##VIDEO ID:foyQXmMs284## you lost back there fell [Music] chance okay you want to make sure the guy's here oh he is okay yeah he's on all right good deal I got he's on the phone yeah just a minute no problem good afternoon open this meeting I'm I'm gonna call this a special meeting to order it is Wednesday November the 6 2024 around 4M and so yeah if you want to go ahead and introduce yourself and I think our attorne is gonna step in just a minute but uh why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself and make sure we we pronounce your last name correctly yes sir good evening mayor Campbell and councilman and and Mr Townsen and City attorney he'll be sting over here city city clerk uh and and everybody uh first of all the first thing when I talk to you in 10 years and I look back I hope I I want you to remember the first thing I said is thank you very much for this opportunity and um it's a pleasure to have a chance to interview for this position I feel like I've been working up towards a challenge like this my whole life and I am in the right spot to be able to tackle the challenge and um I know that the most important thing on any team is the people I know you have a bunch of great people working for this city I can't wait to get started to uh you know with my small um Finance team if if you hire me to find out what their strengths are and uh how they can be best aligned with the goals of the city but uh about me um 20 years in the United States Air Force tried to be an officer twice I applied to the Air Force Academy I was a sixth alternate um they offered me the prep school I turned it down and then my parents got a divorced said they couldn't help me with college so then I enlisted and I made Master Sergeant 14 years cross trained from account I mean from construction to accounting at about 14 years and spent last six years as a master sergeant in accounting and finance and then when I got out um I had my bachelor's in industrial technology and Masters in logistics because that's what was available where I was stationed and so I went back to school to do what I had originally intended to go to college for which was accounting I got that through University of West Florida while working for city of Mary Esther I had worked a little while for uh Lyn's Prestige kitchens in Fort won Beach those are four brothers who run several companies including a cabinet making company over on Green Acres loved working for them but one day my late wife Carol put me in for the job at Mary eser and I got a call from John Lulu who used to be the city manager there and he said I understand you're interested and I said sir what is this about and next thing you know I was working for Mar Ester as their Finance director he gave me a chance and I told him I was working on my accounting degree and I finished it first three years working there Tim Spelman had been their first Finance director and he had had cancer and died several months before I started when I started the job I had a stack three feet high of Bank wreck to uh balance and uh all kinds of reports to do to the state and uh so I had to learn on the Fly I used the the uh the uh professional group the uh the um um gfoa and the fgfoa and the panan chapter fgfoa which is a Florida government Finance Officers Association they were very helpful in helping me learn quickly and after nine well after about seven and a half years unfortunately my my wife passed away from a bad knee infection that they couldn't cure and uh then I worked another year on recommendation for my mom and uh then I decided I needed a change and resigned respectfully and went to South Florida tried to start my life there but I spent a year there it was fast-paced and also I had met a woman in that year and a half before I left Northwest Florida and she didn't want to come to South Florida and she wanted me back and so I had to come back and I wanted to anyway so then I came back and I worked for um I I I worked like a few weeks for a uh condo management company I didn't think was worth putting in my resume wng management but then um I saw the opening and nille and I had known Dan du set from a conference I had attended when I was at Mary Esther and he remembered me and got me in the door with Mr Corbin and M I worked happily for Mr Corin Mr Corbin for um about uh three or four years and after he retired I was very happy with the two people who competed for the position now they're both working for the city nville and and that's Mr D and and his uh his Deputy city manager Kristen shell and I I and and then um you know I won't get into unless you ask me I won't get into why I ended up resigning but like I said in my application life is short and you you want to get the most out of life as you can and I'm excited about this opportunity and I feel like I left nille on good terms and what was the actual position my position at nille was Finance director and Deputy city clerk okay does anybody have any question start did you did you say your last name for us yes I'm Steph Rous Rous okay want to make sure I say it right thank you Stephen you're welcome sir so yes ma'am make sure your mic is on okay all right all right so prior to the interview I emailed you a copy of the code of ordinance and the job description um do you understand the entral functions of the position I do they're very similar to the work I've done for Mary eser and nville in the past okay and um the physical demands are you able to do that with right okay what do you believe is the role of a City Finance director man I think that the main role of the City Finance director is to be responsible to Pro first of all provide excellent advice to the city manager and to the city council directly if asked to by the city manager and to help prepare the city budget coordinate with the department heads or however your process is the city manager department heads uh the uh Council and to align the priorities of the budget with the funds available to to come up with a budget that the city manager can present to the council in accordance with the statutes and the charter and then also to prepare the financial information so that the financial statements the annual Financial reports can be prepared the annual comprehensive financial report and to uh take action on any findings to prevent their reoccurrence or at least make significant Improvement on those findings and and I have reviewed the uh last uh acfr and budget over the last few days uh so then lastly to lead the team that does this work in an a work environment that is Pleasant and has uh you know recognizes the abilities of each employee and and aligns their abilities with the uh needs of the city and so that everybody can have a acceptable work life balance and enjoy their work when they come to work what are some of your skills in or strengths that would help you be successful in this position yes ma'am that's uh one of the most important things I think is honesty Integrity is this another uh uh caring compassion for the people working on the team um but also task being task oriented having attention to detail following law providing advice to the city manager and getting input from leadership and from my peers and from my staff on so because as a middle manager I think it's one of the toughest roles in any organization because you have to serve your team and you serve your bosses and you have to do it all with a smile and and let go of the stress or most of it because you know this is just part of the job and it's taken me years but I go to conferences I've gone to many conferences for finance people and I see that it's the same everywhere these Finance directors in Florida are under a lot of stress and they do have to balance well you know the politics of an organization with the law which is very important too and they're caught in the middle sometimes so uh all I want to do is is follow the law and keep everybody out of trouble and also make everybody happy but you know not everybody can be happy all the time but I'm I'm gonna do the best I can to do that and and to do my job to the best of my ability how do you ensure the ongoing professional development of yourself and your Finance team for myself I'm aware of the gby statements the government accounting standard board statements which are near the top of the uh hierarchy for how the technical aspects of my job is finance director of course here's the Florida Statutes which I have I'm very familiar with um and when I have to look up a detail I know exactly how to do that and then um know keeping making sure that um the staff that works with me on the finan stuff have the skill set that they need so I can train them directly on the job I can ask that they attend a webinar or in some cases you know going to a conference once a year or once every other year sometimes is very helpful it it helps you to keep up with the latest gby statements and also to a network so that you can see who are the experts that you turn to when you have a question and trying to understand a new gby statement or uh how to do something and also to help others in in the organization um if selected for this role you'll be required to attend the regular scheduled Council meetings budget meetings special meetings would