New Britain Borough

Appointment Advisory Committee

Meeting Notes of 6/23/2016

The meeting opened at 7:30pm with the Pledge of Allegiance

Attending were Peg Remmey, Derek MacMillan, Lorraine Moxey, Jo Schuler, Frank Lombardo, Robyn Keleman, Bob Bair, Sam Bryant, Halsey White

Sam reported that the one volunteer applicant for the CBC is a non-resident business person from Chalfont. Since residence is a requirement for the open position we will wait for response from a qualified candidate. Sam will thank the volunteer and explain the reason he is not being considered.

The CBC has not yet submitted the list of qualities they are looking for in successful candidates.

Frank offered that the AAC's committee work will be most valuable to the Borough in screening the applicants for Planning Commission, Zoning Hearing Board, Borough Council, and [upon request from the Manager] Borough Staff, in order to avoid or mitigate deadlock in the selection process due to multiple competing volunteer applicants. The AAC by consensus adopts this as the priority mission we accept. Most of the other Borough Committees [entities] operations are projects entailing less statutory impact and more environmental or programmatic activities ; for these it is likely that Chairs will recommend candidates.

In discussing first principles for the AAC the following points were raised:

• The importance of having each applicant attend a committee meeting to introduce themselves and to familiarize with that committee's process and membership. by Halsey
• The AAC has a role to Assess applicants independently, Not to 'Rubber Stamp' decisions. by Robyn
• The candidates should be assessed on skills, interpersonal competence and motivations not on popularity, partisanship or prejudice. Candidates should be given unbiased, fair evaluation. by Halsey
• Each Borough Committee has its own selection/exclusion criteria defined by law by Sam
• The AAC must be alert to candidates' personal agenda or specific philosophy in relation to the work of the committee who's vacancy is being filled, to avoid making a harmful recommendation. by Jo

We then discussed the Decision Matrix as a means of uniformly evaluating applicants for specific committee needs. The Committee Chairs have been requested to submit a short list of qualities desirable in committee members. Mike Stanislaw has submitted such a list. Request to go out again, ask for 'Weight' In using the Matrix we learned that the members' target Qualities must be given a 'Weighting' to apply this quantitative method. Each Candidate is then evaluated by AAC members individually; on each of the Qualities. Rating candidates will be done secretly at the interview. The Rating will be done on a Pre-arranged scale eg. 1 to 10 or 1 to 5 [Consensus Most Useful] or 1 to 3 the confidentiality of the decision is maintained as no tally to arrive at the result is done until members email their Ratings to the person doing the Composite Score.

Sam reported that there were no new applications received for the Planning Commission vacancy. The one resident who initially requested consideration by sending a letter, was asked for additional information [a completed application] by Sam. Unfortunately the request went unanswered. Since he was unresponsive the committee was left with one volunteer applicant to recommend Peg Remmey. As Peg has been on Council, has attended Planning meetings, and this committee knows her and her motivation, by consensus and without opposition we will recommend her to council July 12.

AAC Chairman will attend 7/12 Council Meeting to deliver the committee's recommendation.

We then discussed Advertising for filling Vacancies on Borough Committees [HPC, Parks, CBC]

Meeting Adjourned 8:30

No open applicants for consideration for at least 4 openings

No Meeting scheduled for July if applications are received I will send notice [tentative date = 07/28/16 7:30pm]

Halsey White

Addition to the Minutes of 06/23/16 For AAC information

The following Qualities were sent by Mike Stanislaw as important for Planning Commission Membership

Copied from Mike's email to Sam on or about 05/30/16

Here is a couple of key points I would like to see in any potential candidate:

• Strong interest in taking part in creating the future development direction of the borough.
• Ability to take competing ideas and proposals and create mutually beneficial decisions for the borough.
• Able to view and understand at a general level, various types of architectural/land development plans, and maps.
• Ability to critically review ideas and proposals as compared to the boroughs future vision through its comprehensive plan.
• Clear communication skills

I look forward to meeting the two current applicants in our next meeting

Additionally Sam sent a list of Current Members of Planning Commission to Mike which Follows:

The current Planning roster is:

Mike Stanislaw, Chairman (term expires December 2017)

Karl Dietrichs, Vice Chairman (term expires December 2019)

Bob Binkley, Council Liaison (term expires December 2017)

Rich Eggleston (term expires December 2017)

Loren Frasco (term expires December 2019)

David Holewinski (term expires December 2019)

Richard Moxey (term expires December 2017)

Michael Parke (term expires December 2019)

Vacant position (term expires December 2019)

….......................................................................... Non-voting participants include:

Lynn Bush/Matt Wolters, Planning Consultant

Carrie Gamble, Borough Secretary

Tom Yatsky, Zoning Officer

Sam Bryant, Borough Manager