Board of Aldermen 04-23-2019 Page 14
Secondly, you can no longer access the data records, the public records in the Assessing Office directly. You
have to fill out a form and submit it and wait for them to comply with those. | Know Laura has been waiting for
data. She may have started to get some, but it took a while. | feel I’ve never abused it, and | am always willing
to work with them if they are busy and need a couple of days to do what. I’ve always done that in the past.
When this rule came about about three weeks ago, | didn’t put any cards in because I’d been working on a
huge swath of data — 800 data points that I’d be able to bring to the Board of Assessors to make a pretty
compelling argument to look at outsourcing the technical aspects of the department. | need to prove my data a
little bit by looking at files. | went in yesterday and dropped off a list of files | would like, and it was 50 which is
a lot for me. But, | said | will take them in groups of ten, however you can do them. But it’s different. I’m not
certain restricting is really the way to go and that’s what we were hoping to do. Remember, you folks in your
management audit report set up the department this way. Kim will say: “Well, we are short staffed.” Well that’s
because you chose not to hire a chief because you said you didn’t need one. Any other staffing issues that
were going on in that office, | don’t think were addressed. If the administration had brought you the five-year
staffing versus the current staffing you'd, | think, realize your short other positions. But that wasn’t presented in
the report. The short staffing can’t be put on the public to say: “Hey, you know, enough. Back off. We're not
going to give you information. We're busy. We're short” because it was your choice. There’s nothing we can
do about it. | think that’s important.
After the last meeting, | attended the coffee at JajaBelle’s. | asked the Mayor a question about outsourcing;
how he felt about it because several aldermen here spoke favorably about looking at that. | really do want to
look at that for a number of reasons, but | didn’t know what the Mayor’s position was. He was kind enough to
speak to it a bit. He did mention that when you do outsource, you lose control of the situation. It was an
interesting choice of words to me. It peaked my interest as to what he was thinking about, what control we
had. | did send him an email to ask specifically what he was thinking about, and | wasn’t able to get a
response. lI’d ask the aldermen or Trish, as my ward rep, find that out for me. That’s really important to me. If
you're going to have a discussion about this, | hope it’s in the public eye so whatever your concerns are and
anyone else’s, | can hear so if I’m too short-sighted | understand because it’s not something that I’m beating
myself over saying this is what you’ve got to do. | don’t know the right answer either. | just think it’s something
we seriously have to look at for a number of reasons.
The Administrative Services Director position when that was created as a high level position, you all know |
was concerned because the management in the office wasn’t addressed. | was also concerned at the time
when | took the microphone that it was such an elaborate position it would be hard to hire in from the outside.
Who do you hire? Who do you pick? Listening to the Mayor describe that position tonight, it’s very apparent
that when you brought this report forward, you knew that this was going to be an internal position. Just based
on the way you spoke tonight that you really can’t go outside. The others were internal. It will take six months
to look at applicants and another six months to screen. | feel like all along you were of the mindset that this
was an internal position. | feel we should be more forthright with that information because that’s not how | was
looking at it. | have some real concerns with promoting from within. There was a dialogue on a Facebook
page recently where people spoke. One of your aldermen, Jan, had posted the letter that the Mayor wrote and
it got a number of different responses from people expressing concerns, myself included. | Know Jan’s position
was: Ms. Kleiner, could we find anyone better? She’s so qualified, outstanding. Well, my position was the
only reason you say that is because you haven't looked at anyone else and you haven't screened any
applicants. How do you know? You haven't looked anywhere. Now | realize we’re really not going to look
anywhere probably.
I’m disappointed in that because | feel like it was a report done by the person doing the report who carves a
position for themselves in this management chain, which | don’t think that was what it was supposed to be. To
tell you the truth, | think the Alderman’s, Jan’s position was well, Laurie, you’ve spoken favorably of Ms.
Kleiner. | have. Just because | speak favorably and recognize that somebody works hard, doesn’t mean that |
would pick them for the management position to wear six hats. |’ve had some negative concerns too. Some |
keep to myself, some | don’t. But just because | didn’t come to the microphone to share the negatives doesn’t
mean that | am all on board with the title that you are lining up. | get concerned when people want to put words
in my mouth because | certainly think I’m a person who put my own words out there and don’t need that help.
