##VIDEO ID:R1RQWB11-QM## e e e e e e e e e e right where' commissioner flusher hey Mike how you doing I know great all right we're going to go ahead and call the special call meeting to order we're going to start with a moment of Silent reflection for our First Responders and members of the Armed Forces that'll be followed by an invocation by commissioner lore which will then be followed by a pledge of allegiance by commissioner irman if everybody will please rise please join me in prayer our heavenly father we thank you for this opportunity to meet in concert not only with constituents but potential members of this wonderful agency our heavenly father we ask that you continue to protect us and put a hedge of protection around our law enforcement our First Responders our school teachers and everyone else that's involved in the activities of this wonderful wonderful County we say this in your son's name amen amen amen please join me in reting the pledge of aliance to the greatest country in the world United States of America pledge alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right Commissioners um so point of housekeeping are there any additions or deletions to the agenda if not we will move on to the County Commission interview sessions with candidates for County attorney um oh yeah I guess we could do that so we are going to have uh we'll take public comments after Melanie Crawford's interview so C5 I guess um that's where that will be and then I will go over the public comment uh parameters when we get there Doug take it away thank you chairman I appreciate it um for the benefit of the record my name is Doug Thomas I'm an executive vice president with strategic government resources and I've been pleased and honored to work with all of you in the county and the recruitment of your successor count attorney position so um today is the culmination of a multi-month process where we've advertised the position you've had a chance to look through and evaluate candidates ultimately get down to semi-finalist kind of peel the onion skins back a little bit further from each of those candidates and then ultimately to the two finalists that you're interviewing today so for the benefit of the audience that's here or maybe watching as well uh all these candidates have gone through a pretty rigorous uh process to get to this stage uh you've seen the results of that I apologize in advance for all the reading material we' given you but we know this is one of your two hires that you have the County Administrator and the County Attorney so we think it's appropriate to uh you get to know these candidates as best as possible as you go through a very important decision that you uh come through today so um for the benefit of the audience and those that may be watching uh candidates have participated in a fairly extensive um questionnaire where they provided background and their their history and their style and the management style and their experiences relative to the issues they would likely face here I've participated in some pre-recorded video interviews uh as they prepared for this process they have also gone through uh a process called a first year game plan where they've outlined to you how they would get their arms around this position if they were appointed as the successor County attorney additional normative kind of perspectives about that approach we've also asked them to provide a variety of writing legal writing samples you could see their style and the type of work that they've been involved with as well and then leading to this afternoon's interview uh we had an opport for all of you to spend at least 45 minutes with each of the candidates individually uh so you get a chance to get to know them a little bit better uh we just finished up a lunch meeting with the uh County attorney staff so that the candidates had a chance to mingle with the staff and vice versa as well and that culminates into this afternoon's process where you'll be actually spending some time as a board interviewing uh your two finalists uh what we try to do uh We've scheduled an hour meeting for each uh whether you take the full hour or it goes a little longer a little less this is your time with these candidates to make sure that you're comfortable and that you've explored and kicked the tires and understand what all they bring uh for your your position here uh I do like to try to provide uh the candidates a chance to ask you as a board maybe have around 10 to 15 minutes worth of questions at the end so if we're in this process of about an hour uh interview uh somewhere around the 45 minute Mark if we're going in that area if need be I'll try to give you a heads up that we'd like to provide the candle a chance to ask you some questions as part of this process as well well um so from your background you've gotten uh their cover letters their resumés their questionnaire you've obviously seen the interview processes you've seen various media reports that we provided uh you and then also this afternoon completed the reference checks on all the candidates so hopefully that kind of gives you a snapshot of everything that's out there that we're aware of through these through these two candidates um what we anticipate uh for our experience in working with a group of this size and candidates of this nature uh that for an hour you're going to get probably about 10 to 15 questions um that you'll be able to be involved with and so what we've tried to do is I've given you uh more questions obviously you'd be able to or ask during that window that you could use for your one-on ones or for this this interview process but what we try to do is if if you've all kind of circled eight to 10 questions or so uh of those that you think would be appropriate to ask uh what I normally do is just ask each of you to give me the numbers of those questions and then I can quickly tabulate which ones three four or five of you might have asked and we can kind of work our way through and that helps you get to a prioritized approach uh my goal here is to get you around somewhere to 10 to 15 questions that you would likely be asking these candidates now that being said um certainly in the context of response to questions uh that you there may be something that you have a follow-up question or one or more of you have that's certainly fair game as well uh you certainly uh feel free to to use your protocol through the chair or whatever to to ask for any clarifications or for more information or if you have something that's related that you'd like to talk through this is really your time with the candidates in addition to the time you had earlier today so before I go through the questions that each of you have is everybody comfortable with that a process any questions that you've got or anything I can do to help fill in the gap before we try to get to a prioritized list of questions for your candidates Commissioners you good all right okay um all right well if that's the case um I'll take in whatever order uh Adam chair you'd like if anybody wants to just start giving me uh each commissioner what their their top 10 or 15 questions are I'll just start to capture those and then give me a second to tabulate them and tell you where I think we're going to land want to start yes be happy to thank you um so I'm just reading off the numbers that's fine um 12 14 give me a sec here just to catch up 12 14 12 14 20 24 29 38 39 hang on I 29 I'm with you okay I got to 29 what's next 38 38 okay 39 39 I'm with you 46 and 47 46 47 okay 54 MH 60 65 70 71 and 80 that's 15 70 71 and 80 80 yes thank gotta super thank you okay okay who would like to go next ready ahead question one two four question 20 56 60 61 56 60 and 61 you said yes okay those are pretty much the same for the the other and I also have four questions that I you want to pick up we can we'll catch those in a sec then okay that's fine all right that's it super want's to go next one two 12 14 26 39 41 55 57 59 61 and 80 okay great thank you one two 12 14 38 48 52 with you 52 all the rest were covered okay all right 54 and 54 64 oh 64 I'm sorry 64 s 64 64 thank you okay want to throw in 73 I'll take what you got thank you all right okay thank you do we have everybody did we get all five or not still working for darl I'm sorry okay actually I've got other question questions that I think are more relevant than these uh somewhat boiler plate questions uh but to go along with that I'll say four 12 15 30 54 55 and 60 I'm sorry after 15 what was the next one commissioner 54 54 55 59 and 60 but I think probably more important uh9 body are 60 you we have 80 questions here that are somewhat as mentioned boiler plate um I don't know how much value we're going to give those but I think we should concentrate on the more specific questions that we have specific to Indian River County and I don't know when that opportunity is going to be perhaps let me get a sense of if I'm sorry let me get a sense of kind of where you were collectively and some of the ones that were high that multiple three or four of you would ask for and then that'll give us an idea of how many of those questions we've got and then we can talk through a number of you said you had some other particular questions we can talk through those so if you just give me one second to give you a sense of where your kind of high priority questions came and then we can talk through the other ones okay all right so that gives us okay so there were five questions that three or more of you had identified um so I'll Circle get identifi those first that was question number one question number two question number 12 and question number 60 those had three or four responses so if I my math is right I think that's five questions so that gets you at least started with at least of interest of what you've said as a group um that also gives you another potentially up to 10 questions probably two a piece that each of you could ask that would be potentially different above and beyond the ones that you've identified so why don't we do this because that's kind of what we did for the administrator is we'll ask them all the same four questions or five questions five questions yep was it one 2 12 one two 12 14 14 and I think there was one more yeah I think it was 60 as I recall okay 60 yes that's correct so those be five yeah so we'll ask them those five questions and then we'll let each commiss commissioner ask two of their own questions that works that work does that work for everybody only two well I don't I mean if you want to ask make them count I've got few more than two how many do you have six right now okay I'll give you my two questions okay okay you I think that's fine I mean I'll I'll start I'll I'll start out asking the standard questions and then somebody answer themselves yeah okay does that work does that work well it's okay with me is it okay with all of you are you comfortable with that format as long as we can follow up oh absolutely yeah yeah as I said you've got you got two candal so if you take a little longer that's certainly understandable this is your time with the caly to to make sure you're comfortable it's an important decision so so we're going to be looking at probably 15ish 16 type questions subject to follow-up questions is what I think I'm hearing you say I'm just trying to get an idea so I can keep track as the process goes forward so um all right so I assume I'll keep track of those numbers as we go further um if I do want to provide as I mentioned at the beginning a chance for the candidates to maybe ask some questions at the end as well so if you want to just make sure we built