you have a problem with that no problem at all I've been doing that for 15 years man all right this role requires submission of various Financial reports recording journal entries providing financial analysis assisting utility customers and various other duties how will you prior prioritize your various responsibilities yes ma'am the the customer comes first but also is very important to ensure that the employees are being treated with dig too so keeping in mind that uh as long as the customer is being reasonable there you know we're going to do everything we can to satisfy the customer within reason and then you know if if we got a violent customer or something you know first I would try to calm them down myself or and if that wasn't possible we would seek the assistance of law enforcement but uh that's extremely rare H I don't think i' I've seen some yelling years ago but I've never seen it come to that anyway so that's basically how I would answer that uh does that answer your question ma'am um let me repeat it one more time um about the role requires a submission of various Financial reports recording journal entries providing financial analysis and also assisting utility customers and various other duties what about the um first half yes ma'am the uh recording journal entries it's important that I review all the journal entries that get posted unless somebody in my staff you know demonstrates that they are so competent that they don't need me to review them because I've had the accounting education and the experience and it saves a lot of time if it's recorded right to begin with um you know and accounting I don't know how many of you may have accounting experience but for each type of journal entry a debit or a credit may have a different effect on the balance so um that's the the first thing I try and see is does the person making the general entry understand that because you know if they're debiting where they should be crediting you know then then you got to undo the mistake and then record it so uh that that is uh one thing that that'll save a lot of time and um writing uh policies that help uh accounting policies that help internal internal department policies and also for the city I understand that City policies would have to be approved by the council or uh the city manager whatever I I would suggest I would first run it by Mr Townsen and then if he wanted to run it by the city council then that would be his decision um was there something I left out man' that's good I mean there were several pieces to that question so all right for the city council and the city manager to make informed decisions timely and accurate information is essential you will be expected to generate a financial analysis report each month to be presented to the city council and the city manager will this be a problem no actually it'll be very uh I enjoy that kind of work and that's what I was doing at nville too every month I was analyzing the financial statements that we I prepare with my team and then writing a summary in easily understandable language for a non-accountant and sending that email to the city manager to review and then he would present it to the council because the new city manager the old city manager sometimes Mr Corbin I call the old one uh he was 52 years you probably all know but uh he he would uh let me often times uh present directly to the council and so did uh Mary Esther um and Mr D you know current city manager at nville is a very skilled Communicator I I had no problem standing back and watching him present to the council the work that some of which I prepared and some of which he improved upon so um you know I look forward to to that that's that's a fun part of the job right um please give us your working knowledge of budgets budget amendments supplemental budgets and the trim process yes well budgets um my knowledge of budgets in my opinion and from what I've learned they should start with the vision and mission statement and and then usually a city will hire uh advice or sometimes just get with the citizens or the powerful people in the city come up with a mission vision statement from that they analyze the work that needs to be done and well come up with a vision uh of what the priorities are for the city in order to meet that mission and vision and then once they have the priorities then the finance director collects information on the revenue early in the calendar year about February March and once we know generally by July we definitely know how much revenue we're going to have and then you use those priorities to determine which priorities can get funded in the budget and uh that's the way I think it should work and and that's the way that Mr D was working on it uh I was very pleased to see as soon as he came in he uh seemed to already know about that I mean I did talk to him about it but he already knew so I think nice was heading in a good direction and I felt good about um where they were when I left and I want I want to do everything I can to help uh the fiac Springs to uh succeed too with budget and what about the trim process and the trim process I'm very familiar with that too and every year that I've worked on that which is every year I've been working for City government since 2008 we have not had a problem with the trim process because it's easy enough to read the statute um and uh you know the deadlines uh you get you have to have a briefing in June where you set the tentative mill rate and then you have the budget meetings usually and then you follow the the procedures and and you have to you know worked with the city clerk because I was a deputy clerk also and we got the advertising submitted I was in charge of that the last few years and uh no problems there and um they have all kinds of rules about the bont size and the size of the ad and all that and so we make sure we follow that and we you know send an email uh a month ahead of time letting the newspaper know we're going to be sending you this so make sure that you're ready and uh then we uh have to distribute the uh we have to advertise in the paper and then we have to distribute the uh uh we have to go online there's there's a new system called the um there's there's a new system they just started using uh and it's it's I'm missing it but right now because it's brand new but it's used to submit online the rrim they call rrim documentation you certified online and uh you you uh have to submit whatever the council decided the milit rate was you have to pass a mill rate before you pass the budget and uh then you uh advertise a budget summary ad and the mill and and then you uh send that to the Department of Revenue and the tax collector and the Property Appraiser's office within three days and then you got to send some other paperwork also now now it's through this online system called Oasis that's what word I was trying to remember Oasis that's o a y s and that's how they manage the trim system so um I think that's answers your question does so please tell us about your experience in managing government investments in treasury Services that's another really fun part of the job and when I got to nville one of the first things I noticed is they were getting extremely low interest on their operating cash in fact they were getting one basis point 0.01% interest on over2 million and within a couple days I was talking to the Gail Ary who was their accountant uh and she's like yeah I've been saying that for years and I was talking to the city manager the city clerk the auditor and they all the auditor was telling me yeah we've been saying so for years so I my policy was be respectful but be persistent so I just every couple weeks I get a no and I go back and i' say' look but we're losing hundreds of thousands of dollars you know and then I would Mr Corin would say but they're contributing like $10,000 $15,000 towards our fireworks and like but we're losing 3 or 400,000 so of course can so uh eventually for whatever reason he authorized me to negotiate and I sat there with some Executives from Central Florida from one of the banks that we do business with I'm not sure if I should mention their name and he whispered to me you're doing the right thing because I came across I had to be like the bad cop and but I was respectful to them but I just said you know our citizens are you know they're losing out on a lot of money and we can't keep doing that and so the first year we uh made about $350,000 more than uh we had the prior year and I did go to the city manager and I said okay you you hired me at a pretty low rate and um now I I just like because I told them them when I got hired that I'll do it for one year to prove myself but so he raised my my salary significantly after that but uh I understand that um you're on a budget uh it's just you know this is uh work this is not easy this takes a lot of time to uh get to this level and it also uh you know I do recognize that it's a privilege to work for you it's also a a valuable skill that I have what were they earning when you left when I left uh nville yeah uh it was 98,0 800 and something no no no I mean your interest rate were they earning on their even more because when Mr D got there he we had a conversation and he was like how can we maximize