Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, June 29, 2010,
Item 20
20. Consider and take appropriate action on the creation of a process for making an appointment to the capital area metropolitan planning organization (campo) transportation policy board to fill the fourth slot allotted to the commissioners court
>> commissioner huber and i have conferred on this. There's plenty more work to be done. We have found. But we -- we thought that it might be right to bring a couple of specific considerations to the court to get direction from the full court just to have an opportunity to discuss these items.
>> okay.
>> so what i threw down on paper in discussion with commissioner huber but i take full responsibility for the typos, is just as a jumping off point for discussion, we threw down a bullet list of threshold criteria for appointment for y'all to look at at your leisure and add to or subtract from in anticipation of our next conversation about this. That we don't have to take up right this very instant. But we thought that we would want to bring it to y'all for the next time we agendize it. Then under additional questions for consideration, those are the ones that we thought would be good to go ahead and discuss today to sort of take the pulse of the commissioners court to know where we are going with the next draft. One is the interview process we should utilize to evaluate the applicants. We've utilized subcommittees of the court to vet the applications and then brought the final three to interview with the commissioners court. I think last time the final two. Is that how we want to approach it this time? Did we do a subcommittee of the court to evaluate or did we all evaluate them a group and land on --
>> i think scoring --
>>
>> [multiple voices]
>> that the -- that was
>> [indiscernible] the top tallies were brought for an interview as i recall.
>> how would the process work because there's several criterions with the background, qualifications, all of those things that you guys have basically pointed out. If a person is interested in becoming a member of the campo board with the criteria that's set forth, how would that be given to the public to let those -- those that want do this, be made aware of it and these are the criterion that we are looking because i'm quite sure there's probably some folks that have txdot background or this, that, and how would that outreach process work if it is to -- to be an interview process or whatever process you end up using to select individual, recommend for selection, how would that work?
>> i think the last time seemed to work fairly well where we put out a call from the commissioners court as an agenda item, actually this was on the ctrma board appointment. We put a call for those interested in the ctrma appointment and left it to the individual offices to do the individual offices desired recruitment strategy whether it was e-mail or phone calls or what.
>> okay.
>> so some sort of scoring sheet to rank the applicants so we will score individually say one to whatever the number is. And then we will interview the top two or three? That seems fair to me.
>> whatever -- whatever criterion you think we need to land on so they will be properly ranked would be appropriate. You know, whatever that is. For the best three or high three or whatever.
>> so we will look for the high three.
>>
>> [indiscernible] more than three i think we ought to do that. If we get three or less, i think we ought to interview them.
>> so high three and then interview the -- the three or less?
>> right.
>> what i would do is let's get together a list of eight to 10 relevant questions, get those completed before the interview, and i think that will facilitate an interview by us.
>> so aitd to 10 relevant -- eight to 10 relevant questions.
>> right.
>> and plan to have a 30 minute interview. Last time we may have done 45 minutes. But if we get our questions answered in advance, i think in 30 minutes we can get it done.
>> okay. Then with regard to the issue of whether the appointee should be an elected official or not?
>> i think we ought to do either/or.
>> uh-huh.
>> or prominent citizen.
>> yeah, i would like to weigh in on that as well. Because i agree with you, judge. Because there's a certain learning curve and time commitment on this. And when we start looking at some of the other criteria just for example one of my concerns right now with how we're represented at campo is precinct 3 is 48% of the geographic area and basically between all of us and the other city of austin representatives, there's only 1 person right now representing, that would be me, the 48% of the geographic area. Then if you start looking at elected officials, if we were indeed to consider that in our appointment and you start looking at the options available, the -- the elected officials may or may not have the time or the skill set. And if we were desirous of having representation from there, i think it should be optional to go either/or because of the composition. So i would being a strong proponent of either on are or.
>> with regard to how long the term should be for the appointment, what is you all's bead on that? I think there are countervailing arguments on one is that you want to be able to -- to include folks so that we don't just have a permanent appointment who never rolls off so that we can spread the -- the burden and the -- and the pleasure around i suppose. But then the other countervailing issue that it really is a pretty steep learning curve at campo. What are y'all's thoughts on a term, whether there should be a term or not, if there should be how long it should be?