that into the process if you do you want me to stand up to say hey we're about an hour into the session or 45 minutes into the session how would you like me to do that CH give us a 45 minute wave 45 minute wave okay gotcha at least you got an idea to work through it okay that all work okay um so if you're good I'm more than glow to go up and if you're ready to go and bring our first candidate down BR first one in great okay super all right any other last questions for me before I step aside think we're good to go all right thank you all right for UPS yeah we for still chair um Jenifer for to sit if that's okay to standing so we going to have her here that's good afternoon good afternoon um so I know we all had the pleasure of uh individual interviews this morning so we wanted to take the opportunity to um do some group interviews okay so I'm going to start out with a couple of questions from the group as a whole and then each commissioner is going to have the opportunity to ask um specific questions from themselves okay okay all right so the first question is please describe why you think you are an excellent m for this position I think that I'm a good candidate for this position because I have a lot of uh widespread local government experience I've worked in both the private and the public sector um I've been I've done every job there is to do really in a county attorney's office I've been an assistant County attorney Deputy assistant now I serve as a county attorney so um I've done litigation defense for uh local government now I work for a variety of local governments also as clients so I just think it's gives me a really wide perspective um and a lot of excellent experience to offer you fantastic um what have you done to prep to prepare for the Indian River County County attorney interview and why do you want to work for us okay well I know that you've been researching me and I've been researching you I was very intentional about applying for this job I don't have my resume spread out all over the state um Indian River just seems like a really good fit for me based on my background uh I work for nine years at Bay County Florida which is similar in size to Indian River and similar in their economy so um I'm drawn to your area because well first of all I'm I'm happy to be the county attorney for Liberty I have a lot of affection for my County but I'm looking for a bigger position with more responsibilities I'm drawn to your county because it's beautiful because you care about growing it in a responsible way because it has a lot of natural charm um and I'm excited about the fact that you're doing a lot of strategic planning which is and that you're a Forward Thinking organization so as someone looking for a new opportunity that's something that really appeals to me fantastic all right um tell us about the most difficult citizen encounter you have experienced and how did you handle it um well I think I put this in my um application materials but um I used to be the dangerous dog prosecutor for Bay County which was a pretty tough job because people feel really passionate about their animals so you know I had some pretty hard cases one in particular that got it was just really ugly um but you know I just tried to keep perspective on it um and uh you know working in local government sometimes you're going to deal with difficult people you can't take it too seriously uh you can't take it home with you you've just just got to try to do the best you can to be professional thank you how or describe a time when you were met with strong resistance to a change you implemented and how did you overcome it well um I'm not sure I would say strong resistance but one of the reasons I took the job as Liberty County attorney was uh the opportunity to make some really fundamental changes in their organization trying to help them grow um so one of the things that I've worked on is um getting them codified um I I put together a code enforcement program for them and I there's just a lot of resistance in my small County to change and to kind of grow up as an organization but I think I've just done it incrementally and tried to bring my board along and ultimately I you know I was able to build a code enforcement program from the ground up I drafted a nuisance and code enforcement ordinance they've never had one there before I uh put out an RFP to hire a special magistrate I did an interlocal with the Sheriff's Office to hire a code enforcement officer so um I think um it's been incremental it's taken us about three years that was one of my fundamental goals when I came on board um and and gradually people are getting more comfortable with it fantastic thank you and the last question for me do you take the time to educate County Commissioners and departmental staff about the legal implications and cir cumstances when you were asked to provide your legal opinion on a matter and if so how do you accomplish that um I do I think it's important um to communicate regularly with your um County leadership and each commissioner um and brief them oneon-one with on important legal issues so I I do it both in a one-on-one context and um the other thing that I put in my first year plan that I'd like to start doing if you hire me is to do a weekly update to to Commissioners about what the uh county attorney's office is working on and it doesn't have to be long but I I think it's important to keep you all informed about the progress we're making on certain projects that are important to you um maybe some legal issues that you need to be aware about maybe some changes in the law that I that we think we're is going to impact Indian River and how it how you need why you need to be thinking about it and how it affects us so I do try to use those different types of tools to communicate fantastic thank you all right um we'll start I guess we can start with commissioner moss and work our way down all right um thank you madam chair I had three questions you've already answered one okay um the first question of the remaining two is why did you choose the public sector versus the private sector for your career um I I was raised by two public sector um um employees um my dad worked for the federal government and we moved around the country for his job my mom was a school teacher I come from a family of school teachers um my brother served in the military I just there's a lot of Public Service in my family so for me it just seemed like a natural field to go into um I have approached it from different perspectives though I've worked for local governments both through private law firms and also been in-house counsel um so I think that's kind of helped me uh just offer more to my clients because I have those different perspectives okay and the second question you you mentioned it just briefly could you speak about the first year plan if you were to be hired right um so in the first year plan I really kind of tried to start uh with what I thought was the most would be the most important things for me to do which is to really um get to know the county attorney staff I mean my main go my my main job is to come in and and be the the lead for that organization so really to take the time to get to know those employees um to meet your uh County Manager more and your department heads and start to understand how I can best work work with them meet with you Commissioners each individually and learn more about your districts more about your vision for the county and then start to move outward um and start to meet some maybe some of your your the city attorneys that we partner with our local government Partners our Economic Development partners and just sort of gradually incrementally get to know your county tour your county facilities as I said I'd like to start implementing men in those weekly updates and some sort of consistent communication but also you know ways to inform you of the work that the county attorney's office is doing thank you you're welcome thank you madam chair commissioner a thank you madam chairman I may even follow up on one one of my questions with what commissioner Moss just asked you but my first question is about relationships with the County Administrator and his stop his top staff you two were the only two employees that work directly for this board and to me it's important to have that relationship what is what is your feelings about that and how important is it to you and what goals do you see with having a relationship a good relationship or even a great relationship with our County Administrator and his top staff um I think it's really critical for the county attorney to work closely with the county manager and I've had success in my career having really positive productive relationships with County managers so um it's important to me to um have a good communication with my County Manager to understand what he or she um how they best want me to communicate with them but also communicate with their department heads uh because let me be clear um I understand what the role of the County Attorney is it's not my job to run the county it's the county manager's job to do that and I respect that um I would work hard to have a open and honest communication with my County Manager because we have different roles in the organization so we're not always going to see things the same way um and so I would want to really work hard to have that good uh relationship and dialogue so that I can communicate when I have a a concern about something and give them a heads up but certainly I I agree that it's critical to have that good relationship when you don't agree you may even the County Administrator even with Commissioners maybe don't like what we're hearing from the county attorney on a certain thing how do you how do you handle that you know I try to be um positive and and professional about it there's no sense uh taking things personal um I should I sure don't a lot of the advice that I have to give as a county attorney sometimes it's uncomfortable to hear sometimes I'm giving it in a public setting um I'm not I'm not a bomb thrower I try to be uh professional about how I present myself so um if there's times where we disagree I'm going to be um I'm going to give you my job is to give you my best counsel my honest advice I try to be sensitive in How I deliver that because I know we work in a political environment um but um I don't take it personal if you don't take you know if you don't like what you're hearing I it never needs to get ugly or are you willing to help our other constitutional offices such as the supervisor for elections tax collector property praiser Clerk of the Court or Sheriff if asked um if if my board asks me or directs me to do it and I think it's in the County's best interest to do it there have been points in my career where I helped other constitutional officers but I understand that they are separate con I understand their roles and um also that through the budgeting process sometimes um it's better that they have their own Council obviously for how they run their offices but certainly there's times when we're all working together in the best interest of the county and I'm happy to work with them and see how I can assist last question is relationships and working with the the cities especially their legal council how where do you place that on on your importance I think it's really important um you know there's always going to be tension between the county and the city um but I think it's critical that you treat your cities and your towns as your partners um we're all in our you know we're all in the county together and we need to see how