Travis County Commissioners Court
March 17, 2009,
Item 18
>> since we have you there, ms.
fleming, 18 is to consider and take appropriate action on the following rimtions regarding the appointment of two managers to the Travis County health care district board.
a, reducing the 13 applicants to a short list of six or less.
b, setting a date to conduct interviews and c, adopting a process to make final decisions.
and we have s on decisions there because actually in addition to the 13 and the county appointment, there is also the joint appointment with the city of Austin.
sherri, if I can take the lead on our discussion, we did tell the city of Austin send us three names from which we will choose one for the joint appointment, and I do think we ought to keep our word on that.
they interviewed and sent and as far as I know, those three are part of our short list of applicants anyway.
>> that's correct, judge.
>> two other things, surfaced.
we did get a phone call from mr.
esquivel and miss luca and they appeared before us on the siting of the new health clinic.
and they wanted to provide input.
so ms.
fleming and I told them we welcome their input and botd of them sent -- both of them sent us e-mails where they had short listed certain applicants and what miss fleming and I did was to look at the 13 and try to indicate which ones we thought the court should interview.
we also put together a little summary of the information contained on the application and resumes and then comments as best we could, we tried to put highlights that we thought the court should be sure to consider.
and to be honest, I don't think there's any way to get around some discussion of who's on the board at this time and what gaps, if any, exist.
and we sort of concluded that we didn't think it was necessarily a good idea to have a disproportionate number of physicians on there.
there are two already.
there are other professional categories in our view that should be represented because they would compliment the current membership and really provide additional expertise at no charge to the board of mrpgz.
managers.
and with those thoughts in mind, we recommended basically six people to interview.
the ones that are shaded on the little summary sheet are the ones that the city of Austin recommended and they are three of the six that we recommended for interview.
>> can you give me those names?
i'm not sure I have that shaded?
>> you don't have this work of art?
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>> those would columns were put together by, what is the last name?
>> salazar.
>> david salazar, whose work was immensely helpful to us.
but we did pull the resumes and applications in addition to his summary frankly, mr.
esquilan and ms.
lika were interested in somebody with a neighborhood community orientation.
and during our discussions with them, we did commit to try to get somebody to do that.
i think in the six that we gave, they all contain some of that.
but I think the other thing we should do is no matter which ones we interview we ought to make sure that we stress the importance of getting neighborhood community input.
>> absolutely.
>> the other issue, we can just lay these out.
council member shay had expressioned an interest in participating in our interviews.
in this backup, sherry and I realizing that the court is sort of used to conducting interviews on days when we are scheduled to meet anyway, chose a work session.
i couldn't talk sury out of that.
>> I'm a hard line.
>> she knows the court better than I do.
so whether we did was to pull a Thursday afternoon when we otherwise would be in work session anyway and said, let's use this Thursday afternoon to conduct these interviews.
the problem with Thursday is that that is when the city council meets.
council member shay in her mail to us did suggest that a possibility would be that next day, which is a Friday afternoon.
historically, I think Friday afternoons have been a bit more problematic for us than Thursday afternoon.
but we could make the call.
>> is she in city council meeting Thursday?
>> the other meetings would be in open court.
thursday afternoon they would be in council meetingthat is.
>> that is where there's a problem there.
>> problem for her.
>> sometimes we do them on Friday mornings.
>> let me ask you this.
does it pose a legal problem for us for a member of the city council to participate in the meeting.
>> a member of the public would be coming to an open court meeting.
it's no difficulty, no other quorum problems.
>> all right.
but that memo would have to basically kind of sit in more than anyone else.
i guess if they had a question, we would take that.
>> it's just whatever course si you provide any other member of the public.
>> but no vote on the candidates.
>> no vote, no.
>> that no vote comes from our lawyer.
>> if you were going to have a joint meeting of both the city and the, a quorum of the city council and Commissioners court, you could have a, I could envision some kind of vote.
i think even the statute kind of contemplates that you're going to be jointly appointing this member.
>> the way we interpreted joint last time, we'll do a short list and send et to from you which you choose one of those.
we just reverse that had this timeright.
and that can still work this time as well.
>> judge, if I may ask for clarification.
so what you are saying is that if the court were to permit a question from council member shay, for example, during the interview process, then that would have to be extended to any person who might be present during the interview process?
>> it would not have to.
but it just raises the question of, okay, how come this member of the public essentially is a higher member of the public than the rest of us.
equal protection issues.
even though it is city council member, it is not city council there providing the questions.
>> my reason for clarifying would be that you would be scheduled to interview six people in one afternoon or one morning.
and so, the time that it might take, I mean, your gallery may be empty but it may not be.
i just wanted to be sure we were clear about that point.
>> if we did them in the afternoon we would have to start at one o'clock to give us four hours.
and there, if we plan to allocate 30 to 40 minutes per interview, we could get it done in about four hours.
the other thing, john, is that typically we kind of go in with a set list of of questions that we ask each applicant to promote a level playing field.
>> uh-huh?
and thinking that in fairness, we ought to ask each one of them the same basic question realizing that an answer may well stimulate additional questions related to that basic question.
>> yes, I understand.
that has been your practice.
and that is very reasonable.
and that may be the way that you could limit any questions coming from the gallery.
perhaps council member shay was providing you one or two questions that she was bringing from the council provided ahead of time, that would make your standardless of questions.
>> uh-huh.