>> you know, that may be one of the questions that need to go into the question as far as interviewing, i think those persons that we look at and selected ought to have a good idea how long they want to serve. That may be more of a question that we need to include. Because i can't ask if anybody -- they say they would like to do two terms or whatever the list of the terms are, that's about all of the time they have to commit to it. You really don't know. Volunteering situations sometimes poses to be an inconvenience. It definitely going to be an inconvenience on whoever that is. So if you get a person to volunteer, that means that they will -- they want to be inconvenienced to some degree. So how long should that inconvenience be placed on an individual? That individual would have to know the answer to that rather than -- rather than -- that may be a good point to bring up.
>> just as a point of discussion, just a stocking horse idea, what about two year terms of appointment with the maximum number of three terms. That's six year tour of duty.
>> well, if that's something that -- like i say, still would be discretion -- i wouldn't mind posing that as maybe a question on the person that's interested in serving. If it's something that they would like to deal with as again any volunteer effort is in my opinion is -- is an inconvenience on that person that may have other things to do with it. Hey, i want to be inconvenienced for this length of time. If so maybe that's something that they should answer. You know, i'm not knocking what you are proposing. It's just whoever is willing to serve ought to have a feel on how long they want to be inconvened under a volunteer type of setting.
>> what if they want to serve forever and we don't like 'em.
>> [laughter]
>> i'm not going with that one, judge.
>> my problem. I mean i --
>> but, you know --
>> [multiple voices]
>> seems like four years.
>> i guess, though, if we are going to be in the selection process, somewhere along the line there has to be some situations that need to be posed, when we interview these persons and they are willing to serve, let's say you do not like them, what have we done in the past when we have -- when we did not like an individual that's serving and -- in the situation that we have authority to
>> [indiscernible]
>> i don't think we've had that problem, have we? Because no one wants to serve. No one wants to be inconvenienced for that long of a period of time.
>> for that long.
>> but going back to the judge's comment, should it be a two year appointment with a cap of two terms?
>> i would cap it at two terms because --
>> two terms based on how many years per term, though.
>> two years.
>> two years. After the first two years, kind of takes you a while to get --
>> the feel of it, yeah, going to take you a while, yeah.
>> so if you are there two years, we ought to have a good feel for whether to reappoint you. We can reappoint you one more. Four years of service is a good long term.
>> it is a -- it's a robust job.
>> [laughter]
>> i agree.
>> go ahead.
>> i don't know exactly where this would fit in. I offer this up, but hilly -- there he is. I just offer something up for discussion, i don't know the legal answer to this. Right now we have three members of campo on the court. And i don't know if we were required to have three from the court or not. But one of the questions that i have is we're looking at this overall process is would it be, if we can, worth considering having only two members ultimately moving in that direction, having only two members from the court and two members appointed from outside because of the -- of the -- of the fact that because there are three of us, we have problems with open meetings and discussion of -- of -- of agenda items at campo. Just offer it up for thought at this point. Certainly i'm not necessarily campaigning to be the one that's eliminated but at some point in the future to be less inconvenienced. I'm just thinking about the functionality and the process of working through it.
>> why don't we put that on the list for legal to take a look at. Whether it is an option for us to consider. Does that sound good?
>> uh-huh.
>> the next bullet down, what criteria should be established for the evaluation of the appointees. This -- that i apologize for my wordsmithing on that, it went to -- perhaps this is not anything that we could decide as a commissioners court. Perhaps this is each individual commissioner is going to have to decide for themselves which of these -- which of these elements weighs most heavily on their decision, geographic, population, specific needs, such as -- i put an eg inside of an eg, housing, water, infrastructure, et cetera. Do we want to go there as a court in establishing those kinds of criteria or do we want to leave that in the eye of the beholder from commissioner to commissioner. This might actually go to the bullets at the top, the criteria for appointment.
>> i think we ought to give some thought to the evaluation criteria and to the extent that we can land on it. Otherwise it's kind of difficult. It's difficult to conduct an effective interview without evaluation criteria in mind. I think.