we can work together productively we you know there's lots of tools to do that from a legal perspective interlocal agreements I would certainly one of my things I put on my first year plan as I mentioned would be to personally reach out to all the city attorneys Town attorneys introduce myself and and see how we can work together it sounds like you are really laying the the groundwork already though I heard that you're doing those Joint City County meetings which I think is great so certainly to the extent that I can help produce those productive relationships or help improve them I think that's the right right move I all right commissioner fler thank you madam chair not unlike any other uh jurisdiction we are going through some growth angles concerns challenges whether it be annexation or we're looking at the urban service boundary we're looking at uh individuals having property rights and challenges and concerns as well as uh some other property line issues and you talk about how your thought process to address that and what experience you have Okay um I I think well I know that as you do your strategic planning I know one of the things you're looking at is um you're doing an urban Services boundary study which I think is really important um and a lot of planning on maybe sewer water capacity I know you've got a septic to sewer challenge going on um and and it sounds like you're approaching it in a good way which is you're trying to leverage Grant to help people individually do those things um at a certain point you may have to make people do those things so um you know there's there's legal tools to to do that if you get to that place my job as County attorney is to try to keep you advised about what people's property rights are to help you make sure that they get due process as you go through these um types of growth situations uh to try to help you find some good flexible tools legal tools to try to address these these growth challenges you're having okay so if if I were to re Rec couch it to where if you knew that historically this board would not want to get into the overp possessiveness or taking uh would that have changed any matter cuz you said it it might change if depending upon the direction that we would go if you knew the direction okay I'm I'm trying to understand your are you are you talking about the use of eminent domain or okay um you know that is really a last resort um for us too yeah no no one wants to do that um and it's not it's the last resort because first of all you want to try to negotiate to get with the property owner to make it a win-win um it's also a last resort because it's incredibly expensive to go through that process yes you can take property but um and you can do it quickly but you end up having to pay attorneys fees for the the people that you're um dealing with so it not only is it too expensive it's really not not something that Fosters good relationships necessarily with your citizens but you know as you grow sometimes it is a necessity I have some experience with eminent domain um thank you I know we we talked upstairs as we all did um can you uh talk a little bit about 119 uh what it means where it belongs does it belong in the attorney's office uh does it belong in responsiveness to the uh the individual uh realizing that uh any any uh for a request can happen anywhere at any time in the building at any one location okay um I think I mentioned um that I have for the last three well throughout my career I've I've presented a lot of sunshine public records law presentations the last three years I've um taught those three-hour ethics trainings to uh local government officials um so I have a lot of background in public records um one of the things that I talk about first when I go through my trainings whether I'm talking with an a elected official or I'm talking with a county staff member is that we have to remember when we're talking about public records that public records it's both a um constitutional and statutory right of Floridians so it's not a burden to us sometimes they're difficult to deal with but it's our duty to do it um but having said that um that doesn't mean we get to get ran over either I mean Our obligation with public records is to respond promptly and then we have a reasonable amount of time to produce the records that we have that are not exempt um and if people make huge requests we have the ability to charge special service fees if that's necessary I always try to work with people to see if I can narrow their requests so that the you know they're asking for the moon but really they're really looking for this little thing I don't want to um have people feel like I'm trying to hide something for them or make it hard for them um I try to I try to work with them to um get them the records that they're entitled to I it sounds like um Indian River county is uh smart because you've already utilized your utilizing just fo you which when I was leaving Bay County I made the recommendation to our um to the county to to get just Foya and that is good because now you don't have people walking all over your buildings making public records request all your employees they're being streamlined into a program that can um document them as they come in handle them in a routine way have your custodian of Records really be that main point of contact so it sounds like you've got a good approach it may just need some fine-tuning um I have a lot of experience overseeing public records requests so I'm happy to work with staff what what of the courts uh determined was a reasonable and customary time for a turnaround or response they really haven't I mean they say reasonable but it depends on what the ask is so you know um if it's a really large request it could take a bit of time to put it together if it's something simple there shouldn't be any reason why you and it's and it's something that's not exempt uh there's some they shouldn't be hard to get it out fairly quickly it just depends on what's being asked for is what's reasonable what does it mean to you counselor God variet three pieces of of document that that are easily found yeah I mean it should take maybe 48 hours at most I I don't know it depends on how many requests you've got coming into your system how quickly you can process them but certainly you should be able to turn around a simple public records request really quickly it sounds like your county attorney staff and I do think it should be in the county attorney's office because there 's a lot of legal questionss that um go into our public records law there's lots of exemptions sometimes it's not just exempt it's confidential there's redactions that have to be made so you do have to be really careful about it but um certainly an easy request hopefully you can get it out quickly what's the number one challenge that uh you see we're confronted with after you've studied all of us and and this great County that we represent what's the number one challenge that you're going to have to work hard on if you're selected um I think that you are kind of on the cusp of of growth that you can't avoid um it's I've read that I I see you're at about 167,000 people but you're estimated to grow to 210,000 people by 20150 so right now your biggest challenge I think is planning for that growth gr I think you're doing a great job because like I said you're doing your Urban uh boundary study you're um I'm sure you're doing water sewer capacity studies um so I think and I and I when I mentioned the one of the things that draws me to your county is because you're beautiful you've you're charming you want to keep that th those characteristics in your county so the way that you choose to grow where you choose to grow um how you maintain your community character um those are that's really going to be your challenge as these growth pressures hit you I'm sure none of you want to see a bunch of unplanned sprawl I'm sure none of you want to hear get phone calls from developers frustrated because that you you know we hadn't planned for the utilities or the capacity that they need so I do think that's one of your biggest challenges right now any attorney's office is uh is a practice it's limited it has five bosses uh but in generally you've met most of the staff if not all of the staff uh you you have to if selected you have to or appointed you have to orient yourself with that staff and see their strengths and weaknesses how long do you think it'll take before you know exactly what you have and what you have to add and what you have to maybe change a little bit well how long of a time period would you want to give it or you would feel comfortable with I mean I I certainly think within the six first six months of being employed as County attorney I can really get my arms around who's doing what what is the workload um that gives me plenty of time to not only sit down with everyone in the county attorney's office get to know them understand what they're working on but start to try to assess what our strengths and weaknesses as a as a functioning office is so I'm I'm I'm thinking as far as a time frame of understanding uh whether what kind of additional resources we need or what we can take on that that maybe we farmed out I think I within the first six months I can get a sense of that thank you for thinking that we're all near perfect but in the real world we're not and if you're sitting in that seat and we are discussing things when when do you flip the switch when do you say hey wait a minute time out or do you wait until after the meeting's over then go upstairs and say that was a bad call no do you have the strength to go forward when necessary when it's live absolutely I I I mean I don't mind speaking up when necessary to to give you my thoughts on something um because it's critical that you hear from me as you go through your decision- making process um having said that um I'm not out to throw bombs or um you know beat up my Mission if I think you're doing the wrong thing I mean if I give you my advice and you decide not to take it that's your prerogative you as a board or my client uh I but I'm going to speak up and tell you but I'm not going to belabor it if you choose not to take my advice so it's up to us to fall down the stairs or just jump excuse me it's it's up to us to fall down the stairs or just jump that's right but I'll let you know but you're going to caution us and be a handrail that's that's my job that's what I want to hear thank you I yield Madam chair thank you and thank you for the opportunity to speak um can you briefly describe uh one of your achievements in the Florida bar cert certified in city county and local government and what a task that was to complete if it was and what set you apart from other candidates that may or may not have that um that outline okay um it was a lot of work to become board certified um one of the things I talked about in my online interview was one of my I I was pretty proud of my that achievement because I had started the process to get board certified before hurricane Michael hit my county and it was a cat 5 and it was crazy but I as soon as I could get my office I picked back up and I I kept studying and I did pass on my first um try I think that process was great for me because um I did a lot of extra education to get that certification it it forced me to sit down and get comfortable with some areas of local government law that I really wasn't comfortable with um because I hadn't had as much experience in it so I do think whether or not a local government attorney chooses to actually become certified cross that Finish Line take