the interest and I said well remember we wanted keep enough liquidity to run the city but I have some ideas and so we ended up getting permission to use qualified I mean to use uh uh these um they're they're called local government investment pools lgips and according to two 18415 Florida Statutes you are allowed to invest in local government investment pools even if you don't have a financial policy because it says that if you don't have a financial policy you must comply with statute 218 415 and so that's what the city of nville did I did suggest a policy I wrote several policies I wrote a fund balance policy I investment policy the Auditors Warren a told me they don't need to review my policies because they know they're good I sent them to them because this Mr Corbin had asked me to but they didn't want to review them they said they're good you don't need us to I think they also wanted to be paid and and they didn't really want to pay them to review them so but uh I I enjoy technical writing too I put that in the resume I have a lot of experience uh in fact Dixie pal the City attorney for nville he would sometimes send me legal stuff to review because he knew that I was very familiar working in local government for so long and I would just give him the advice also when the did you give her a number she was asking for I'm sorry a percentage I believe on your investment oh what percentage interest Revenue did we get yeah if you started at 01 right well when I left nville we were up to 3.5 on the pulled cash which was a day-to-day operating the local government investment pools were over 5% as recently as last month and we had uh well over 15 million in there and we still had us treasuries earning between four and five and a about between four and 5.4 4% so we had out of a total of about 40 million over 30 m million was invested in either local government investment pools which had the liquidity of next day or even same day along with us treasuries uh so the main problem well not challenge with that is just making sure that you always have enough to cover your payables and so I got with our payables lady Wendy armor and I I said make sure before you pay anything that if I'm not here you get uh somebody on the team to look at our balance sheet and make sure we have the cash thank you I'm sorry about that um can you describe your experience with financial Audits and tell us what steps you believe are necessary to receive an unmodified clean opinion from the Auditors yes ma'am I have uh of course um my whole career I've been working with Auditors since 2008 of 08 I've never got I've never been involved with a they used to call it qualified and unqualified now they go modified and unmodified or maybe I'm backwards there but you what you want is a unmodified or unqualified opinion because uh well a qualified opinion is bad that means that the opinion is that the financial statements present fairly everything Financial with one qualification meaning or several qualifications meaning exceptions to presenting them fairly so while to to a civilian that might sound or a non-finance person that might sound good oh it's qualified no qualified is bad unqualified is good so every year we've got unqualified that's the good thing and every year also we've gotten the award both at Mary Ester and at nville as you know I was only at city of Oakland Park about 10 months so I I don't really claim anything with that City other than I did my best while I was there and I was learning a lot about how a bigger city runs so so so uh now there were findings uh but findings are in my opinion the good that's what you're hiring the audit for the auditor to do is find where you're weak find where you need to improve and that to some extent had to do with one of the reasons that I was frustrated at nville because after the audit and there was a repeat finding on capital outlay and capital assets I was asked to identify how we were going to fix the problem and I got to work on that and I had a big report on an Excel spreadsheet identified all the the findings in the last seven eight years I identified what I thought the causes were how we could fix them I think I sent a copy of my work in progress because I was not done to the city manager at some point uh middle last year right after the audit but then I got pulled hard on the the other stuff the budget and you know we're underst staffed and and you know I had one other person helping me I you know uh and I won't get into that but nevertheless I was doing most of it myself and so there has to be a little balance in your life I mean I was coming in almost every weekend and I was working early like 700 am to 6:00 pm every day and then week almost every weekend and so uh when you try to get help and Leadership doesn't support you you're you're patient you just keep pressing on say sooner or later they'll see it they'll see that I'm doing this work and after five years and eight months something put me over the edge and I just thought you know I'm very calm because every time every time I complained I I did it respectfully and calmly and and when I asked my co-workers for help I did that calmly and respectfully but at some point you got to say well they're just they they're saying well let just things continue because he's not upset so then finally I said well that's it I can't do this anymore the stress level was up to my eyeballs I wasn't sleeping and I I thought if I don't quit I'm gonna die and so that's why I I resigned and but I did it very respectfully and I I do think that um they'll figure things out and they'll be fine so now I'm here to um do whatever I can for your city okay how do you ensure accuracy and integrity in financial reporting well it's a team effort uh to make sure that people are accurate and have integrity uh one time I attended a fraud course and I was told one-third of people will always do the right thing onethird will often do the wrong thing and onethird will follow who's ever leading them whether that be a bad or good and and I think that's pretty accurate but maybe the the numbers aren't exactly right maybe it's a little more good people but uh how do you do that well first of all lead by example when there's a problem the first thing I do is lick internally what did I do that could have made things better what did I do wrong that I could have done better and uh I try to be as honest as possible with leadership with my people I'm direct and honest and the problem sometimes if you get the wrong person they'll try and use your honesty against you and if you divulge any weakness some people push down those around them to try and make himself look better and I assume that it's not like that here I I want to raise my team who's ever working with me I'm going to give them credit I can give you examples of where I've given other people credit and I've taken the heat just to get the mission done so um I mean if you want one example there was some mistakes that were made by an employee of the city of nville and I won't use names and it was at a council meeting and they voted on it um and I say they voted on it they voted accepting the results of the tabulation of bids on a multi-million dollar project and I found out who had done the math and I knew the quality of that person's work so I went to the city clerk and I said I just because I first I went to her and I asked her are you sure that's accurate and she said I'm pretty sure I said that's not good enough uh I went to the city clerk and I said can we call the meeting back into the session because it was just closed and he didn't want to do that so I went back after work I did the tabulation there were nine errors and they had given it to the wrong crew I gave that information to the city clerk he brought it to the city manager in the end there was a lawsuit and it cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars they told me don't say a word and everybody thought that I was the one who made the mistakes even though I never even got a chance to look at him I didn't even know that the tab the process of the tabulation I found out at the city council meeting because the advisor who was running the whole process he didn't like me because when I had got there I had determined that when he set up the CRA he hadn't registered it with the state and he hadn't even looked at one of the um um Florida Statutes concerning dependent Special Districts so I didn't know he was in the room because I was brand new at the city of nville and I said whoever set this up they you know they overlooked this statute well he's sitting right there and everybody knew he had been the one I embarrassed him so after that you know he wanted to keep me out of everything but I kept trying you know I kept treating him with respect and kept trying to uh earn his respect back and maybe to some extent I did before he retired so that's one example but I could give more okay um what would you do if you discover that a policy is being violated and one example would be like the city purchasing policy well the first thing I I do is find out for sure was it violated uh did the person who violated it have a reason for violating it like maybe the city manager made an exception I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that