>> okay. The next one is should we -- should we have a reporting criterion for the appointee to come back quarterly, and report to the full commissioners court. Or is that necessary since we do have commissioners court appointees to campo as well?
>> i don't think it's necessary. I think three of us in there looking at the appointee or the appointee's chair if he's absent but i do think we ought to do a better job at the end of that first term trying to get some evaluation give to the full court so we will be able to make age formed decision on reappointment or not. Typically on reappointment -- we don't do the evaluation, we simply find out whether the appointee is interesting in serving again -- interested in serving again.
>> so do i take that to mean we should -- the other -- the commissioners court appointees to campo should do an evaluation at the end of term in anticipation of the next appointment?
>> right. Maybe get a written statement of interest from the appointee.
>> okay.
>> resumes do you think need to be a part of this? So you kind of know some background about the person.
>> i think it ought to be there the first time we make the appointment. We don't ask that it be updated.
>> something to give some kind of background situation that -- that because you know we have made appointments in situations and of course i can recall a situation where we -- we have some information that conflict a whole bunch of other stuff. I just think that we need to have something written from these persons that -- that are applying to give us like a little background type of situation for them. That kind of flustered out a whole bunch of stuff. And i think that should -- should i just add that to the list of bullet points at the top, the threshold criteria for appointment that they send a resume.
>> yeah, i think that would be kind of appropriate. Let them tell the story and we can look at it and see if it means some of the things we're shooting for. Then the last bullet was what criteria should be established for the selection of the alternate for the appointee. The -- the bylaws speak to the establishment of an alternate in advance. Do we want to -- i think, but i will willing back and review the bylaws, i believe we have the power to establish whoever that alternate is instead of leaving it to the appointee to decide who the alternate is. Looks like it makes sense to me for our second choice to be an alternate. If something happens to the primary person, we just promote the alternate.
>> the other option is of course to make one of the sitting travis county commissioners court appointees be the alternate for the citizen appointee. That's also --
>> you are talking about voting representation at campo in the event of absence, an alternate.
>> i was looking at another situation when we were dealing with the comprehensive plan for travis county and i guess what i'm suggesting if -- what we're doing here basically coming from travis county, but does the entire campo board, will they recognize what we're doing. I say that because of the fact that -- that in the comparison, when we came up with the -- when we make appointees to the travis county comprehensive plan, we chose a primary person and an alternate. But of course in certain settings, an example the city of austin have their comprehensive plan, they didn't -- they wouldn't recognize the alternate as far as being part of the process. I want to make sure we avoid that type of situation.
>> that won't happen in this circumstance because the bylaws of campo specifically recognize alternates whereas the city of austin rules don't allow for them.
>> i want to make sure that's out there the way it is. Because i don't want to run into that situation again.
>> we won't. But the judge you raised a good concern. With regard to an alternate, should we need to do a mid-term replacement for any reason. Perhaps we should look at the -- our second choice as being that standing midterm replacement should something happen. Because like i said, this is a -- this is a big job and someone may in their real life may have something going on that's just -- that takes them --
>>
>> [indiscernible] from the court is fine with me.
>> yeah, i think that makes sense from the court because of the -- because of the history that goes into the voting needs at campo would be better than to have someone like a secondary alternate from the community that isn't versed in what's going on.
>> okay. Okay. That gives us -- that gives us a good amount of direction. We can go back for a next draft. Is there anything else that we should consider in pounding out -- i mean this is just a bare bones, i wouldn't even consider it a draft policy.
>> when do you think that you would come back. I know that you said that it's simple, scheduled leaves that are going to be taking place from the dais coming up.
>> commissioner huber was looking into things, too. We didn't anticipate until first of august.
>> late in the summer. There's not much going on at campo. Not a high need --
>> august,.
>> august, okay.
>> okay.
>> all right.
>> that will work for me.
>> okay.
>> thanks.
>> one other open court item, that's 25. Right, ms. Porter?
>> yes. Are we ready for that one today?
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, June 29, 2010 2:35 PM