that test um engaging in that certification process going to those review view classes is really good at getting a strong fundamental understanding of local government law so I would highly recommend any County attorney and the office that I that works in under my direction uh get involved in that process I know you've got a county attorney working hard at it right now and there's a lot of local government attorneys that don't bother so you should be grateful to have that right so in other words uh it's almost as if taking uh the bar again it is and additionally um I believe before you can sit for that particular exam you have to have some pre prerequisite time working in an industry Andor county or city government that would allow you the longevity to take that exam that's true and you go through a peer review so you you have to have a certain um experience level um you have to take all those extra hours and then you go through a review of your peers um before you take that test right I appreciate that and your nine years in Bay County uh and your subcontracting work with other municipality certainly uh positioned you well to have that specific um addition additional certificate uh moving to short-term rentals uh I think Bay County obviously is a tourist happy Community similar to not to the extent of Indian River County what's your experience with short-term rentals and the Florida legislature's recent preemption it it's not a super recent preemption but um my understand so so generally local governments are preempted from regular regulating vacation rentals unless you had that ordinance uh I think it's 20 uh 2011 or before I don't think Indian River has that on the books so um but but vacation rentals even though you're preempted to there are you have tools to deal with them because they can still be um a nuisance in your community so the ways that you can handle short uh vacation rentals um under this preemption as you you certainly have your um building you know they still have to H meet Life Safety codes they have to meet building regulations if they cause a nuisance you're not there's nothing that stops you from addressing them through your nuisance code or through law enforcement so I mean you still have some tools to deal with vacation rentals but um when you're preempted you're preempted I've learned that lesson the hard way um one Bay County and Panama City Beach tried to kind of delve in an area that was preempted and got we got slapped down in the first DCA um so I you know and there's penalties if you try to regulate in an area where you're preempted um so you got to know what you can do if you were selected as a next County attorney uh and we've seen your your outline on your timeline on some of your objectives um what would be one of your primary concerns on how to reduce any expenditures for outside Council that may not be your or your staff specialty let's say it's some type of specific environmental issue or whatnot what what method would you use to limit the amount of external dollars that we're spending on outside counsel um you know I think I've mentioned when I met with you each individually that um I think you have adequate staff in your county attorney's office to handle your day-to-day Affairs um we're your general counsel um you don't really have a large staff it's when you get into those larger counties that you're going to have more you the litigation Department the real estate department etc etc um your your county the three people that you have are really trying to manage your day-to-day work but having said that um I do understand that people are concerned about the cost of outside councel and one of the things I put in my first year plan was a willingness to sit down and look through all those contracts and see if there's some areas that we can do a little bit more of that that leg work um I have some there's certainly some litigation that I think the county attorney's office can can pick up if they're not I'm not quite sure how much we're doing but there there are some routine litigations that should be able to be handled so you know I commit I know I understand that's an issue of contention I commit myself to to look at it um I don't promise that um I won't come back and tell you hey we really need this outside Council um the one thing I've also said to most of you cuz I've gotten this question though is I think it's a county attorney's job to tell you when I when I think you're wasting legal money when I think you're fighting a battle or a a case that isn't a good winner for you so um you know sometimes we don't want to hear it but I do believe that's my role would be my role appreciate that um we talked briefly about your experiences with uh 119 public record sunshine and the like um have you had an experience throughout your uh career of particular individuals Andor organizations that consistently make public records uh requests and you mentioned earlier about redaction about the promptness of doing it have you had uh situation where you've actually sat down with those individuals or those groups and had discussions about uh um how can we perhaps lessen uh the volume of public records Andor solve issues um obviously ethically and legally other than binding up uh personnel with consistent uh lengthy public records request um I've had one-on-one interactions with people who are persistent public records people who are persistently seeking them um I think that you know there there's some people or groups that you're just they're just not going to they're not going to be satisfied but generally it's been my experience that the people that are making a large public records request repeated public records request is they're frustrated or they're angry about an issue um and I think if you deal with them consistently and uh you try to work with them to try to get to the bottom of what they're really looking for and and you ensure them that you understand that they have a right to records if they're not exempt records I found that working with people over and over at a certain point that they get a little bit more comfortable that you're really not trying to hide something so there's some people you're never going to make happy but I'm I certainly have a lot of experience sitting down with people or groups and just over time working through their public records requests and I found that they normally start to calm down when they figure out you're not trying to be their enemy right thank you um you have some experience in dealing uh with FEMA um in the Bay County area after a few storms and uh the long and arduous task it took to um get the dollars back from the federal government can you briefly talk about that and I have one further followup after that Madam chair okay I mean um you know your your Frontline people that are helping you um after a storm is are are your often times you have your disaster Consultants um you your county attorney is usually working really closely with your disaster Consultants um the writing example that I gave you uh was a case where um I was able to finally win a second appeal in in a FEMA dispute um and and get about half a million dollars back for my County it took several years but um yes I mean we've been through this uh all these uh natural disasters and so we know upfront the things that we need to to do to make sure that we're positioning ourselves for those dollars making sure that um we're following our our procurement our purchasing manual that we're putting all those Federal contract uh contract Clauses and all those uh contracts that we enter into um get putting together our um you know getting all of our contractors up and in place and then work just systematically working through trying to get those FEMA reimbursements and fighting where there's when you we think we can win that fight in that case um It's actually an example where um there were two appeals going on I handled that appeal because it seemed winnable because I could see precedent for them um funding something that I that they'd funded before and I thought they should fund for us so I I made those arguments we had another appeal where we got an outside Council because our fire department was just convinced that they were going to get a new fire station out of it and I didn't see it at all and um never happened and I finally went to the county manager and said we we've got to stop spending money on this we underinsured our asset so I I appreciate that and I think other counties of the state appreciate you setting that standard uh and finally uh most recently in Liberty County with your uh it's interesting in Liberty County uh only three counties in the State of Florida have the clerk of the court double as the County Administrator in Liberty County being one of those and understand by some of the documents I've read about your uh significant impact on what we would call called the solid waste District here and your approach on how you were able to uh refine that can you elaborate on that briefly please uh yes so we actually um entered into a I think a a really I negotiated a beneficial um franchise agreement with our Solid Waste provider um we kind of TR because we're such a small County we just don't have a lot of resources so we sort of transitioned that billing out of our local government and and into the private sector in a way that really kind of freed up some of our our resources um so that was that was definitely a a win we got a good service out of it and we got we freed up some really scarce resources in our County right and additionally Liberty is so small you've negotiated the contracts with all the other um things that you would need from Public Works to um to inspections to anything else you know you've negotiated all of those contracts within the county yes because I mean and it's hard for people in a local government structure like this to conceive um how poor some fiscally constrained counties are so they literally Outsource their planner their building official their fire chief um uh and so yes I've had to negotiate all those professional contracts thank you I'll yield to the chair thank you you all right Commissioners any further questions if not we'll give Miss sheer an opportunity to ask any questions I yielded mind to you guys covered all the questions those were you have great questions yep um do you have any questions of us I don't thank you thank you for the opportunity thank you thank you for being here I'll turn it back over to Doug I know we had built in a break but if you're good we can we give you a chance to go up and get Melanie for your next why don't transition yeah we'll take like a five minute break while or 10 minute while you go get um Miss Crawford and bring her down and I think L wanted to that work okay super all right we're in recess for e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e to order we have our next candidate um is with us Miss Crawford welcome hi is this on yes you can hear me hi so what we're going to do is I'm going to ask um um five just standard questions and then each commissioner has a series of questions that they will ask individually to you okay okay all right so the first question is please describe why you think you're an excellent match for this position well um let me introduce myself to I know I've met with each of you today but the public that is here in the chamber and those that may be watching I'm Melanie Crawford I live in voo Beach um my family lives in voo Beach and I just believe that my skill set combined with my personality makes me a really good candidate for this job I've handled public records