[BoulderCouncilHotline] Board and Commission Interview Process Update

[Davis, Pamela]

Note: This message is being sent on behalf of the Boards and Commissions Council Subcommittee

Good Afternoon Council Members and HOTLINE followers,

The Board and Commission Council Subcommittee met yesterday afternoon to discuss the feedback from Tuesday's study session along with follow-up messages received from individual council members. We discussed the outstanding issues of clarifying the nomination process and who should be present to conduct the interviews the week of February 28. For clarity and community transparency, we have determined the following adjustments to the selection process, while remaining open to further changes in future annual cycles.

Nominations: To simplify this process, council members will be asked to make verbal nominations during the meeting of March 8th. No advance emails need to be sent to indicate an intention to nominate candidates prior to the meeting.

Interviews: Our subcommittee has had additional conversation with many of you, and to balance the interests of scheduling constraints, direct council interaction with candidates, and political considerations we have decided that we will assign pairs of council members to conduct the interviews for boards and commissions with the highest number of applicants, and individual council members to conduct interviews for those with smaller numbers. The boards and commissions to be interviewed by pairs are:

  *   Environmental Advisory Board, Housing Authority, Housing Advisory Board, Human Relations Commission, Open Space Board of Trustees, Planning Board, Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, and Transportation Advisory Board
The boards and commissions to be interviewed by individuals are:

  *   Arts Commission, Beverage Licensing Authority, Cannabis Licensing Advisory Board, Downtown Management Commission, Landmarks Board, Library Commission, and Water Resources Advisory Board
We are also going to set some extra daytime and evening "overflow" appointments for applicants who are unable to make the block of time scheduled for their desired board or commission. These adjustments have resulted in an overall reduction of the number of interviews any one person will conduct while maintaining council representation to support our goals of improving Board and Commission connections with council. A new schedule of interviews has been released, and we encourage staff and council to double check that the new adjustments will work with their schedules. We are allotting applicants two minutes to respond to each of three questions, with the intention of a total of ten minutes or less per interview. Invitations will be sent to applicants Friday (February 25) morning.

Additional Items Discussed During the Study Session: The team has also shortened the time slots for interview appointments, rebalanced the schedule, amended the interview questions, extended recruitment for the five boards that did not have more applicants than vacancies (Boulder Junction Access District-parking, Boulder Junction Access District-Travel Demand Management, Design Advisory Board, University Hill Commercial Area Management Commission, and Board of Zoning Adjustments), and will send messaging to applicants encouraging them to consider applying for one of those five boards if they are not selected for another. Finally, If any of you wish to conduct your interviews from a city office, we will prepare space for you by request by emailing Taylor Reimann<mailto:reimannT at bouldercolorado.gov?subject=Space%20Requested%20for%20B&C%20Zoom%20Interviews>.

We thank those of you who took the time to consider how we could make this pilot approach to the interview process most successful and did our best to balance all the feedback we received. As a reminder, we have a longer discussion planned to talk about more aspects of Boards and Commissions during the April 19 council meeting including our work to forward the city's racial equity plan goals, assess the scope of existing boards and commissions, and address additional procedural improvements.

Sincerely,

Lauren Folkerts and Tara Winer
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