MINUTES OF THE METRO' S TRANSITION ADVISORY TASK FORCE MEETING

December 19, 2001

Metro Council Annex

Members Present:  Jeff Condit (Chair), Jeff Alden, Gary Blackmer, Rob Drake, Rick Gustafson, Michael Jordan, Ted Kyle, Don McClave

Members Absent:  Judie Hammerstad, Matt Hennessee, Larry Hildebrand, Felicia Trader

Others Present:    Doug Schmitz, Lake Oswego City Manager (for Judie Hammerstad), Presiding Officer Bragdon, Executive Officer Burton, Councilor McLain, Councilor Burkholder, Auditor Dow

1.  Jeff Condit convened the Metro Transition Advisory Task Force meeting at 3:00 p.m.

2.  Consent Agenda

Consideration of Minutes of the November 26, 2001 Metro Transition Advisory Task Force

Meeting.

2.  Local Governance Models

Chair Condit reviewed the forms of local government (found in the meeting packet). They included the council manager - much like most cities in Oregon, mayor council -similar to Beaverton model, commission form of government - City of Portland, town meeting - common in New England and representative town meetings - similar to the New England model. Metro's current form of government was not part of the models presented but was more like mayor council where there was an elected executive and an elected policy boss. He called for questions.

3.  Issues and Concerns

Chair Condit asked how the committee should proceed.

Jeff Alden suggested taking Chair Condit's memo and adding things suggested by other committee members. Chair Condit had incorporated a lot of the issues that others had addressed in his document.

Chair Condit asked the committee to identify additional issues as they reviewed his memo. He would then update the memo and utilize this as a future framework. His review began with Charter interpretation similar to an initiative, looking first at the text and context of the Charter itself, then reviewing the legislative history if the text was unclear which included the ballot title, the explanatory statement and the arguments in favor and against. The Charter prescribed what the committee's authority was and the committee's job was to fill in the blanks, not recreate the form. He looked at the actual language in the Charter and what it left for the committee to decide. There were four categories: the role and authority of the Council President verses the Council, the role and authority of the Council verses the Chief Operating Officer, the Metro Council's relation to staff and hiring of the Chief Operating Officer. He noted that the legislative policy authority of the Council President verses Council was one of equals. The charter provided that the President presides over the Council, sets the agenda subject to rules established by Council ordinance, and otherwise had the same right to vote and participate in the proceeding.

He shared his experience concerning this type of structure where the mayor had used the agenda setting power to control the business that came before the council. This created a lot of conflict until it was resolved between the council and the mayor as to how the council could bring legislation before the council. There were two ways this was done: one, there was a provision on the council for each councilor to bring up business that could be decided at a later meeting or second, there was a process where a portion of the council could compel the mayor to put an item on the agenda if they all signed a letter or voted. This was a way for council to bring forward business that mayor wouldn't necessarily put on the agenda. The committee might want to consider Council's policies for running the meeting and setting the agenda. He suggested that they review current bylaws and see if there was need for revision. The Council currently elected the Presiding Officer so this process may work well right now as he or she had to be responsive to the Council.

Rob Drake felt that Chair Condit was right on the mark. He had been both a part-time elected policy maker as a city councilor and full-time in chief executive role as mayor. He noted Michael Jordan had also had this type of experience. He acknowledged that there was always some natural friction between council and the chief executive. In order to transition from one role to the other, he had met with all of the city managers in Washington County to get their feedback. They reinforced that he was now the chief executive, he needed to be sure that he was the gatekeeper. They suggested that the gate always be open so if someone needed information, it be responded to in a timely manner and not controlled. Even though he controlled the agenda, if his council wanted something on the agenda, he would make every effort to place the item on the agenda.