land disputes of varying degrees um I'm aware of the septic toour issue and some of the other issues of growth and the desire to keep buau beach in Indie River County you know our quaint little neck of the woods and I think I'm a good candidate because I think I could help you make decisions that can achieve all those goals across the board fantastic thank you what have you done to prepare for the Indian River County County attorney interview and why do you want to work for us so to prepare prepare for the interview I reviewed several of your commission meetings I reviewed the interviews of the County Administrator who uh joined the commission last year year I read the Lagoon management plan the proposed budget for the county attorney's office um reviewed your land planning documents and some of the munic code Provisions that pertain to the county um I'm trying to think what else I don't know I just seems like I've reviewed a lot of paperwork let's put it that way your website um talk to people in the community um that I know about you know the position and um kind of the direction that the county is going to go um and I just think you know I'm a person who likes to find creative ways to reach goals and I try to think out of the box and sometimes you don't always find that in an attorney so I think that makes me unique fantastic thank you um next question tell us about the most difficult citizen encounter you have experienced and how did you handle it wow the most difficult so that's easy um previously I was the senior assistant City attorney for the city of Port St Lucy and chief of staff and um we had a pretty significant dispute with an HOA regarding various things like the gate the final lift that was going to go on the pavement um and some other things and so we decided to facilitate a meeting with that homeowners association um down in the City and it was it was not just one constituent it was several um and they became so angry that we had to call the police and you know we just really um tried our best to accommodate everyone's concerns let them speak but encouraged them you know not to reduce uh the meeting to you know hateful violent outbursts and ultimately out in the parking lot that night we were able to get a resolution to the concerns so I think that that that was probably the one that strikes me first when you talk about constituent interaction thank you um describe a time when you were met with strong resistance to a change you implemented how did you overcome it a change I am so there was a change that I wished to implement um in a past life regarding a solid waste matter and the the change that I wanted to implement was was absolutely not on the minds of of those who set policy and so they went a different direction and the you know for me um you know you you as a commission would set policy my job is to carry out uh your wishes in the most legal and ethical manner possible in that particular situation it was not implemented it resulted in litigation it was a a pretty hefty um lift to try to get where we needed to be but ultimately um the the board came back around to the initial suggestion that that I'd made in that case and then um my last question is do you take the time to educate County Commissioners and departmental staff about the legal implications and circumstances when you were asked to provide your legal opinion on a matter and if so how do you accomplish it so so the the staff question yeah absolutely um if there's something you know that's a little tricky or unusual um I would convene a meeting you know amongst my staff to kind of talk about what everybody thinks about that topic secondarily um to communicate that to the commission I would write an opinion memo um and you know for either meet with you oneon-one um or for it2 one-onone and then ultimately if it needed to happen at a public meeting you know we we would handle it that way but just you know whatever really satisfied the board on the most effective way to communicate you know the legal concerns about a project would be what the the way I would go thank you so much that is um concludes the kind of standard questions I will just like we did last time start down here with commissioner moss and work our way across thank thank you madam chair um I have several questions okay um to start off what led you into the um public sector as opposed to the private sector and we know from your um a resume that you did spend time locally with uh lulich yes so uh my desire to enter the the public sector actually came a long time ago um when I was a little girl I grew up in a little town called Sharpsburg Kentucky which is just outside Lexington and my father was mayor of our town and it's kind of funny really but the fire alarm rang in our house and my mom was the city clerk and you know anytime there was a a cat in a tree or a loose dog or anything that went on in that little town um we you know received a phone call and um so I think you know I was young at that age and I just my father had a big impact on my desire to be a public servant and um you know I've been a public servant uh now 17 years I've been a practicing attorney this coming year will be 25 years um I did spend some time with the lulich firm back in 202 I want to say um and at that time the plan was that we were going to try to create a branch of that firm that catered to the government client um in the meantime um I was contacted to become to take the job that I'm in now and um I talked to to Jordan and Steve about that and they supported my decision and so I'm back in public service and to be honest that's the lane that I belong in thank you what appeals to you most about this particular position and this County well first of all I live here so you know as opposed to to being working for someone you know in another County which I have done um the decisions that this board make affected myself and my family so to have a role in uh being able to do the right thing to be a good public servant um and to make decisions that Bodwell for the future of the county is very important to me okay and we did have um a submission by you of your first your plan could you speak to that if you thank you sure and I this is the first time I've had the opportunity to to write down um you know a plan for the first year so obviously it's subject to you know things that could come up later but you know I my initial plan would be to listen to all of you to the taxpayers uh to the department heads to the staff um I know you know we might need to tweak and and address you know just procedures and policies um as to how things are are being done um we we would want to make sure everyone in the legal office you know is in the right spot as far as what they enjoy doing and if they need support or help um you know we I would I would definitely want to make sure that I accomplish that um I think I indicated you know as the months progress there there's a desire to transition from a paper legal system so to speak to a uh digital one and I've done that in on two prior occasions so you know to me that's that would be easy um the public records function here at the county I would want to take a a pretty good look at that and you know I I learned today that the staff is US utilizing a relatively new program um I forgot what they called it to be honest with you Foya something and um would want to take a look at that and just make sure that that we are efficiently responding to requests and needs that come in the legal office um you know in in a few strategic plans that I've participated in in the past you know I think the role of the county attorney's office here um as it as any other attorney would would be the case is that you need to make the organization more efficient so I would very in my first year would want to look at ways that you know if we haven't been efficient and responsive that we do that um another thing is um I know you guys are working on your strategic plan but you've already uh identified some goals and one of those is to be customer service friendly now historically through my government career I can say that the notion of the attorney's office being customer service friendly may not you know they may not M those two things might not go together in some people's minds but I think that's very important because I think it's important to help folks understand you know why things are the way they are and um just provide any assistance that we can provide with information that is legally appropriate for us to do okay thank you thank you madam chair commissioner mman thank you mad chairman melie welcome thank you for having me I appreciate it um we spoke briefly on this today and I'm going to ask you again how important relationship with a County Administrator and his top staff from from your point of view from the county attorney who are the only two basically employees of the board of County County Commissioners Madam chair yes if I can speak out of order that we can overhear the gentleman two rows three rows behind the candidat speaking and it's rather disruptive maybe you want to move back a few rows but it's can't be comfortable for the candidates and it certainly isn't comfortable for us hearing your conversation so thank you thank you so your relationship with the County Administrator What What In His top staff uh what do you weigh on its importance what's your opinion to that I would say on a scale of one the 10 it's a 10 um that is a very vital relationship um to be successful in this type of organization um I've been very fortunate in the past um to have an excellent relationship with the person in that role and I just think that um you know we've talked about it earlier today but I just think it's it's really really vital to have an open flow of communication with the County Administrator and an open exchange of ideas and you know there's more than one way to reach I think I said there's more than one way to make eight but um you know there's going to be more than one way to get to the end result legally and I just think that it's important to keep the the communication up with the County Administrator and be on the same page what about the county attorney's office accessibility to the public so I think there there's a you know there's a line you have to walk because in my experience sometimes times the public thinks that the county attorney's role is to provide legal advice to the the resident when in fact it's to provide legal advice to the board um but that doesn't mean that you don't you know you know exhibit customer service skills and try to lead them down the path that will get them where they need to be without violating any ethical concerns from the county attorney's position relationships with the city located in any River County May Sebastian sure all those River Shores what is your opinion on how you as the County Attorney representing this board would interact with those so um in the past and I disclose this to you in some of the paperwork that I've submitted but I did um on an ad hoc basis some work for the city of Sebastian so I um was included in some previous lunch you know meetings with uh Pete Sweeney John Turner um the Sebastian City attorney um Warren and felir and John uh roach who I believe is now doing the legal work for Indian River Shores um from our perspective those meetings were very very beneficial I think that we took the time to to discuss between us you know what types of issues were coming up um and tried to you know collaborate and find ways that we could you know meet together on various issues um I think that's important I mean you know you hear