it was an intentional violation of the law did the person know the law um then I if it depending on the magnitude of the error or the the violation you know if it was a significant thing that the Auditors would would have a finding either way if I thought it was a big and up thing I would let the city manager know uh and I would actually recommend to the person if if it was a peer that they go directly to the city manager uh I don't like being anarc as they call and I don't even agree with that term but that's what they call it these days you know and that's and that's a term that was made up by criminals so to me somebody who exposes something that's wrong or illegal is doing a service to the citizens right so I I'm not out to embarrass any politicians or any officials I I'm going to most of the time you know just assume that it was an innocent error and bring it I'm I'm direct and honest I'm going to bring it to the people who are responsible and and maybe get advice if I'm not sure how to handle it there's ethics board at the gfoa you can go to and you can be you know contact them and just say oh hey here's the situation what do you think I ought to do and uh they can give you advice if it's really something serious uh you know I've been in accounting and finance for over 20 years throughout the military and there's been several incidents of major uh corruption that I've found out about and I still have a perfect unblemished history because I've always stayed above it I'm not going to mention any names but there was somebody in the county that I work in that met me for lunch and offered me to do something corrupt and I just told him look I work for the city you work for that organization let's keep it that way because he wanted me to basically work for his organization against the city and then I went I left the launch and I went back and told my city manager good um the city has multiple Enterprise funds along with the general fund please discuss your comfort level and experience with creating balance sheets income income statements and cash flow statements for these top funds yes in in uh smaller cities in Florida my history is that especially in Northwest Florida the professional Finance people are so stretched thin that they basically prepare the data turn the data over to the accounting firm the accounting firm has the software that takes this data and puts it into an accounting uh an accounting program now I believe I could do it if we had the for the uh County software and if I had enough time I probably could do it without the software but what happened when I went to South Florida we had an ex auditor who was working for the city of Oakland Park and she really wanted somebody else who I was going to be the supervisor of to have the position I got but that's not the way it went so she was trying I think she was trying to get me to fail so she didn't even give me the data that I needed the the format for the financial statements that I needed to do it uh to to create the financial statements and my boss was This brilliant genius but who believed in doing everything from a closed door office he's across the hall and he would send you an email and tell you what to do and never come over and talk to you I didn't feel comfortable you know complaining about the lady who's not giving me what I need to do my job I was the comp troller over there so that was another part of the reason I came back to Northwest Florida is she finally gives me the uh stuff after I'm asking her every week she finally gives me the software like two weeks before the due date and all the time I'm telling my boss look you know I don't I'm sending emails saying I'm not getting the support I need the information I need to to create these financial statements and uh she said well I had to do it from scratch why should I give you my work you know it's City it's owned by the city you did the work but you were paid by the city so it belongs to the city that's what I told her but um you know that's that's the kind of thing that a lot of times the people at the very top are unaware of everybody's polite to you as Leaders as City man manager as councilman but there's so much competition sometimes it eats away at the efficiency of the organization and I've been in middleman the whole time and that's what I tell people when I first get there I say look I'm GNA do everything I can to make you look good I'm not asking you to try and make me look good just don't don't stab me in the back and and don't you know you know because I can't help you if you're making me look bad so um that's that was one of the reasons I let there also to come back and to Lisa who's my fiance uh we got engaged after I got back but uh that was another reason it was just really stressful when I didn't I wasn't being supported within so I'll say right from the beginning if I'm not going to get the support of the council and the city manager I don't want to work here but I I assume I I will if I'm hired you know so I I I look forward to working with your team I look forward to giving credit to the employees I don't need the credit I just need the opportunity to be on a successful team and to do use the information the knowledge and the experience I have to contribute to that success that's what my goal is I could probably retire right now I'm not ready to I I want some real success in my career um I'm looking for more complete success I mean I've contributed on the teams I've been on but I'm looking for that City that really makes me feel like I'm part of the team and I'm hoping I can find that here um one of the functions of the finance department is utility billing for our water sewer natural gas and garbage please discuss your knowledge of and work experience with this top service yes um I had a Utility Billing supervisor at Mary eser uh and he did a great job and you know when I hired him he I said you know give me five years that's all I ask you know don't just learn your job and then take your skills to some other bigger city and he did that so I was grateful and and so I've managed um the the individuals who've done that and I've also got involved in the software that's used to manage that and looked at those reports to see to make sure that all the customers are being built correctly um that um you know because Bond covenants for utilities Enterprise funds often say that you have to you there's no free water so if if you giving customers water free then there's a problem because you're not going to be able to pay your bond your debt service um so I you know I've looked at Florida Statutes concerning um the impact fees every year the city manager has to sign a statement saying that we're complying according to the Florida Statutes we're complying with impact fee laws and that means keeping track of that impact fee revenue and making sure we're spending it on the same areas where we're collecting it so if a business pays $5,000 or whatever for impact fees we should be able to go in the future and show where that money was used on some project that impacted that business and uh that's not necessarily I think being done very well by some cities in Florida but um we had we had the ability to research it and we had so many projects for water Su that we felt like we could go back if we had to and prove that that was the case on the money um um I do want to mention you have on your application that Tyler is the software and munus that the same software Tyler yes I'm sorry yeah uh yes Tyler and munus well there's two versions of Tyler there's a Cadillac and then a lower version is incode which is what the city of nville is using and munice was used by Oakland Park so I had 10 months experience with that between 17 and 18 2017 2018 so if you use munice I don't know or Ty in yeah very good because that's what I'm using at nville or was using at nville all right um so that's all the questions I have would the board like to add to any of the ones or ask their questions you had some questions I did and I think you had addressed it I was going to ask you at nville I pulled their auditing statements did you prepare those or did someone else prepare the financials for those before they went to the auditor for auditing my input was I prepared the um statistical section the uh in the beginning trying to remember what they call that transmittal letter and the data that was turned over to the Warren AIT for the financial statements and once they prepare the statement they give it to me I read the whole thing cover to cover and I had like 30 suggested revisions I think they changed like 20 of them and 10 of them they said no we that's not significant or no this is what we meant we're right so that's what I would do for them and the people I worked with over there if you ever want to talk to them are Joel Bradley and um and Tammy McCoy was the partner thank you I was just curious whether you had prepared those or if you relied upon an outsider to do that for the city but I noticed okay I noticed there were a repetitive yes on the capital Asset Management which if I'm not mistaken we might have the same similar problem here uh where we've got a similar and I wondered what was your solution to that and why did it carry over from 