He also recommended resolving access to staff and how it was done. He said it was difficult for any staff person to say no to an elected official. He realized that elected officials were perceived as very powerful by staff. He suggested that the Council should have to agree that there was a protocol. Other than direct Metro Council staff people, he suggested all staff were employees of Metro. They may be assigned to a Councilor or to the Council but there still needed to be a gatekeeper to shield staff from political issues, abuse, or favoritism. He thought they should work for the Chief Operating Officer (COO). This was a group decision but this would allow some collective oversight. The Council President was the conduit to the COO but that staff should serve under the COO.

Mr. Alden suggested that Mr. Drake had raised another issue in his discussion, the role of the Chief Operating Officer to the Council President.

Mr. Drake said he was not worried that the Chief Operating Officer may not be hired by January 1, 2003. If it couldn't be done, he thought the agency would be in good hands with Pete Sandrock until that person could be appointed. He felt Mr. Sandrock understood who his new boss would be effective January 1, 2003, the Council President. If all of the elections went until November 2002, it would be difficult to get a COO on board by January 1^st.

Chair Condit concurred. If in May, they knew who the council was going to be they could get started on recruiting the COO. He felt if there were contested races, the Council should wait to recruit the COO until after the November election. There was a lot of preliminary things that could be accomplished before recruitment began but felt it would be difficult to develop even a job description before the new Council was selected.

Mr. Alden asked if they needed to make recommendations with respect to the Metro attorney and each of the other three positions?

Chair Condit suggested that they discuss this issue. He felt that the attorney's job was more circumscribed. He noted that the Charter did indicate that the Council appointed the Metro attorney but did not lie out who appointed the attorney's staff. He felt the Task Force needed to make a recommendation on that issue. He said, as a former city attorney, the attorney needed to appoint their staff, but they needed to be subject to the personnel policies adopted by the organization so there was no friction.

Rick Gustafson commented on the question of hiring. He suggested that the process for recruitment of the COO be thorough, thoughtful and that there was agreement among the Council as to process. He asked if there was history on why the Charter specified that the attorney was separately appointed?

Chair Condit said that was his recommendation. He said he participated in one of Governor Roberts' forums. He thought it was important to have the attorney appointed by the Council instead of the manager to have a checks and balance. He spoke to his experience as a city attorney. It had been his job to help that council fire the city manager. It was difficult for the council to build trust without this appointment authority even though from a legal standpoint the city attorney worked for the organization and not for any of the individuals.

Mr. Drake felt it was a good idea. It provided a dynamic tension. If you had a chief executive who wasn't honest, the attorney was obligated by his or her oath to feel comfortable in questioning the chief executive's action on a day-to-day basis. It allowed the attorney to disagree with the chief executive and not worry about being fired.

Mr. Alden suggested two other issues that needed to be addressed, both raised by Ted Kyle. One issue had to do with the Office for Citizen Involvement, its role, reporting and staffing guidelines.

Ted Kyle said those were issues Metro Committee for Citizen Involvement (MCCI) was currently working on. He suggested that the Task Force might want to weigh in on it. He said they were the only group that advised Metro that looked at everything Metro did. Therefore, MCCI should always be advising the Council as a whole, particularly the Council President. Clarification of this would help MCCI. What its role was had always been a struggle and probably would continue to be a struggle. He didn't think that problem would be solved.

Chair Condit asked about MCCI staff.

Mr. Kyle said they had a part of staff, the Office of Citizen Involvement was in the budget, there was staff allocated to it. MCCI had recently moved to the Council Office and had worked through some transition issues. He felt their needs were being well met. They were now discussing if there was an Office of Citizen Involvement as required by the charter, what would it really be and ultimately what could it really do? This was a broader question that was going to take some time to work out. He shared some ideas about what it could be and how it could work into the normal work functions and not require more staff just a different focus. The other issue was the transition of support for other major advisory committees such as Metro Policy Advisory Committee (MPAC).

Mr. Alden spoke to the role of the staff uncertainty issue and the Task Force's role in this. He was unsure this issue should this be addressed by the Task Force?