stories about places where count the county doesn't get along with the city or vice versa and um you know I'm not fully versed in where those issues stand since I've not been in this role but I think that I would like to see that um you know resume those meetings let's have some conversations and collaborate on things willingness to to help or cooperate with the Constitutional offices whether they may have a announced attorney or not I know like the supervisor leus doesn't have a in-house attorney but if you're if you're asked to help any of our constitutions from the sheriff to the clerk of the court to the property register any of them what is your how do you feel about that I sure as long as there are not any um you know restrictions on that I would have no problem whatsoever trying to provide advice to those constitutional officers and you know they're attached to us for Budget budget to the county for budgetary reasons it's my understanding and um I do believe or at least at one point the sheriff did retain his own attorney um and I think is it the clerk that is an attorney perhaps but yeah I would have no problem like re you know going to meet that person or taking calls or doing whatever I could to help that's all I have okay thank you missioner flesher thank you thank you Council c um not unlike any other jurisdiction uh we do have some growth concerns uh we are looking at the aurban service boundary we're doing assessment there there may be expansion we're looking at uh current uh and recent uh annexations uh and growth challenges uh in relation to uh or the the goal to get attainable housing uh there are many words for it but uh nonetheless we have major decisions what experience have you had in that Arena I've had a lot quite frankly um I was when I was with the city of Port St L Lucy the tradition uh area which is approximately 1,400 Acres uh was transferred to the city and in as you know if you just drive down I95 you know you see Amazon Cheney Brothers tamco Cleveland Clinic expanded there are multiple uh developments in that area that you know planned unit developments there are drri uh things that have gone on site plans um so yeah I have a lot of experience in in that in that that City in my opinion had a very rapid growth process um you know I'm not sure it be it's obviously the decision of the board what type of growth uh you want to see here but um I'm just not I think that the wealth of information I gained while I was in that position would be extremely useful here U while we try to decide you know how best to grow but maintain the things that make Indian River County you know just a really great place thank you um looking at all of us and you've had the opportunity to speak speak with us one onone and uh studying this County that uh if appointed uh or selected would you what would you consider our major issue that we're confronted with right now I think it's growth I think the growth issu is pretty big I think um you guys are taking a look at the expansion of the can you hear me sorry about that I think you're looking at um expansion of the urban service boundary um I know you're amending the comp plan I do think the Land Development regulations are probably going to have to be analyzed for some tweaks perhaps and some updates um public record is always an issue as I mentioned earlier um trying to think what else would be a major thing the Indian River Lagoon um ways to you know protect it um the septic to sewer ongoing you know project I think there are somewhere near 25,000 homes in the county that still have to convert so how do we pay for that and accomplish those conversions which you would also help the Lagoon um those are the things that are on the top of my mind I'm sure that's not everything but those are the things I'm thinking about thank you U Florida Florida State Statute 119 it's it's broad it's very broad uh very liberal and face forwarding uh as far as availability we handle our foyer requests uh in in a certain manner uh as compliant to law as as uh we we can um two two things uh are you familiar with um how familiar are with the 119 as far as the accessibility and how uh Records are handled and it currently is with the attorney's office uh but it also is handled with the system are you familiar with it uh extremely familiar with chapter 11 19 um I've conducted trainings uh for multiple boards on public records requests and open meetings and um yeah I mean I'm I'm I'm very well versed in in that area of the law so what what what would you what considered I know the the the courts have deemed what is customary and usual and uh reasonable amount of time for responsiveness if we just had a few records that were requested by a constituent there what would you consider because they haven't given a finite time right so I think I me mention to you I'm licensed to practice law in another state although that license isn't Escrow in that state it is the statute specifies the amount of time that you have to respond so um in Florida that's it's interesting that it says customary and reasonable right and so that's a subjective thing I think it depends to a certain degree on what type of records are being requested it also depends on who's the custodian of those records and it also depends on the level of redaction that those records are required you know to to undergo based on the the language and the statute so for example let me give you an example like a personnel file of someone like yourself who's a retired uh police person or police what were you Deputy Sergeant I was Captain I was a police officer I was a detective I deputy sheriff okay and a variety of matter in law enforcement so I do have a couple different protected right backgrounds so the bottom line is someone like yourself if someone requested your personnel file then there that's a heavily a heavy redaction in my opinion um so it just you know it depends on the nature of the request and what you need to do to those records according to chapter 119 before you produce them so you know it's it's it's a subjective what's customary and reasonable is subjective now do I think you wait six months no I think you respond to the requesting party you know within a day or two or three you know if it's a Friday then okay maybe it's Monday or Tuesday that you acknowledge receipt of those you know right away but depending on the nature of the records I think what what is customary and reasonable it just depends on what the records are thank you you had the opportunity to uh meet with staff and I think you DED with staff I got to know them a little better um if selected or appointed you'll will'll have the opportunity to be working with that staff um what what do you do I mean after all it it is a practice that you're you're holding uh within it's limited albate but it is a practice and uh you need the proper Staffing you have some colleagues there you have a a deputy and and and and an additional attorney and uh you have uh assistance to make sure that things and paralal to make sure that things get done properly um so you're going to have to get acquainted with them as well U how long before you you you really know them and uh you is there any changes that you would see how long do you think that takes place that's a difficult question to answer honestly um but I think you know the first step would be to meet with everyone in a group and just say you know let them know me um first and then you know see how I am see how I think and operate and all that um but then at some point after that you you'd have the one-on-one conversations about tell me specifically what you're doing um you know is and I think I did ask this question at lunch but are the projects that are coming in the door assigned based on everything you know parks and direct related goes to this person or is it just like that comes in the door and it's like you get one you get two you get one you get you know so I need would really need to know about the workflow and if we've got the right um people on the bus so to speak I know that that phraseology is used sometimes um as far as how long that evaluation would take um I would hope within the first 90 days I could you know have a pretty good handle on that thank you uh within about a month or so if you're selected you're sitting in that seat and uh we're out here and conducting our business as you're listening you may have the opportunity to say do you act or do you let us go upstairs and then say you know what we really should have done so are you asking me if you have the courage to to say hold on a minute I think we need to like slow the roll on this absolutely I'm not yes I mean I may not go into great detail but I think you know if I'm if I'm in the position that that I say we need to take another look at this before we proceed or um then yeah that that's something and quite frankly you know meetings flow and it may something may come up um from a comment you know public comment that we weren't aware of so it may completely something that we didn't look into before that that moment in time so you know for me to shoot from the hip from the DI and say oh we're not going to do that we need to do X and not y I don't that's less likely it's more likely that I'm I would say something like okay there's with this development I think we need to take another look at this it's my recommendation that we take another look at this now you you guys have the option of saying no we want to go on but I think I'm not discharging my duty to you guys if I don't at least say something does that does that answer your question yes yes okay thank you you're welcome Madam chair I yeld the rest of the time all right thank you and and good afternoon again um lately uh short-term vacation rentals have been a topic and with your time in in Port St Lucy with the growth and I can only imagine the short-term rentals what's your experience with short-term rentals in Port St Lucy so at the time that that started becoming it it kind of became an issue a little bit later in my tenure there um I mean the rapid growth in that City can't I can't understate how the you know they were building I think at one point um they had 22,000 homes that had been expected to be permitted so we didn't have a ton of uh rental issues when I was in Port St Lucy however I do know there's been some recent legislation um that has come down the path regarding um you know notice and you know what owners can charge and and I want to say I hope I'm not misspeaking but I want to say that in the county implemented a fee structure and some rules like back in 2016 here um but my impression is there there's probably going to be more that comes from from legislation and from tallah um to kind of I don't know if they're going to you know completely take over this this issue um and occupy the field so to speak but I think there'll be some more that will come from Tallahasse regarding that topic and I know that you know there there's apparently some either Airbnb or uh for vacation by owner rentals here in the county that you know have have had some issues okay thank you um commissioner fleser mentioned uh 119 and we've all talked about that and sometime that's just a small segment of the county attorney's office however sometimes uh it can be very consuming and you mentioned how you would redact and do the others uh in your experience uh in other municipalities for St Lucy uh to some extent Sebastian have you ever encountered a particular entity or a particular person that consistently makes public records requests that consistently um tie up uh County staff's time and if so how would you