22 to 23 Well here here's my solution at nville especially under Mr Corbin and Mr D was moving away from this but there was extreme uh everything was topped down from Mr Corbin directly to almost every employee so there was very little Authority for management middle management so basically anybody if they were even slightly offended could just go around you go directly to the big boss and complain about you and whoever was most persuasive came up on top instead of like you would think that a city manager I'm not telling you how to do your job but you would think the city manager would pick people that he had confidence in so or at least give him a chance to prove themselves so once you have confidence that a city that a department head is capable competent and fair then the first thing that when one of their people comes to you and says they got a problem with you me the first thing that should be said is have you talk to him about it right so if they come to you and you listen for an hour and then you pull in the department head don't give them a chance to talk and just tell them what the the result of that conversation is that's not going to make that department head want to stay at that City and that I was patient I I was able to put up with that in the best interest of the citizens in the city so I kept thinking well eventually he'll see that you know I am a good manager I am fair to my people I'm respectful when they yell at me and other people can hear I don't yell back things like that um when they're they're childish I don't let it get to me I just act like it didn't happen and it go on but in some cases they these people are so good at being sweet to the big boss complimenting their children oh I saw you at church yeah everything and the person feels a loyalty to those Junior people oh I'll take care of the middle manager and I will make sure that they stop doing this without even checking with the middle manager or investigating it so I understand there's sometimes a need you get a bad middle manager who's disrespectful or you know they're they're Miss they're abusing their power but there is also cases where the opposite is true and so um you're going to lose your middle managers if if you never do enough as a a leader and I don't know how it's done here I I have no experience with this city but if as a leader if you you know who you hire and who you put in those middle manager positions is extremely important and I always said if you do not want me in that position fire me I've never been fired i' I've resigned from jobs but I even said it to Mr D I said either please either give me the authority to do my job because you give me the responsibility or let me go you didn't let me go so I ended up resigning because I didn't get the authority I needed and there were employees who were taking advantage of the system and using their political skills to get out of work and run a business on the side from their desk at work and I don't want to get into names because I'm trying to look forward you know and I want to look forward and I'm always going to start out assuming the best and try to resolve problems respectfully use them to chain of command and that's that's why I've had the level of success I have uh I'm not perfect I've seen leaders who somehow inspire people to do a great job I don't know if they just pick the right people or they're just so inspirational and charismatic that people want to work hard for them those people must cost a lot of money or or they're rare I want to I aspire to be like that and I'm doing everything everything I can to become more like that here uh on your application you had marked down that you had been uh had some discipline and it was emailed counseling over being too strict can you give us a little more information on that yes sir in fact that was basically the straw that broke the canas back that caused me to resign at nille so I will explain that um and I don't want to use names like I said I'm trying to look forward but there was an employee under my leadership and I basically just described it this person was running a business from the side right in front of me I'm sitting there doing work staying late working weekends and this employee is on the phone for hours at a time I tell both my bosses after IAL I talked to her about it of course but every time I talk to her she raises her voice at me sometimes loud enough that customers hear it and so obviously right now right away I back down because I don't want to get into shouting contest with her so you know I waited till the 52y old city manager retired and then the new one I you know that's what I was waiting for I knew that someday I'd get a new one and I went to him the first week and I said sir will you please explain play my role for the city and he delayed me he said next week next week next month kep putting me off and then finally he kind of indirectly let me know that he had in plans that after the city clerk retired he was going to put somebody in charge of all the finance departments you know payroll purchasing uh accounts payable accounts rece able accounting everything and that's exactly what I want in fact that's what they advertised for after I resigned in fact they even advertised it at the salary that I had told them a few weeks earlier that I thought that person should make so he was listening to me but for political reasons I think because that person was so good at making friends and asking everybody how the kids were do doing and socializing everybody had her back and so every time I would go to the city manager he' get a thousand people saying how good she was you know and she was good I respect her I wanted her see I even told her look get your accounting degree I will step aside and and retire or resign and recommend you but she didn't do that for whatever reason and I even put her into to go to a a conference and she said yes do it I put her in I got it in the budget and then last minute she cancels so because I think because she was running her business couldn't be away from her business so I kept telling the city manager this and you know he told me I'm sorry I'm just going to be honest I told you I'm honest he told me there's gray areas and and the the deputy city manager told me you know I'm too strict on her I wasn't you know and what I said was when the my exit interview was I didn't even I you know I tried saying something here in the beginning but after that after I wasn't supported every time she messed up I didn't say a word to her I just came to you and I said this is what's happening how should I handle it because last time I tried to handle it directly and you didn't back me up so uh that's what happened and finally I'm like well if you don't want to back me up good luck with the next person and I don't know I mean there's a little more history I could get into but there's it's before I even got there there was some history with this employee who was um claiming she was mistreated and I think that might have had something to do with it they didn't want to get sued because she had threatened to sue them so this is all here say now it's what I heard through the gra Vine and uh I'm just trying to balance being honest I didn't really want to look backwards but you asked and I'm going to be honest and tell you how it is that's how I ended up here and um I just want to do my job I just want to be a part of a successful team contribute my knowledge and my leadership ability respect the people I work with and hopefully get some respect back and have a quiet work environment where I can work efficiently it would be helpful as a finance director to have an office with a door I didn't have that I I had I had uh somebody on the phone talking about personal business for hours each day while I'm trying to work and some of it was crazy stuff you would see on on soap offers there stuff you have anything else uh right on that subject you had mentioned earlier when we were talking about you were trying to clean up some findings and um you were working a lot of hours to try to get that done now you may have answered part of the question with the Personnel you just mentioned but uh my question was um what level of help did you need and what did you have yes sir what level of help did I need what I needed was the ability to to to have first first of all to have the authority over the people who were doing the work I had one person working directly for me and she was the one creating a lot of the problems I had the payroll person reported directly to the city manager the purchasing directly to the city manager the you know they were not turning contracts over to me I'd find out about the contracts after the year ended how am I supposed to do accting properties purchased and they don't tell me how am I supposed to record the property I attend the meetings and if I hear about property I'll ask them can I get a copy of that contract but sometimes there was stuff going on small amounts trades of property where I wouldn't find out until after the uh fact and it's because it was too much that I wasn't in all the lines of communication when it come to accounting information I need to be in that Loop uh of official information you know and I like to organize things