Mr. Drake said that Mr. Kyle had indicated that MCCI would have a report on what to do out soon. He said the Beaverton fostered citizen involvement in their city and had a very active neighborhood network with 2 1/2 full time staff. He noted that citizens were advisory. Beaverton had made a conscious choice on the number of staff. He would still want the Council to decide this. He agreed with Mr. Kyle suggestions and felt it was an important component of the agency.

Chair Condit said his initial thought were that all policy committees needed to report directly to the Council because the Council remained the policy body. The staff for the committees should be within the purview of the administrative office as directed by the Council.

Doug Schmitz representing Judie Hammerstad introduced himself.

Don McClave introduced himself and spoke to the business community's interest in this transition. They had been instrumental in the Charter change in 1992. He shared some history about Council staffing.

Gary Blackmer expressed concern about the removal of the Chief Operating Officer. He felt the language was very ambiguous, "COO serves at the pleasure of the Council and is subject to removed by the Council President with the concurrence of the Council." He said this sounded as of the COO was an "at-will" position like a city manager. He said the language suggested that the Council President could remove the COO without Council approval.

Chair Condit said he felt this language was somewhat unfortunate because the reality was that no one could get hired without the full Council's approval and no one could get fired without the full Council approval. The problem with that language suggested that everything up to that decision be solely within purview of the Council President. He thought, if this was the tactic they took, they were setting themselves up for disaster. The full Council needed to be involved from day one in the hiring process and needed to be involved from day one in the firing process. He shared some concerns about make sure all Councilors knew about termination issues. He thought it was important that the Task Force give a strong recommendation on both of those two issues, despite the language in the Charter, the real power lay in the full Council and the full Council needed to be involved in both of those decisions.

Mr. Alden said, from a legal standpoint it looked analogous to the U.S. President's right to appoint cabinet members or federal judges. The initial recommendation had to come from the Council President with then the advise and consent of the Council. He suggested that any Council President who didn't involve the Council, especially on the hiring part, was going to be spending time fighting over the issue.

Mr. Blackmer said that Council could choose not to confirm the selection. He also expressed concern about the ambiguity of the language in the Charter. He thought the language for hiring and firing should be parallel.

Michael Jordan said parallel language was in a variety of sections and expressed concerned about the power of the Council President. The Task Force did not have the ability to change the Charter language.

Chair Condit suggested that they confer with Mr. Dan Cooper. There was significant ambiguity.

Dan Cooper, General Counsel, responded to Task Force concerns. He noted that the Council, when the measure was referred to the voters, was itself somewhat divided on this very subject. There were competing voices on the Council as to how to handle this question. He thought that interpreting "at the pleasure of" as an indication that this was a political appointment helped with the ambiguity of the language. The removal process was political. The mechanism the Council President and the Council had was a check and balance on each other. The majority of the council could not terminate on its own but the President could not terminate unilaterally without the concurrence of the Council. If the majority of the council had a problem with the COO, they would need to sit down with the Council President and express their concern.

Mr. Drake asked Mr. Cooper about termination and the need for it to be a public vote.

Mr. Cooper said yes if it were a true termination, to be legally effective, it would have to go back to the Council.

Mr. Drake said even though the position was "at-will", it could be done without question because the COO served at the pleasure of the Council President.

Mr. Cooper said the use of the "at the pleasure of" was also intended to be a strong indicator that the COO job was to keep the entire Council happy and not just the Council President.

Mr. Drake said his concern was that there wouldn't be some kind of public acknowledgement so that the public could know what was going on.

Mr. Cooper said the most probable scenario would be resignation that would not require a vote.

Mr. Drake said he thought that if there was going to be a termination that the public had the right for a public vote.

Mr. Cooper said you couldn't avoid the public meeting law if there was going to be a formal termination.

Mike Burton, Executive Officer, said they had a similar discussion when the Office of Legal Counsel was created.

Mr. Cooper said it was a bit different and explained the difference, the attorney was appointed by the Executive and confirmed by the Council but subject to termination by either body. This helped solve the trust issue; he didn't want any question that would favor either body.