approach that uh entity Andor individual and uh hopefully limit and save taxpaying dollars yes I think anytime you're in this role um you're going to yes the answer is yes on multiple fronts yes I've had that happen and so you know we do our best to to respond and make the individual aware that you know you you've submitted a lot of responses you know we can group them together treat them as one and try to get it all to you at once but there are other folks that have submitted um legitimate public records requests that we also need to respond to um in my past experience I actually sat down with that person and tried to you know explain you know the ins and outs of the process and make sure that the person understood you know we are not ignoring you at all it's just a matter of you know whether it's first come first serve or the records that you're seeking you know have to be redacted we have to have the staff time to do the reductions so I think it's just you know a matter of trying to to help educate that person or or group of people on our process and you know that that you you're a citizen and you're valuable to us and we we're not we want to be transparent but it's just you know going to take us the time it takes us thank you and that's a great answer um at Port St Lucy you supervised uh six paral leals and you had a total staff of 10 is that correct I had 10 attorneys and six paralal so I had a total staff of 16 right and you work closely as a charter officer with the other Charter officers within the city which yes I guess in layman terms would mean that you weren't afforded particular benefits as your subordinates this rain is causing me hearing problems ask that again please I wasn't receiving the same benefits as my subordinates is that what you I'm with yes the benef the the other benefits that are afforded to others that aren't Charter officers I think that that's a correct statement okay um with respect to to FEMA any experience with FEMA and any experience working with the city manager in this case the County Administrator in uh number one dealing with the crisis and number two recovering any potential dollars that that are outlining yes I um was on the command staff for the Emergency Operations Center for the city of Port St Lucy um I'm also FEMA certified um and and I'd have to look that up because they have you know there's a certain number that allocated to the certification that I hold um and then yes we we were trained on how to submit what they call Dar D form to FEMA um to re you know to recover funds um for hours work for those folks that needed to to work during the emergency even though yeah even though that's probably a a task by officer management budget but you did work closely as the attorney with the OM offic absolutely great any um I know that uh I may have read it brief on there was an issue a few years ago with the solid waste uh pickup in Port St Lucy that was um can you shed some light on your involvement in that yes I hope they if they're watching they don't hate me but yes um so yeah we had um at that time we had a solid waste provider who was was picking up both um recyclables and you know regular solid waste I think it was two days a week and um that contract was nearing its end and um in my view should have been rebid it was what I would call an evergreen contract which is you know I think it was on its four 14th year and so I had a pretty strong you know I've got a procurement background so I had a pretty strong opinion that that needed to be bit out for multiple reasons that was that didn't happen um we um renegotiated a contract with that Solid Waste provider which is not the same one that's in this County just for clarification and um but the the problem and we had to work with the county the problem was that the cost increased and the provider decreased the level of service so it was only going to pick up like one day well then covid came along and they were having Staffing shortages and other problems and quite frankly the whole solid waste collection process down there became really bad and there were you know flies and and I'm from Kentucky so I can say it Critters um accum culating around the trash and just a lot of you know a lot of complaints and so we tried to implement a fee schedule against the vendor to try to get them to correct some of the problems that didn't work the it ended up in litigation um it I believe the litigation was settled at mediation um or resolved out of court and then they the city went back and and rebid that and now has a a new provider right I think we're all somewhat aware of that um and finally you talked about the staff of attorneys that you had and the paralal that you had uh we're a little different in that um we don't have as many obviously uh so I think in one of your uh forecast or one of your 90 days or 60 days you talked about meeting with staff so the question would be how do we reduce any external Council fees would that be by you assimilating a team and let's say one person has a specialty in real estate the other in environmental dealings or what how would you choose your team of attorneys as well as bring to this body a reduction and external Council cost so to be honest I've seen the budget number the proposed budget numbers for the upcoming budget um but I've only seen like the grand total I haven't I haven't looked at you know the line item but um I think that the key is you try to minimize outside Council um in all cases now there are some situations that you can't do that or it's not prudent to do um collective bargaining for example um is an area that I very strongly believe needs to be outsourced first and but you know to the extent you have the tools to handle the issue in house that's my that's my goal is to handle it in house um I want to say during the first two years in Port St Lucy I reduced the outside Council budget significantly from like 3 million to 250,000 and the same is true U at Indie River State College okay well thank you very much and I yield my time all right do you have any questions of us I don't think so um I had very nice conversations with everyone this morning um I asked all the questions I had then I want to thank you guys all very very much for allowing me to come and have the opportunity to talk to you um even if I'm not successful it's been a complete honor to be here today and to and to go through this process so I don't think I have any questions okay okay thank you so much Doug right um appreciate that if you can give me a few minutes just to debrief um with your candidate and then if you want to take public comment that's fine but I can do that and I'll come back in and join in the deliberation conversations from there want do do you want to take break yeah let okay we'll take another break you do your thing come back and then we'll start public comment and go from there great that works okay super okay we will be on recess for a few minutes e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e all right we are going to call the meeting back to order and we will be taking public comment before we start public comment um public comment will be limited to 3 minutes we will have a timer on the screens so it's very clear for everyone and with that anybody from the public that would like to speak regarding the County Attorney search you're welcome to come up and do so at this time okayi seeing none we will move on to the substantive portion of our meeting Doug thank you um I often joke with my candidates and with my clients that this is um somewhat like selecting the pope we never know if there's blue smoke or black black smoke or gray smoke coming out of the process but um the thoughts are uh for you as a group to deliberate about your candidates today um we've done this a couple different ways in many of the communities that I work with we often just accept to allow you all see and hear things differently and react to different things and so um without getting caught up in the trappings of somebody making an official motion or something of that nature and then you kind of feel locked into those efforts uh we typically encourage our boards to just have a a little bit of a dialogue in terms of uh thoughts and Impressions that they have about candidates to uh provide some insight and that may encourage some dialogue amongst yourselves or you may see things or someone may raise an issue that maybe another candidate or another uh commissioner had not necessarily thought through and it encourages that dialogue so we often encourage you to have that type of dialogue first and then at that point and once kind of the discussion has landed um if there's a desire to advance a candidate going forward then we go into kind of formal motions I'm also here to assist if there's any question questions or background I know we've given you a wealth of information that you've been trying to digest but if there's anything I can do to assist in that effort I'm here really just to help you facilitate as you go through this next step of the process okay thank you um so Commissioners at this time we're going to I guess just have a open conversation about um the candidates and and how we may or may not want to move forward um for me um for me I you know enjoy speaking with both candidates um I believe that um the experience and depth of of field for Miss Schuler uh kind of made her rise to the top for me um also one of my uh requirements as we talked about earlier was having that bar certification so I think that is I strongly feel that that's very important and she does have that also I um had several unsolicited uh references for her from some of my contacts in the Tallahassee Community um specifically from Neighbors Giblin and Nickerson as you guys know I've worked there before and um there were several of those attorneys that called uh to give her uh very high marks uh having worked with her as well as um the clerk um our local clerk actually uh knows the clerk in Liberty County and shared some uh kind and glowing remarks from her regarding her as well um also had a commissioner uh or a prior commissioner from Bay County reach out regarding Mrs Schuler and interacting with her um as just being very even keeled very professional um and very uh they had a lot of confidence in her so I also believe that Miss Crawford has has some good experience um and you know kind of across theboard experience uh we had a great conversation um but but for me that's that's kind of where I am and I wanted to share some of those unsolicited um references that reached out to me independently of this process I don't know if somebody wants to jump in or if we want to start down here with commissioner lore since we started with commissioner Moss or with the questions or I I'll just say that I I do I do agree with you um on that I was especially impressed by her work with FEMA since it's highly unusual that uh you would get or win a uh a second request and getting half a million dollars for a fiscally constrained uh county is quite an accomplishment I was very impressed by that and also her first year plan um I like the uh the specificity of it uh she doesn't uh she she didn't rely on on generalities in her plan um or in Her speech uh she was very professional considering she had used distractions right behind her she had you know two people having a conversation but she's very professional and we we all could see that but uh she she remained very very professional unshaken just stayed right uh on target with everything that she wanted to to convey and I was I was impressed by that you know handling that um I she just I like it also