you know I like to have a list of all contract same lines uh you got spell out the duties of every individual such as the one that's over purchasing one that's over receivables uh are those spelled out as to who they're accounted accountable to that the last time nice Bill had had job descriptions that were updated was many years ago supposedly they're working on that now but um those job descriptions are very old and um some of them had things in there that we don't even do anymore so they just need and that's not just job descriptions that was all of our policies that's why the first thing I did when I was within three months of working at nville I had Rewritten four or five policies they still don't have a fund balance policy and I think that's one of the reasons why their proprietary funds are in such bad shape because despite the fact that the audit showed that it was getting worse and worse and every year I told Mr Corbin we are in serious trouble the general fund and and and two of the proprietary funds his comments to me were well I feel sorry for the next guy because we got a lot of work I'm sorry he's a legend he he's a great guy I respect him but I'm going to tell it like it is even if it means that I'm going to have to retire and never work again because I'm just like I said I was frustrated up to here and I just want to be a part of the solution Tomy so um it sounds like there's a lot of concerns at some point did the city's policies or um or the environment permit for you to go directly to the council the council by Charter just like with his Charter because I read your Charter had rules in it that said that the council was not allowed to directly ask employees to do anything the only employees at the city of nville uh Council hired was the city clerk and the City manager I read your minutes yesterday uh some of them and I did see where there was a discussion about who the finance director would report to and I and I I heard Mr Townsen talk to me before this meeting about the fact that I would be reporting to the council and to him I understand that the the finance director is often asked by the city manager to present directly to the council but my interpretation and I'm not an attorney so I guess ask your attorney my interpretation is if the charter tells you that the council cannot assign work to any individual employee except the the in your case I think it's the the chief of police the uh city manager and maybe the city clerk then okay I I can bend rules and if you say I have to work directly for you I will but why not just have the charge fixed why not have a referendum and I'm not trying to tell you how to run your city I'm just going to do whatever you tell me but like I said I'm a rule follower I like following clear rules and I hate cutting my own throat by maybe I'm misunderstanding the charter but that's what I thought I think we can clarify but we we we do not direct staff but we do have a relationship with the finance department explicitly and the City manager I'll let Mr ainson clarify certainly thank you councilman the charter does not read or is not at all construed the way that has been suggested um the specific language you have two pro you have four provisions on the limitation of council to that may cross into this the first indicates the council members shall deal with administrative Services through your city manager and that's administrative services and neither the council nor any council member shall give give order or make requests of any of the city manager subordinates including contracted subc Consultants either publicly or privately unless authorized to do so by the city manager now that deals the subordinates of the manager by code in your code of ordinances is very clear that the City Finance director is appointed by the city council reports to both we went through a grand jury on this this we address this very clearly it is a dual reporting system so under the city guidelines the finance director is not a pure subordinate of the city manager now the other area says the city council collectively and individually shall respect the chain of command established by the manager and abide by that process by not interfering with or attempting to exert control over or within the city's day-to-day operations but that one is the more direct applic here the manager is going to task the finance director on a day-to-day basis with what goes on within City Hall but this council at this dis can absolutely with a motion second and three votes in the affirmative direct what happens you can direct the manager to do it you can direct the finance director to do it direct me to do that's how it works but only from this diet correct yeah the is not a collective three council members come and tell you something you don't get to poll them Sunshine Law but so as to that provision of the charter no I I don't see this is an issue where there is any conflict in that in fact it was written I know Council beerbom can speak to that point he and councilman mcnight had many Lively debates about what that phrase of subordinates and the significance of using the city manager Consultants to mean who was h HED for instance an engineer that goes to an RFQ and hired at the council level is not his consultant but he has the ability to bring in Consultants within the city for various things and the specific discussion by recollection corly pleased councilman was to the extent that the city manager at the time was dealing with certain HR Consultants that were assisting Miss woodam at the time so to the extent we may have consulted coming in doing salary studies things like that that was not hired by the council directly those could be the issu and there's never any limitation on someone bringing forward concerns or issues especially the finance director or the city manager I mean those two positions we would expect to bring forward uh information that is relevant to the operation of the city the financial health of the city and particular in this case not only is it not a problem it is the expectation and obligation of both of those positions and the green jury made that abundantly clear to us that when there was a situation where the City Finance director would only communicate concerns to the city manager and not bring it to the mayor and counsel that was a problem and as I know the mayor's accely aware of that was a large issue where documents were being sent in that were clearly financial documents even though it had his name on it standard routing was pushing it all to the finance director's office so the mayor wasn't seeing letters there's no doubt the mayor had letter sent to it but but certified letters and we know where they were to be clear and just to put that out there if anybody does not remember this point or never knew it those certified letters with be campell's name on them were found in the finance director's desk under a bunch of other documents and he didn't sign for them and Cindy didn't sign for them and that's where they sat so as the grand jury told you you're going to be able to accountable for what that Finance director does or doesn't do so no I don't see it as an issue I just want be explicit that the expectation is that if there is a problem we insist on hearing about if there's something wrong we want to know about it and we want it to become public we're not interested in gossip but we are interested in things that are detrimental to the city detrimental to the city's finances or that are uh absolutely without question anything that's illegal improper or inappropriate we should be made aware explicitly by the finance director Amy thank you councilman valy and also Mr Atkinson for explaining that to me can I ask um gfoa has a budget uh award similar to your financial Excellence reporting award would you be able to implement that should you be hired here for the city do you know anything about it how long it would take and very in depth I've looked at it and that was on my du list at nville one of the first steps to getting to that point I thought was to get software that would help us to do that and we had looked at some software and were almost going to include it in the fisc year 25 budget when um we started getting down to the n gradi and seeing that we didn't have money for it and so Mr D made the the decision that we would wait as far as doing that it's a lot of work and and like one person deep yes I would love to do that if I was budget manager we don't have a budget manager we're small city right so the the finance director does the you know supposed to financial statement budget manager everything so it's a lot of work and um you know I would love to be able to promise that I can say depending on how much time I have we could make improvements every year what I've used at Mary Ester and then at nville was Excel to do the budget and it's a cheap way because you don't have to pay the annual fee and I'm pretty good with Excel you know I can set it up so you just put in this is a percentage of raise you want to give to this group of employees and then the union members get this percent and all you do is plug it in one place it updates the whole system and then also you know linking all the other things in there so that if you have