July 7 Park Board Meeting Highlights
This meeting was video taped for cable TV as a test run.
At 5:00pm, the Administration & Finance Committee began its meeting with only 3 of its members present, chairwoman Marie Hauser, Rochelle Berry Graves and Carol Kummer. Missing were Annie Young and Walt Dziedzic. Other commissioners not on this committee also present included John Erwin, Jon Olson and Bob Fine.
The primary agenda item of interest was the oral interview of 4 companies responding to the Park Board's request for proposals for the superintendent search. The 4 companies were, in the order interviewed:
1. The Oldani Group, an executive search service headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. 2. Springsted, a public sector advisory company, headquartered in St. Paul. 3. The PAR Group, public management consultants, headquartered in Lake Bluff, Illinois. 4. Personnel Decisions International (PDI), a global human resources consulting firm, headquartered in Minneapolis.
Oldani was not present in person, but instead interviewed via speaker phone. The other three companies had representatives make a presentation and answer questions in person.
Oldani's presentation was made by either Andrea Oldani-Nutt or Andrea Sims, but I don't know which because I did not catch the last name. Her presentation had all the right buzzwords, but seemed to gloss over a lot of important points to me. Oldani was responsible for the most recent Minneapolis chief of police search, in which Bill McManus was ultimately hired. In looking for and marketing to individuals who would be potential candidates, Oldani typically develops a brochure based on 2 days of interviews with the hiring body, i.e. the Park Board commissioners.
On the whole, I was seriously underwhelmed by Oldani's presentation. There was nothing terribly wrong, but there was also little substantive information either, it seemed. It was on the whole fairly uninspiring.
Springsted's presentation was primarily made by Sharon Funk, who would be the "primary onsite consultant" for this job, and she was assisted by Professor Bill Joynes, who is Dean of the Hamline University Graduate School of Public Administration and Management, and is under a consulting contract with Springsted. Ms. Funk also mentioned a Roger Scott with 30 years experience who would be the chief consultant on the search, who was located in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Springsted is primarily a financial consulting firm and has offices across the country.
Springsted's presentation was more impressive. Bill Joynes answers were especially direct and honest without spin. In particular, he noted it would be very difficult to get good results by the Park Board's November 3 deadline given summer schedules, and Sharon Funk noted that such a time line might be more possible if they could take advantage of any information gathered and organized for last year's aborted superintendent search.
Annie Young arrived in time to question Springsted, and she asked about the number of hours it would take to do the job. Sharon Funk make a slight misstep in not answering the hours portion of the question directly enough, getting up Annie Young's ire. It seemed pretty clear at that point that Young would not be voting for Springsted.
Bob Fine had a question about their experience doing recruiting given that he was familiar with them as a financial firm. He followed up with his repeated simple question posed to all firms about how they would find people. By the end of the interviews, one got the impression Fine was trying to figure out how they do it so he could go into the recruiting business himself.
The interview process was running late, so at 6:00pm, the committee recessed to allow the public open time.
First public speaker was Joan Berthiaume from the Minneapolis Parks Legacy Society (http://www.MinneapolisParksLegacySociety.org) who described the Wirth-While Weekend as well attended, including 59 members of the Wirth family itself, and supported by 150 volunteers. She thanked the Park Board for their sponsorship, and the commissioners who participated for the participation.
Second public speaker was Steve Nelson, who talked about the history of the Stevens House and the Wirth House, and the opportunities to interpreting the wonderful history of the park system in the Wirth House when the Minnesota Recreation and Parks Association (MRPA) moves out.
Paula Hare was on the agenda to speak but was absent from the meeting.
The committee was resumed, with the interview of The PAR Group, represented by Steve Bernard, a vice president. PAR's presentation was reasonably clear and thorough with no surprises. PAR gave the firmest figures for timelines and specifics. PAR appears to have the most amount of experience in working with elected bodies and the public sector. Steve Bernard was formerly city manager of White Bear Lake and also worked as an assistant manager for Minneapolis so is well versed in this area.