Mr. Drake asked for further clarification.

Mr. Alden said he didn't think "at the pleasure of the Council" was ambiguous. The propose/dispose dichotomy was fairly clear.

Chair Condit said he thought the ambiguity came with how much the President chooses to involve the Council in the decision, particularly the hiring decision.

Mr. Blackmer urged that these thoughts be put on paper.

Mr. Cooper said this was a good suggestion, he thought some of the ambiguity was intentional.

Chair Condit asked Mr. Cooper about the appointment of committees, commissions and boards.

Mr. Cooper spoke to the appointment power, who got appointed and explained why. They were not intending to get into the confirmation issue with the current Charter language.

Chair Condit suggested that Mr. Cooper's thought was that the Council decided more than just the ones that were subject to confirmation in the Charter.

Mr. Cooper said he thought that the Council had that power.

Mr. Drake said, in our city, the mayor appointed all boards and commissions but the council confirmed them. He had invited council to be involved in the process. It seemed to work well, confirmation provided balance.

Mr. Cooper said the intent was that the appointment came from the Council President not the Council.

Don McClave said he agreed with Mayor Drake's approach and explained the situation at the City of Portland. He thought the President should bring forth nominees but they should be confirmed by the Council.

Mr. Cooper said he did not think that was inconsistent but it would be beneficial to put together a formal analysis which explained where this was. This became the history.

Mr. Kyle asked if this could be put into the Committee Ordinance or was it already there?

Mr. Cooper said yes, the current ordinances creating committees; boards and commissions all required Council confirmation.

Mr. Kyle said he would support this process.

Mr. Cooper said it was important to acknowledge the interpretation.

Chair Condit said he had misinterpreted this and thought clarification was important. He spoke to the Council President's powers and suggested an annual retreat to lay out rules and responsibilities, to come up with some agreements on how things would happen, to resolve some of the role issues such as who would be the gatekeeper with staff. Would it all go through the Council President, would the Council be able to contact staff directly? His rule of thumb was that his office was open to anyone. But if it was going to involve a substantial amount of his time and/or it was in the direction which was against council policy, that they would have to get another three votes to direct him to do the work. It was important to have that discussion and understanding up front.

Mr. Kyle added that this idea that Council got together an adopted rules of engagement was a good one. Discussion on the role of Council subcommittees and their power to direct staff might add to the process.

Mr. Alden said he wasn't sure how many governmental bodies used retreats. In the private sector it was a very common thing to do. He thought talking through global issues in an uninterrupted forum was a good idea.

Mr. Drake noted that a retreat became a public meeting in the public sector. The retreat often included the press, this sometimes limited discussion. There were minutes taken and the meeting taped.

Mr. McClave felt that retreats could be a slippery slope but he argued that the Task Force's highest priority was to recommend a day-to-day operating system that facilitated the close working relationships. He thought the President's request for consensus was a good idea, if you had an operating system that required consensus on policy matters, it greatly helped.

Chair Condit said they could suggest a rule on this but it had to be a discussion among Council. One of the things that had been preliminarily a problem in his public sector experience was who was going to be the spokesperson. It naturally devolved onto the Council President but if there was disagreement, how did this get resolved?

Mr. McClave said it was pretty difficult to legislate good day to day working relationships.

Mr. Kyle said you could have a rule but that won't necessarily shut people up and you could have an agreement in principle but if in the end they were energized they would talk about it. He thought the process of having the talk either at a retreat or meeting was important because it helped build understanding that they needed to work together as a team and once things were decided they needed to let it go. This was hard for some people to do.

Chair Condit said there would be some different roles here, particularly when you had some carry over Councilors weren't going to be used to. The Executive Officer was the spokesperson now, this would change and the Council won't elect the Council President.

Mr. Blackmer suggested that there were some rules that the Task Force did not have to deal with.