offsetting revenue for Grant you know they're looking at each other and you know exactly you have one tab on your spreadsheet that has all the source information once you update that each year everything else in the budget gets updated is basically writing your own program in Excel so I can write formulas in Excel and then the problem is everybody else in my you know Department a lot of them don't have that level Excel training and I don't know what it is here I me there could be someone who has more training than me I'm not the smartest person in the world uh you know I would prefer to be have most of the people around me smarter than me then I could learn from them but uh I am trying to help everybody and I don't want to overpromise and say that we're going to get that award the first year if we if we get the budget software and if you know we got to prioritize whatever the things that you want me to get done when I become a member of team if you hire me if that's one of them then yes but also we we have to get a clean audit and we have to um make sure that we're efficiently recording all transactions correctly and um that everybody is happy so we're not getting high turnover in the department and and it's a good place to work uh I and I don't really have a a clear picture on where we're at with this city yet even though I've read the minutes and I've looked at the financial statements my initial impression is it needs a lot of work and I'm all game for work working Mr scers just one brief yes sir comment and then start question I don't really need a l elaboration on it but one of the things that I've been concerned with in the past for finance director was being ill prepared for a meeting not having the the information that we needed at the time that they were here so rather than having you elaborate on it I'm just going to ask for your commitment if if selected for this position would you be will to anticipate questions to proof proof theend ahead of time get all the answers to any questions that you could anticipate coming up being briefed by the city manager so that you're better prepared for the counsil yes sir to be to concisely answer that yes sir and that's what I tried to do at my other jobs too and every month I'm going to get better because I'm trying to continuously improve and learn about what kind of questions each one of you Council men and councilwoman uh uh want so then I'm going to think ahead of time and and the mayor and and the city manager think about what you want you know Mr towns is going to tell me what he wants I'm sure so yes I had a checklist I love checklists and you know I would make sure every month first of all I got the main things done and then I start looking okay this council person always asks these type of questions so you know I want to be prepared uh I don't want anybody to be embarrassed in a council meeting so I was going to get Kobe if you uh kind of in a nutshell can you give him what we typically our expectations as far as a director and his team who's responsible who because we we don't believe in this everybody coming to the city manager either uh they can if they got an urgent situation but you can tell them what your expectations are yeah sure um so in the finance department you get there's nine employees including the director um that's Utility Billing four individuals there um an accountant a finance assistant and then a grants coordinator um we will be we are working and we would wait until an individual is hired to hire this person but we're working to restructure the assistant to another accountant um you have a very senior count on staff now who's very good and so um you have the support you have the ability to do what we need to do the um financial analysis report the question that you got asked is because this council's asked for one for a while now um and we haven't got to that point yet they need to do their job I need to do my job um the income statements and the cash flows I need those for utilities um they're business and we want to treat them as such um the expectation for me and these are just some of mine that that I have given to the council and they've given to me um the budget like the councilwoman said that's a goal of mine and I expect to get to that next year or be very close um same thing with the financial operation award we had I at my knowledge never received one that I'm I don't know so I expect to get that same with water and sewer operations as well and so the investment question that came from we didn't get any money on our operating accounts either till I came in and asked the question we got zero um so now we're trying to find a way to do that manage our investments actively um from our Reserve accounts so those are things we expect to be managed frequently monthly kept up with um Enterprise fund data like I said we can't operate that business if I don't know flows I don't know what the debt is I don't know what my Leverage is to go get debt so those are essential and then the professional activities that you you you're part of um I expect that of the director I've been making that clear to them I'm part of organizations getting more active because if I'm active and I'm recognized in the state and the community then the city is recognized and we get those Awards and uh quality of life's a big deal and the finances the biggest of those and so those are my expectations they may be hard to meet but um I can guarantee you if M McDaniel's in here the budget isn't solely your responsibility it's also mine uh we went from having just Excel spreadsh sheets to you know to 80 to 100 page document this year a little more information so I noticed in NFI was just straight numbers and that might not have been your call somebody else's call um but I think we don't do things easy so if you're willing to do that that's my yes I I look forward to it and I did notice that your budget was better than nice bills I I I thought I was impressed that it was better I mean maybe not as good as Fort Walton or you know but it was still very good I was just going to ask as a as a high level position have you provided any uh mentoring or support Beyond just the day-to-day operations to ensure that the department has a uh continuation plan for when you're not around yes um at Mary Ester for instance when I resigned I gave them plenty of notice and I taught their current um Finance director Heather day uh I got her up to speed before I left uh so I worked like four months three three or four months after I had intended to leave to make sure that happened I offered the same thing to Mr D uh in the transition but as far as day-to-day while I was working at nville I had meetings with my staff uh which was in the end one person there was a brief period where I had like everybody uh in well not everybody but Utility Billing too but um I won't get into you know I guess you know there was um politics involved and I'm not good at politics I am a finance guy and so um what I do is I share openly my knowledge and I try to make like things make it easy for people I give them cheat sheets like okay this type of account a debit does this credit does this and uh when you're trying to figure out whether to capitalize an asset follow this chain ask these questions if it's yes you go to this cell if it's no you go to this one I created things like that to help the people who were putting in the capital assets and um you know I put in people for training and I put money in the budget for that the budget request and I encouraged when I saw progress I noticed it and I said nice things I said thank you for helping me with that and unfortunately it didn't happen as much as I wanted to that there were opportunities to to do that but when there was I took advantage of it and that's that's my style of leadership I'm I'm not the type of person who uh points out negative things so what I'll do is I'll just encourage them to do the work that needs to be done and when I get disrespect you know that that's when I have to ask for help from my boss if if if I can't influence them by positive a example because I have not been given Authority you know I did do a counseling and after I wrote it up the city manager told the HR person to not put it in the records so you know then you don't do counseling anymore if if that's going to happen and that was just a verbal counseling that I put in writing because she talked over me every time I I tried to give her the verbal counseling so I said this is a written record of a verbal counseling because I want it to be real easy and even that wouldn't get in the records so any other question yes um how how many people were in your department that you supervised totally in like in nville I just trying to understand the structure of it between the utility departments and all the people that entered all that data took the payments and all that how how was that structured exactly okay in the admin building that I worked in I I have to answer it in a complex kind of way because it changed over the five years eight months I was there but there was a team of three people who directly interfaced with the public and took payments actually four but three three at a time at any given time and then there was a trainer who came in