Wilfred Hawkins to become the City Manager. You are going to waste more dollars. He is going to wind up filling the bill for another additional six or seven months, then he's got a year under his belt. T mean, for crying out loud, it's time to move on, vote for Wilfred, and you don't have to feel guilty Commissioner Denahan or Commissioner Weiland because you happened to have agreed that you liked another candidate more than Wilfred. But, what you are going to wind up doing when you go back out and decide to have the Commission make a 14 Verbatim Excerpt Regular City Commission Meeting August 17, 1999 Requested by Wilfred Hawkins Williams: Centi: decision amongst yourselves, you are going to come back in here with five different candidates, more than likely. You're never going to gaddum please everybody on that Commission as well as not being able to please everybody in this audience. Wilfred has the loyalty, he's willing to roll up his sleeves and do the job, and just with the pure motivation of having the majority of the people behind him, that has got to be motivation enough for him to continue to do what he is doing with longevity, eleven year, twelve years, whatever, and somebody that's going to be here long beyond three years. T think Wilfred is that person and ! think he's proven that and ] think he will continue to prove it. Everybody learns, whether you are at the bottom of the totem pole as a city employee or whether you're some, not peer to the City Manager, but maybe right under as an advisor in whatever capacity, you're always learning. And, you guys are doing it tonight. That is not going to stop. ! don't give a gaddum if he have a phd or you don't have any education. ! think Wilfred would be the first person to agree that he is not above learning, but as far as ! am concerned, he is already well beyond capable of performing these duties. (Sarah Williams) ! stated my name before, but ! just wanted to re-iterate. ! was thinking in my seat about the article ! read in the paper the other day where they said that Boynton now has become an affordable Boca. They are comparing Boynton with Boca. That's the elevation this city has reached. We all are proud. You meet young people who have been to school and all around. They come back and they are so proud of Boynton. We have had Scott Miller, we have had Carrie Parker, we have had Kerry Willis. These City Managers have come and gone, but Boynton somewhere, like the people who always sat here, the people who worked out there and all through our city government, somebody there had to be some sure anchors. And, we are not giving our people the credit for maintaining this stability. This momentum is monumental the progress this city has made. But the coming and going of these City IVlanagers, now is the time. Why, to reflect on who were there when those who came and did not know. Who were there? Tt was these people standing back there, up there, all around in these departments keeping this city going. Those other Commissioners or Mayors who sat there. !t is your time now. Think about it. !f you even think about Stunson, !'m sure somebody somewhere is going to say: let's keep Wilfred around, because he's going to be the one to orient, he's going to be the one to tell them the story, to keep it rolling. !t reminds me when ! was elevated to Assistant Principal. ! didn't know, ! was in the book room, ! was doing my class, ! was doing this, ! was going to workshops and my principal came to me one day and said: Sara, let's get you paid for the work you do, !'m elevating you to Assistant Principal; you need to get the paycheck now. !'m thinking about this young man, regardless of his color, if he were white, green or black, let's do honorable toward a person. Like we want them to do to us. Anne Centi, Southport Lane. ]: am the former Chair of the Education Advisory Board. When ! was Chair for many years, Wilfred Hawkins was the heart and Verbatim Excerpt Regular City Commission Meeting August :t7, 1999 Requested by Wilfred Hawkins Broening: Tillman: Broening: Sherman: Broening: Cherof: Sherman: Cherof: Sherman: Weiland: Cherof: Broening: Kruse: Broening: Sherman: Kruse: soul for our Education Advisory Board. He never said no for information. He was always there. He helped get Poinciana School. He helped changed it to a magnet school. He was there with Mayor Weiner, helped us with the high school. He was always there. He is a man of honor, loyalty. He can deal with many, many people. What can you say to people who work in the mailroom - you can't make it to the boardroom - not true. T've hired many people in my life and T was a leader. Look all around on