Chair Condit concurred. He then spoke to the authority of the Chief Operating Officer. There was no prescribed authority in the Charter. It was all established by Council ordinance. He noted the title as well as the ballot title and what it suggested. The position assumed the functions of the Metro Executive Officer. He asked the Task Force how much authority should the Chief Operating Officer have? Who should appoint whom? He suggested that they should have the same authority as a city manager and was responsible for all of the staff. He continued that the Chief Executive Officer was the Chief Administrative Officer, the person who was responsible for the day-to-day management of the agency.

Mr. Drake said this was how he currently understood the role of COO and noted Pete Sandrock's current role, similar to a city manager. They made many policy decisions everyday, interpreted policy or directed someone to take care of an issue. He thought if you were going to hire a COO, let him or her run the agency. The Council gave the policy oversight and made the right kind of recommendations or suggestions when thing weren't being take care of.

Chair Condit said there were specific items like setting the budget, authority to purchase which were part of the COO responsibilities. He noted in the packet (Section 4), there was a model ordinance of the responsibility of a city manager and suggested going through the ordinance and discussing which powers the COO should have. He suggested that the Metro Council needed to adopt a similar ordinance before they went out and hired someone because that would significantly effect the pool of candidates who were going to want the job. He read the job description and powers of the city manager position.

Mr. Alden summarized putting all of these position descriptions in the issues list and going through them point by point.

Chair Condit said the question was not whether the COO ought to have these authorities, he thought they should, but how much participation in some of these issue by the Council President should there be, most notably preparation of the budget.

Mr. McClave said, it was a full-time job. He noted #M which gave the COO flexibility to move forward. He asked whether the COO would have to send what s/he spent money on through a council consent agenda.

Mr. Jordan felt the consent agenda was the biggest joke going. He said the best way to do this was to give them purchasing authority, if they screwed up, you fired them.

Chair Condit suggested the Council could retain some of the contracting authority either a money limit or a class of contracts.

Mr. McClave asked about the auditor and attorney roles.

Mr. Blackmer said the auditor was elected.

Mr. Jordan added that the attorney reported to the elected body because they generally represented the agency.

Mr. Drake said Metro had an elected auditor, under Oregon law, his city budget was audited by an independent third party.

Mr. McClave said his question had to do with the independence of the oversight functions.

Mr. Kyle said the auditor's role had been a subject of considerable amount of debate in the last year on budget authority because the Council set the auditor's budget. He suggested letting Council and the auditor work this out.

Mr. Alden suggested adding Sections 5 and 6 to the power's discussion.

Chair Condit reviewed section 5.

Mr. Blackmer asked for clarification about the Council President versus the Executive. He felt there was confusion in the public's mind. He thought the executive position would be voting member as well. He spoke to the authority of the COO and what had been taken away from the Council President.

Chair Condit said he didn't think it was 100% clear in the Charter because there were no prescribed powers for the COO but if you looked at the ballot title, the explanatory statements, they clearly talked about the elected policy body and an appointed professional manager. This was sold as a switch to a council manager form of government. He suggested another model where the Council President would be in charge and there be a Clerk of the Council. He did not think that was direction of the discussion when he was involved in the development process. That was not the way it was sold to the voters.

Mr. McClave said the Council delegated all of the power that the Chief Operating Officer had. The Council could change that power.

Mr. Blackmer said the Council could delegate that power to the Council President.

Mr. McClave said these were staffing functions. This was the difference between the executive and an operating person.

Mr. Alden said, other than the Council President and the Council being elected, this model looked liked a corporate model where the chief operating officer was president of the company, the council president was the chief executive officer and chairman of the board and members of the board. The board and the chief executive officer in a corporate model assigned powers to the COO.

Mr. Drake said the closest model was Washington County. He felt Commissioner Tom Bryant had a strong influence on what happened even though Charlie Cameron ran it on a day to day basis.

Mr. Blackmer expressed concern about how the Chief Operating Officer operated. He thought there would be a lot of turn over.

Chair Condit said the best way to describe it would be a competent Council President would be running the show but a weak Council President won't destroy the organization.