Annie Young asks about reuse of last year's failed search brochure and data. Bob Fine asks his usual how do you find people question.
Personnel Decisions Inc. (PDI). PDI's presenter, a senior vice-president, (missed his name, maybe Dennis Folz?) had a somewhat jocular attitude, making a few small jokes, and clearly believing that his knowledge of industrial psychology, corporate human resources strategy and assessment would make him capable of answering any question with ease. He spoke about how the search was not really a search at all, but a process of winnowing down the field, because it was so easy to find the people via listings in books and computer databases, etc. While a lot of what he said rang true and made sense, and he was a somewhat entertaining speaker, there seemed to be a bit of intentional baffling the listener with fog going on.
Annie Young and Bob Fine ask similar questions of PDI that they asked PAR.
Bob Fine MOVES that the superintendent search firm selection discussion be moved to the full board, and it PASSES.
The Admin & Finance committee quickly dispensed with the rest of its agenda of consent and approval items and Adjourned at 7PM.
If the cable TV slot is 2 hours, which I believe it is, all business conducted after this point would not make it to TV.
At 7PM, Bob Fine calls the Planning Committee to order. There were 3 large "Study/Report" Items on the agenda.
1. EPA report on the Gluek Park contamination with asbestos and planned cleanup presented by Sonia R. Vega of the EPA. Ms. Vega was clearly experienced and no-nonsense. In discussing the progression of the problems at Gluek Park, she at one point left the board in stunned silence when they misunderstood her remark about how the scope and size of the problem had grown dramatically and how she needed to get a check with "many zeros" (millions of dollars), taking it to mean the Park Board needed to pay that amount perhaps.
Initially the EPA got involved with cleaning up the vermiculite processing waste contaminated with asbestos which was given away and used for backfill all over the city, but especially in Northeast. The first test of Gluek Park was negative because the soil was too wet, but a second sample was positive. Initially the EPA looked at removing 18 inches of soil, but the problem is so bad, they will now need to remove 8 feet of soil. Because of this, and the location of the park on the steep Mississippi River bank, the park will essentially be completely destroyed -- all the many, many shrubs, gardens and trees planted by neighborhoods around it will be removed along with just about everything else except the pavement, which when on top of asbestos contaminated ground, seals it adequately so that the EPA won't remove it.
Gluek Park will essentially be bulldozed and 8 feet of soil remove. The river bank will be regraded and rip rap will be installed. The end result is that the park will look nothing like it does today and the river bank will have no resemblance to the natural river bank.
Jon Olson expresses concern that citizens don't know enough about what is going on there and the risks, and asks Ms. Vega about contact with the citizens. She replies they have done extensive outreach, met with thousands of individuals, and gives quite a few details about a rather large amount of work she has already done in this vein. Olson is likely concerned because the Park Board got well criticized in the press and by local neighborhood organizations for failing to inform park users about its contamination.
2. The Minnehaha Creek Watershed District makes a presentation regarding a joint resolution and cooperative working group between the District and all the entities directly associated with the creek itself (cities of Minnetonka, Hopkins, St. Louis Park, Edina and Minneapolis, the Park Board and Hennepin County) to create and work on a planning document for the Minnehaha Creek sub-watershed (the creek itself). This would be a long-term vision for how the creek should be used. There is federal money available from the Army Corps of Engineers to help move in the direction of whatever vision is decided upon. Four possible models given as examples were (1) business as usual allowing whatever changes to occur within those constraints happen, (2) maintaining the status quo which would seem to mean making efforts to prevent changes away from how the creek is now, (3) maximize its recreational usability, and (4) maximize the environmental restoration. The proposal suggests a technical, citizen and public official committee, with appointees to the committee by each of the government entities, in general 2 citizens and 1 official per entity, except the District itself would appoint 9 citizens, for a total 23.