the basis of being leaders, you are able to make decisions. Make your decision, make it now, make it right. TS there anyone else who wishes to speak before [ call for a motion. T'm going to call for a motion. Mr. Mayor, audience, tonight, T would like to enter a motion that we hire Wilfred Hawkins as our next City Manager. Ts there a second to that motion? T'm passing the gavel to the Mayor-Pro-Tem. T second the motion. Why are you passing the gavel? Because i can't make a motion unless [ pass the gavel to you, i believe. That's correct, isn't it? That's true. Okay, so now, Mr. Attorney, T have a gavel. That's right. Would you like to see it? Take a roll call? you're satisfied you have had enough discussion, you can call the question. Call the question. Mayor Pro-Tern Sherman (Roll Call) You have to say yes or no. That's the motion, we're voting now? You're voting to hire Wilfred Hawkins as our next City Manager 16 Verbatim Excerpt Regular City Commission Meeting August 17, 1999 Requested by Wilfred Hawkins Sherman: Aye. Denahan Nay Weiland: Nay Broening: Aye Tillman: Aye Kruse: Cherof: Broening' Denahan: Broening: Denahan: Weiland: Broening: Weiland: Denahan: Broening: Kruse: Denahan: Weiland: Broening: Tillman: Sherman: Kruse: Broening: The vote is 3-2. Your ordinance requires a 4-1 vote for the appointment of a City Manager. Thank you. T'm taking back the gavel. The next thing I think we must do is decide how we proceed at this point. It has been suggested that to begin the process all over again. T'm not sure we are ready to do that. T think, perhaps, we need to have some .... Pardon me, Mayor, may T make a motion? Please. T would like to move that John Stunson be made the City Manager of Boynton Beach. Tql second that motion. All in favor? Aye Roll call. Please call the roll. Roll call: Aye Nay Nay Nay The vote is 2-3. Okay, now we're back to the point of what do we do now and it's been 'suggested that we begin all over. That the Commission take full responsibility for looking at the 70 odd, 70 or 80 whatever, raw applications that have been 17 Verbatim Excerpt Regular City Commission Meeting August 17, 1999 Requested by Wilfred Hawkins Weiland: Broening: Weiland: Broening: Weiland: Broening: Weiland: Sherman: Broening: Sherman: Broening: Broening: given to us. That we search through that for the person that we seek. Ts there any discussion on that point? I'd like to make one quick statement. What we ended up doing here tonight, T just would like to state that ! know that ! can leave here tonight and go home and sleep, feeling that I've made the right decision for the City of Boynton Beach. Thank you. Would you like to add any comment to the suggestion that has been made? ! think we need to take it back into the hands of the Commission. Here we are. And, we as elected officials are basically volunteering our time. We need to volunteer some more time to handle this amongst ourselves. The specific question though is should we look at all 70 or 80 applications and do that ourselves or should we put it out for a nationwide search? Why don't we look at the 70 or 80 applications ourselves to see what we can come up with and if we feel that's not adequate, we can discuss whether we are going to do a search or not. The sooner, the better. Let's give ourselves adequate time though, shall we, let's not rush into this process. You know Mr. Hawkins is doing a good job. ]: don't think there is any reason to push this ahead. Give ourselves a month or whatever. Let's agree upon a time. We all have a different comfort level. Let's make sure we are all comfortable with the amount of time. Probably what we will need is a couple of workshops. So, maybe, we ought to set a time certain for a workshop or we can ask staff to poll us at a later time for a workshop. That's fine with me, whatever we agree upon. We have to agree on this, correct? Yes, we do. We can do it by consensus at this point, T believe, that we don't need to vote specifically. Tf we can agree that a workshop at some point in time that we would discuss this further. We will ask staff to poll us to find out what the best time for all of us is. ! would like to move on. Is there a consensus that we will do that - have a workshop? Does someone else have another suggestion? T've seen no heads ]8 Verbatim Excerpt Regular City Commission Meeting August :[7, :[999 Requested by Wilfred Hawkins bobbing sideways, only up and down. Let's do that then. onto the next subject which is: Public Hearing. Okay, we will move Respectfully submitted, Sue Kruse, CIvIC/AAA City Clerk (2 Tapes) J:\shrdata\cc\wp\verbatim\verbatim excerpt of 081799 city manager discussion.doc 19