that she comes from the same siiz county so she understands uh you know where we're going with this and that she wants to be here you know that she really um looks forward uh to being here I was impressed by that in in my conversation with her so uh I I agree with you madam chair and thank you other Commissioners commissioner hean I Madam chairman I I think they both were excellent they're both excellent candidates I think we were fortunate to have both of them I I thought we would we would had a lot more but I think that the candidates that we had and these two candidates that applied were sincere about coming here to any River County and working working here uh with us and for us and I and I appreciate their their their efforts to do so I too was impressed with Mrs Schuler I it even this morning some of the pointed questions that I asked and the questions we asked here she didn't shy away from any of them she answered the questions directly and was lots of specificity I think that's how I need to say that I am impressed with the fact of what the question that commissioner lur brought up about her uh getting the uh you know the going back basically for the double bar exam with her County County and city government she has a vast amount of experience it looks like in county and city government and even School Board I guess but we won't tell anybody that that uh I just thought her her questions were were better answered this morning and and this afternoon Miss Crawford I think is outstanding i' I'd love to have her on board too if we could hire both of them in a different capacities that would that would be awesome but uh I would have to to go with um Mrs Scher gentlemen on this end anything uh Madam chair I'll say a few things like you I've contacted others and others have contacted me particularly about uh Miss Schuler not as much as Miss Crawford one thing I want to say about both of these candidates and and uh I speak my mind as most of the time is that out of the pool of candidates that we had uh these two candidates were strong enough to come down and interview with us even though we have a select group in this community that unilaterally emailed all of the candidates with some very nasty things uh that does not shine a light on this County and does not reflect this County to be quite Frank with you but for somebody representing a particular organization to unilaterally send I've never heard of that before now if I'm a candidate throughout the state or country for that matter and I'm getting bombarded with emails um do I want to come to in River County am I going to face you know the same situation so I'm embarrassed by that and that was obviously why some of my questions were pointed uh with respect to Miss Crawford I think that um uh absent some of the private sector public sector and some of the things that she some explained to us or me individually um makes her an inferior candidate to miss Schuler that being said Miss Schuler does also um I think she possesses what we need we're not going to have the perfect applicant with every discipline in the law uh one concern though is um Geographics uh she has close ties to Bay and Liberty County um which gives me a little a little hesitation on offering her a contract uh that may be um resolved with a particular uh language in the contract perhaps I'm not certain uh but overall uh again with the two candidates that had the the guts to appear here I'm very proud of both of them uh for taking that opportunity um so I'm still kind of part of me wants to say what would have happened had the other candidates came and that is something we'll never know because of interference we'll never know that uh does that mean we have to take uh what we perceive is the best of the two I'm not so sure that that is the cause orever however it does appear uh that with some of the questions that Miss Schuler answered she does appear to fit the four squares that we're looking for that's where I'm at okay thank you commissioner fleser Madame chair thank you um and it's what what happens you spoke first but um I'm going to say some of the same comments um uh what what do they call us the law enforcement uh caucus caucus Fus that's it I I think it comes from the fact that and I'm sure the County Administrator can attest that uh we go deep and wide on our uh concerns about people's backgrounds and where they are and what they're doing and where they've come from um I not take it away from anybody else but I I I would say that uh I think I revealed that we we go pretty deep uh such being the case spoke with a lot of people um a lot of people from the jurisdictions and full disclosure I'm more familiar with one of the candidates one of the candidates is local uh I do feel the same concerns that we did not have the opportunity to see the other candidates that were uh vetted before we got here before we got today's date and it's very very unfortunate and the public should know that uh you know when we discussed 119 and we discussed uh many of the uh aspects of the job upstairs and here it was about the contamination of the process it was very unsettling unethical unprofessional uh I understand it was pointed out by one of the applicants that uh you know we work for the County government the County government works for the people but the County Attorney works for this board not for individuals in the community um if if they want representation they can have representation uh they facilitate and and that's that's the line that was pushed um I I I was extremely Disturbed when I read some of the written information that was forwarded to the other candidates there are a couple that I wanted to meet there are a couple that had very good and thank you for finding them and vetting them but we did not have the opportunity we were robbed clearly stated by somebody's overbearing this uh they felt that they were the expert in the field we hired an expert and then they found candidates and we should have been given the opportunity to be able to interview all of the applicants miraculously after the correspondents had gone out to all of the candidates that some of the candidates I maybe it's coincidence but we lost candidates they withdrew their interest can you imagine that going through a process getting an email and saying oh no longer interested i' I'm doing something else now further look upon those candidates they did not find another opportunity they just didn't want this one based on the contaminator information and I feel certain about that um enough of that as far as the backgrounds and you mentioned that you were contacted contacted um I was very much contacted in in my search and uh I actually it I I told one of the candidates that uh you know it actually Drew concern that so many people from your jurisdiction called contacted expressed after all if you're So Satisfied if you admire this individual for what they're doing within your jurisdiction that's not so close to us why do you want to to ensure that they get glowing reports of their acceptance to leave that jurisdiction to our jurisdiction I it just was it caused me pause that they were so interested to have that person here so much so I said uhoh uh are these paid endorsements no they weren't and they're valid endorsements and uh I I concur with my colleagues uh well I did have a preference uh going into this I'll fully admit that uh having known one of the applicants I have to say that uh uh counselor Jennifer Schuler has definitely Rose to the top in in my heart uh as uh a very sincere knowledgeable um well suited individual and she's willing to uh start as soon as she can I have to tell you that I'm very impressed with our other applicant so much so that I think I heard something about it gee that would be great if if she would hire her too uh because they're both good candidates but after all of the vetting consideration and this allowing all of the and again they both had the courage to come after and the public I I guess we should uh show those uh we can do our own public records release and and show how nasty the individuals were who wrote contaminator statements to our applicants I believe it was very disingenuous and unfair to even interfere with the process and the allegations information was not all appropriate or accurate but nonetheless it was done but in the end with all of that our conversations upstairs and what was presented before us I believe that Jennifer shulu will make a uh fine choice and selection fantastic all right so it seems pretty um it seems pretty clear I think what we would need is a motion to move forward with uh contract negotiation and go from there move second I have a motion by commissioner lore and a second by commissioner flesher any further discussion seeing none all in favor I I opposed motion carries you know Madam chair yes sir that's a great start to have a unanimous decision for somebody that's going to be representing all of us I agree I am very excited um and I appreciate apprciate everybody's time today on a staff level on a commission level Doug I appreciate your time and the candidates time um I know it has been a long day so since that was all on of our agenda if there is nothing else and it's Friday happy birthday Susan Madam chair just so just for Next Step so uh we are here obviously to assist you in whatever fashion some of my clients will ask me to work with a designated representative whether that's the chair or someone else to work through terms and conditions just to make sure we've got an agreement and then we normally would have that turned back over to you for developing into a formal employment agreement but if you would like me to assist you in that effort I just need to know what direction you need to go so I know whether I'm working with them or the County's going to be working with your candidate directly no is that what you guys want to do have Doug work with through the process with HR okay okay right okay we will have Suzanne um and yourself work that out and we will get with Miss Scher and go from there Madam chair the final number as far as compensation and agreement that will come back to us yes the the contract the final contract would come back to us for approval of all the terms and what was negotiated I've certainly worked with Susan and your staff before so I can get with her and she's been involved tangent in this process she knows the details and so um I just want to advise the the candidates as to what the next steps will be so I'll coordinate with her and then I'll be in the background as necessary to help you get across Finish Line but to your point yes at the end of the day commissioner there will be a formal employment agreement that'll be drafted by the county that will come back to you as a board for a formal ratification and that's when things become final and and hopefully even though I know this is would be very quick that could be on our August 20th meeting I I know you've got one on the 20th most of the time this does not take very you know you always say have some background from both your candes about El listening to this you don't work quick we we try to get you across the Finish Line as quickly as we can absolutely Madam chair I think that uh at at this point uh congratulations to uh councelor Jennifer Schuler for the offer of and the invitation to be part of this great government yes we're very excited all right with that I'm going to adjourn the meeting so everybody can go enjoy their weekends and again happy birthday Susan and um happy Friday everybody and congratulations Miss Scher we're excited to have you aboard with that we stand adjourned