>> maybe we would invite that.
i do think mr.
esquivel sent us a few questions that he felt would be important.
next week I think we ought to approve a list of questions, giving ourselves a little bit of time to think bit, circulate the list and also add his questions too.
maybe what we should do is ask council member shay if she has questions that she thinks we should ask.
>> uh-huh.
>> in my view, what we need do today is to decide whether we will do the interviews on Thursday the 26th, which is Thursday of next week, when hopefully you have that set aside for work session.
>> uh-huh.
>> or whether we want to try to move it to Friday.
if we do Friday morning I don't see us doing six interviews in three hours unless we kind of go, think you're looking at four hours.
>> I have Friday, have a couple of meeting on hold for that Friday.
i have been putting those off.
>> so Thursday afternoon is the best for you?
>> probably Thursday afternoon would be best.
>> hopefully Thursday afternoon is one of the days that weave set a--we have set aside for work session.
>> it is.
we have a work session scheduled that day anyway.
>> the temperatures, I think we had one or two items that would have been set.
we just basically postpone them.
>> so we would start at one o'clock.
>> yeah, I mean, I guess my recommendation would be that we start at within o'clock, leave them Thursday afternoon.
and invite council member shay to send us any questions shace got--she has got.
if she has a participant who would like to participate by observing, make that offer also.
it's not quite the same as having direct participation, but that is pretty close, I think.
>> okay.
>> in terms of the questions, court, we had a previous list that we had used and Commissioner Gomez had wanted to add a question related to fiscal accountability, which my computer aided apparently.
so I want to get back with you and see if we can't pull that question together again.
so we can also provide those questions again if we need to for the court to review.
>> okay.
>> let's put that item on the agenda.
mr.
esquivel, by the way, sent the mates, one to the courtrs and the other one apparently only sent to me.
i sent it to you yesterday by e-mail.
as part of the backup, what I will do is include a copy of his questions for us to look at next week.
with that I move that we schedule these interviews for next Thursday, March 26, beginning one o'clock and intend to complete by five.
>> second.
>> yes.
>> does your motion--
>> that will be several motion.
>> move the approval of the six.
>> that would be several motions.
>> okay.
>> that is the first motion.
>> second.
>> any discussion of that?
all in favor.
that passes by unanimous vote.
the other things that you do see, the six that we recommended, that includes three from the city of Austin.
and what I think we ought to is interview all of them.
we can either figure out who should be the joint appointee first, then the county appointee, or reverse.
really doesn't matter if we interview all six and kind of rank them.
are these six okay?
>> those are fine fine with me.
>> that is almost half of the 13 that applied.
nothing wrong with the other seven.
it's just that when we look at who is on the board already and what expertise would they really benefit from, that's how we arrived at the six .
there were some good ones not included in our section and a couple of them were doctors, weren't they, and physicians.
but there are two physicians on there already.
one is currently practicing, the other one is kind of from a smaller firm.
but they are physicians.
and of the nine there now, there are two physicians.
and we just think that they could been --benefit from some other back grounds.
>> right.
>> unless there are issues I move we approve the sick recommended by ms.
flemming.
>> second.
>> discussion?
all in favor.
that passes by unanimous vote.
and we have kind of discussed process.
we basically would in open court interview all six.
either that day or the next Tuesday, make the choice.
i guess we could post the interviews for a voting session.
>> right.
>> if we want to do that.
why don't we just post for a voting session anyway.
if we are ready, we'll make the decision.
if not, we'll delay action until the next Tuesday.
>> we can confirm for you for next Tuesday.
but I believe your previous discussion around this included maybe indicating your intent to appoint so that we could then request the financial disclosure documents that you require and give the person a little bit of time to complete those prior to the appointment.
we opted not to request those documents be completed during the application process, but that we would receive them prior to you actually making the appointment.
>> right.
>> right.
>> you certainly could indicate your intent to appoint, which would trigger that process.
>> that makes sense, and that for me is detailed and, some would say, intrusive.
if you want to serve on the board, you ought to do it.
>> they all know they have to fill out that for me, right?
>> yes, ma'am.
we include it in all of the information and on our website.
the copy of the document and the rules associated with the document.
>> good.
>> each person should have had an opportunity to review it, yes.
>> okay.
>> if you know that you will be selected, if you take the final step of completing the for me, that makes it easier, I think.
>> we do that on the 7th of April and then approve them the following Tuesday?
or what?
>> I think if we are ready on the 26th, we take whatever action we can.
if we're not ready, we just delay that decision until the next Tuesday.
is that the 7th?
>> the 7th.
>> the first.
>> in terms of a, are you indicating a chance the appoint?
>> yes.
>> 31st and then the 7th.
>> the act you're referring to is your intent to appoint?
>> on either the 26th or the 31st.
>> okay.
>> if we can make the firm decision on the 26th, we proceed to get the for me completed so we can finalize that on the 31st.
>> okay.
>> okay.
>> if we need until the 31st to really select both of them, then we give them notice to complete these forms.
we'll take final action on April 7.
>> sound good to me.
>> okay.
>> is that the process we will follow?
>> sure.
>> I move that we approve it.
>> second.
>> discussion?
nal favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
anything else on this item?
>> I think covered it all.
>> thanks to you and your assistant for your great public service on this item.
>> and our great committee chair's leadership.
>> I was being serious, ms.
flemming.
>> all right.
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Last Modified:
Tuesday, March 17, 2009 1:35 PM