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Mr. Pryor appreciated Ms. Solomon's suggestions. He agreed that all members of boards and commissions <br />should start at the same time and endorsed the July date mentioned by Ms. Solomon. He also supported holding <br />a Citizens Academy or orientation of some sort and suggested that could occur in July as well. He believed an <br />orientation was crucial to new members' success and their ability to serve effectively. He said the school <br />district's system worked because by the time the council got to the three - minute presentation, it had considerable <br />information from the application, making the application itself more critical. He believed the presentation merely <br />solidified the application. <br />Mr. Pryor wanted to ensure that applications were made available as widely as possible and commended the <br />current display ads in the newspaper. He suggested that parent- teacher site councils could also be used to spread <br />the word and stressed the importance of making the application process easier. He said the on -line process could <br />be critical to realizing that goal. He thought the council should fine -tune the existing process to make the <br />recruitment effort as broad as possible. <br />Mr. Zelenka spoke to the recruitment process, calling for more and different outreach. He noted the narrow <br />demographics of City boards and commissions but acknowledged it was difficult to secure more diversity when <br />applicants were self - selected and some areas of the community were more inclined to apply than residents of <br />other areas. However, he did not want to change that because he did not think it could be changed. <br />Mr. Zelenka liked the idea of having people making short presentations. He did not get much value from the <br />questions currently being asked. He thought all candidates should appear at the same meeting. However, that <br />required more homework on the part of both the council and the applicants. He suggested that the council could <br />require a resume or the City could provide a one -page form for applicants to complete that served the same <br />function. <br />Mr. Zelenka thought the council needed to notify applicants more quickly in regard to whether they had been <br />selected. <br />Mr. Zelenka spoke of the council's interaction with its boards and commissions, suggesting that the current level <br />of interaction was unsatisfactory. He proposed that the council might want to schedule regular quarterly half - <br />hour work sessions with all its boards and commissions, as well as require more regular written reports. <br />Mr. Poling determined from Ms. Ortiz that her remarks about the criteria had been focused on the application <br />forms and her concerns about redundancy, but she envisioned the same type of voting process the council <br />currently employed. <br />Mr. Poling suggested the council could modify the questions on the application forms but he did not envision a <br />significant change in the current preliminary screening process. He supported the idea of a three- to five- minute <br />applicant presentation but did not think the council should vote on the applicants that same evening. He wanted <br />more time to think about the applicants and perhaps compare notes with other councilors before making a <br />decision at the next meeting. <br />Mr. Poling agreed with Mr. Zelenka that the time for making a decision needed to be shortened. He agreed with <br />Ms. Solomon's recommendation for a July 1 start date for all terms, particularly for Budget Committee members, <br />pointing out that in the current system, they were "thrown right into the fray." He also concurred with Ms. <br />Solomon's suggestion that the terms of current boards and commissions members could be extended to <br />accommodate the change. <br />MINUTES —City Council June 8, 2009 Page 6 <br />