Marie Hauser immediately took issue with how much representation "Minneapolis" got, having at minimum 4 representatives. She asked how long the creek was and how much was in Minneapolis. It's 22 miles and Watershed representatives guessed maybe one-third was in Minneapolis. Hauser thought Minneapolis should then get a lot more representation. She also complained that Minneapolis only had 1 (2 until recently) representative on the Watershed board of managers, despite the fact that the Minnehaha Watershed is a whole lot bigger than just the 6 miles of creek in Minneapolis -- for example, it includes all of Lake Minnetonka and 181 square miles. [Hauser obviously does not know what a "watershed" is, or have a clue why the state of Minnesota passed the Watershed District Act in 1955.
So, just to make it clear: Total length of creek is about 22 miles.
Minnetonka has about 5 miles, or 23% and they get a minimum of 2 citizens of 23 for 9%
Hopkins has about 2.7 miles, or12% and they get a minimum of 2 citizens of 23 for 9%
St. Louis Park: 4.2 miles / 19%, 2 of 23 = 9%
Edina: 4.6 miles / 21 %, 2 of 23 = 9%
Minneapolis: 6 miles / 27%, minimum of 4 of 23 citizens = 18%
Watershed District, 100% of the creek, 9 of 23 citizens = 39%
Hennepin County, 100% of the creek, 2 of 23 citizens = 9%
Marie Hauser thinks Minneapolis is under represented compared to the other cities, yet clearly by the numbers, we have better representation than all other cities except Hopkins. Hauser has displayed this parochial, uncooperative power-holding behavior in prior Park Board meetings.]
7:51pm -- Annie Young MOVES that approval of this joint resolution with the Watershed District be moved out of committee to the full board. Motion PASSES, Hauser opposed.
3. Tim Brown, Park Board staff, makes a presentation on the Victory Memorial Parkway Master Plan. The Park Board has obtained $950,000 of federal TEA-21 funds to rebuild the bike trail and associated work along Victory Memorial Parkway and are now in the planning process of what it will look like when they are done. Several public meetings have been held to get input from residents. The project may also be eligible for Met Council CIP funding, because it is a designated regional corridor, as well. The Victory Memorial Parkway was originally designed by Theodore Wirth, the land purchased in 1910 and 1911, and with an interruption by World War I, construction began in 1919 and finished in 1921. Staff plans to finish new master plan in 2004, and do trail construction in 2005 and 2006. They will come back to the board first of September of this year for approval of plan.
8:15pm -- Planning Committee adjourns and Regular Meeting is called to order.
Commissioner Walt Dziedzic arrives about this time.
Most of this meeting is perfunctory and quick, with lots of taxpayer money spent on dozens of action items in just minutes. However, the discussion about the superintendent search firm selection was a bit more interesting and not quite so quick.
John Erwin attempts to get discussion of the search firm selection started by describing what things he liked about the Oldani Group but ultimately gets pushed into making a motion perhaps a bit sooner than he had intended.
Erwin MOVES that the Oldani Group be hired. Motion is seconded and discussion ensues.
Bob Fine wants to know where all 4 of these firms were last year during the aborted search effort. Fine says he likes Springsted because they are local and have a dean from Hamline University under contract. Fine does not like Oldani because the principle, Jerry Oldani, did not take the interview call [of course, Jerry Oldani might be trekking across the Outback in Australia or laid up in a hospital at the moment; we don't know].
Marie Hauser also does not like Oldani Group, but per Jon Olson, Jerry Oldani will be involved in the search.
Walt Dziedzic says he made up his mind last month and still prefers PDI.
The question is called and a roll call vote is taken. Berry Graves votes Yes. Dziedzic votes No. Erwin votes Yes. Fine votes No. Hauser PASSES. Kummer PASSES. Young votes Yes. Olson votes Yes. Hauser votes No. Kummer votes Yes.
Motion to hire Oldani Group passes with 5 Yes and 3 No votes. (Vivian Mason was absent.)
The Resolution to cooperate with the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District, other cities and the county and drawing up a vision plan for the creek is called on a roll call vote. All 8 commissioners present vote Yes.
Question is asked when the citizen appointments will be made. Answer is "yesterday" or next day or so. Result is that the commissioners will be appointing people they already know and want to serve, rather than the general public getting a chance to make themselves available.
Meeting adjourns at 8:30pm.