part-time who had worked there many years and she just came in once a month for a few hours and trained people and then there there was a utility building supervisor who just sat in her office uh managing things and doing reports and stuff and and um training those customer service people and then at one point I was her boss for a while and then there was another lady who ended up who's probably going to be the city clerk of nille now is is the other Deputy clerk I was a deputy clerk also and she did payroll and she did accounts payable and so uh she didn't work for me because she had been there 28 years I think now 30 years and she didn't like the fact that a new guy comes in you know when I got there there were like seven eight department heads who had been there over 25 years working for Mr Corbin and they were you know they didn't like Outsiders I was The Outsider and and so she didn't want to work for me she complained to Mr Corbin now she reported directly to him if I wanted anything done I would have I go and I'd ask her nicely she didn't want to do it she didn't do it and and so the problem persisted so in the end I had one person working for me my accounting assistant and that person uh you know I've already talked about some of the problems I had with uh that and at one point though I had you know when I got there Dan duet was the city clerk basically he was over everybody but he kind of you know he he's been up there he's over 80 and he just stayed in that room and did his own thing and didn't get invi involved let the ladies most mostly ladies just do their own thing so like I said so there was there was uh the the payroll person the utility building clerk the the three or the four other people and then the uh trainer and uh that's uh five six seven about seven besides me and then the city clerk so so at nville Finance director in city clerk that was like rolled into one job or that was two different time periods I might have missed that well when I first got there Mr duet was the finance director city clerk but he had no Finance background I talked to Mr Corbin after talking to him Mr Corbin made me the finance director within the first year and uh but then uh you know he put me in charge of everybody but then the ladies you know didn't like that and next thing you know they were going having private conversation with them immediately consult me next thing you know I only had one person working for me and then it was hard to get anything done right so as a finance director that manager that you mentioned that was over the utility buildings and and that did you have any authority over that person over that manager or those other individuals I had the responsibility but no Authority I got you so if something went wrong it was my fault but she didn't have to listen to me if I had a suggestion to improve but I did the best I could with the situation and tried to talk uh you know respectfully and explained things to her but still in the end both both of them did what they wanted thank you very much and there was a purchasing director too who worked in another building who was also it and also in the end was also Deputy city manager and did not listen to me at all okay thank you any other questions okay all right so Kobe where you want to take this Mr grass Atkinson stepped out but it's it's up to the council mayor it's up to the direction what y'all like to do how y'all like to move forward okay all right are we supposed to do the score sheet on the last page it's suggested but that's what we do internally it's just on there no you do not have to do it yall don't y don't Rank by score Rank by vote yeah we only have one individual anyway so okay so um was that for multiples usually all right as far as you know doing any Ty of votes is there something that we want to delay even even give it a even take an opportunity to to do that at this time how do you feel Council I feel there's a couple areas where um I heard a few things that I just kind of need Clarity but for the most part you certainly have the skill set that we're looking for um Kobe I like the way the fact of what your expectations have been set um and shared because I think with that leadership and him knowing that he's got a team he can work with the team we've got the structure now where you're going to not only have the responsibility but the authority to complete what what it is that we need um I I think it's a positive for all of us but you know the only thing I kind of observe is uh and I know ni Fields had the same mayor and city manager for over 50 years two of them were partners for over 50 years so things kind of May operate like a family down there uh whether you're K to them or not that's another story but I don't know what the workings are there I just know that your uh it's kind of been repetitive here at least in N I don't know what it was like over in maryer but is to where um you weren't getting the respect uh and the authority you needed I'm sign trying to figure out whose fault that was that's kind of what I'm questioning yes sir so U I don't know if you have any comments on that but that would be that's a question I have in my mind yes sir and um like I said earlier I look internally anytime that uh a goal is not achieved like for instance a finding in an audit first thing I do is say what could I have done better but at some point you have to say I'm not the only one contributing to this outcome and I've had successes in other organizations when I had support I am a good person I am a caring compassionate person and I treat others with respect I know this and you're not going to see me being disrespectful to other people I'm pay patient I think my patience and honesty have been sometimes it felt like that was my weakness because it allowed people to just procrastinate leadership to procrastinate and and some subordinate you know or team members who I reported to me to take advantage of that and then go around me and then tell the boss well yeah he even said he's weak with people yeah this is the problem and you know no I I say that I have room for improvement with people and and if I say I'm weak maybe I'm at 85% I want to be at 100% that doesn't mean if everybody else is at 70% doesn't mean I'm weaker than everybody it just means I am perfectly honest about it and realize I have room to improve suggestion um thinking about how we've done interviews in the past um I think maybe it would be appropriate or my suggestion that we um thank Mr Rous for attending tonight uh we can take a a brief you know three to five minute recess and then the council can kind of reconvene and have any further discussion that we see Fed I'm fine with that I agree good with that okay all right well we'll like we do absolutely appreciate uh he being forthright and spending this time with us and so yeah let us have a little time to discuss it and then we'll reach out to you uh the outcome of this conversation as to what our next step is yes sir and I before I leave I just want to thank you all for listening to me for giving me this chance and whatever you decide I still thank you for this opportunity thank you very much have a good thank you for being here pleasure to meet you all right let's take uh what yall want 10 minutes five minutes five minutes all right five minutes [Music] the I mean I don't know why last week was a week I worked my butt off not this week can you can you send me an email I'm not g double check on which day I think I'm here but what day the week is that we can't be it rain but it didn't show up that should be fine [Music] that should be fun I want to do that one we need to bring back the now like hopefully not for very long you'll wire us up enough to thank you we have three might bring three down one of us might need a dou [Music] I got to go I'm GNA go 55 at the latest oh really taking too long noix phone it's phone [Music] R but we're live right now still so there might what up yes sir nothing like the late night cting Hall here start keeping a pot down here for us well this guy he he he offered a lot of information most people wouldn't offer he was very vulnerable you know and I he he told stuff that wasn't necessary yeah um yeah you know just like look how dark it is already out there right yeah look like like8 o00 he's uh I don't know if he's just a little yeah passive or just you know because U would he be if he did have the authority would he be Stern enough right right yeah yeah yeah absolutely yeah okay well I did turn that absolutely but uh anyway no that's just the question you'll have you hard to give a good answer on that yes sir AB you I I had to send Kobe upstairs though because uh there's no coffee back there I got youo yeah but I made Kobe go upstairs I said please give me one here pause she's VIP is VIP she gets the coffee I'll bring some now that I know I was telling the mirror I was like I want like one of those oldfashioned pots you know that we just make and then like pour with some sty cups okay boys come on is it five minutes yet it is exactly it is exactly actually I'm ready Rafael did it there for a minute like what you do rapel that look on his face he was encouraging he said my new wife is [Music] we W on Clay Tony and Clay there he is you good there Kobe