Mr. McClave said this was a good reason for the majority rule issue.

Mr. Blackmer said they needed that clarification.

Mr. Jordan said every public manager knew they were "at-will" and could be fired, learning balance between the management and political worlds.

Chair Condit said most managers would have a contract. He felt a contract was the best way to do it.

Mr. Blackmer said he wasn't sure a contract was the best way to do it.

Chair Condit said it was cheaper than litigation.

Mr. Blackmer said accountability seemed to be defused in this model.

Mr. Kyle spoke to section 5.

Chair Condit spoke to the Lake Oswego charter; its provision was better. It said they couldn't interfere with the hiring and firing of department chairperson but they could speak to the management of the agency.

Mr. Drake said they had a similar provision and gave an example of the roles.

Mr. Kyle concurred with Chair Condit on this issue.

Chair Condit suggested discussing who worked for whom. The Council had the power to decide which officers reported to it and which officers reported to the COO. He felt that all of the department directors should report to the COO. The bigger question was should the Council be able to appoint their own staff. He was less decided about, his preference was that Council needed to have staff assigned to it that would do its job but it was better for the organization that they all report to the COO. Some of the Councilors expressed concerns about these issues. He felt that the last group you wanted making personnel decisions was elected policy makers.

Mr. Alden said, if you had the Council appointing their own people, you created imbalances in workflow.

Chair Condit thought they needed to entrust government to the COO and the Council had the power to take it back.

Mr. Blackmer thought elected officials needed to have a sense of accountability to their constituents that elected them. They tended to want and need people that they trust in those positions. If Council was in an oversight role, they were going to want to have their own independent investigations.

Mr. Drake asked if the auditor hired her own staff?

Mr. Blackmer responded that she went through the personnel process but ultimately she made the decision.

Alexis Dow, Metro Auditor, said her employees were at-will.

Mr. Blackmer asked if they had a personal services contract with Ms. Dow?

Ms. Dow responded that they were at-will employees but she hired them through the Personnel Office.

Mr. Jordan said they had staff assistants, they had the worst of all worlds, and the staff was classified confidential, at-will employees. It was a nightmare situation. They technically were hired, fired disciplined by the county administrator but they worked directly with each individual commissioner. This was the worst of all worlds.

Mr. Blackmer asked if this wasn't being suggested as a model for Metro?

Mr. Jordan said he did not know what the right model was, there were good and bad points for each model. He thought elected officials all had come to the job with a desire to do something. In a council manager form of government they generally felt impotent until they had been there long enough to have learned that they had a broad enough information base to have power. When they first came to the job they had almost no information and hence no power. The council manager form made it tougher for them, to know more, investigate more. They didn't have a staff to rely on. The flip side of that coin was, if you give them staff, their own resources, it could be a nightmare if they were all doing their own things. He suggested a balance between the two models.

Mr. McClave shared his experiences with that type of model.

Chair Condit said the larger organization was still going to be the one with the information. If you created independent positions, that information could be shut out to the individuals as well.

Mr. Burton said there was a need for a flow of information, a need to respond to constituents and a need to schedule his or her time. There needed to be administrative support for the Council members. He felt the role of the Council President was to see that those services were provided to the council. He suggested having a central functional office take care of these duties.

Mr. Jordan said there was information about splitting the chief of staff's roles, an operations arm and a legislative arm.

Presiding Officer Bragdon said that this was the current Council Office model.

Mr. Jordan said Mr. Burton brought up good points, you could avoid a lot of distrust if Councilors felt that they had some degree of ability to develop policy positions, deal with constituents. He suggested an office of legislative aid. He asked, should this office be managed by the COO as a department or by the Council President?

Chair Condit suggested this be added to the issues list.

Mr. Gustafson said the reality was that he found it was always better when they were professionally supported. The notion of a Council staff for those functions that Mr. Burton noted was a good idea.

Mr. Blackmer felt that if the elected officials had their own staff it made their work less. A lot of those issues concerning public policy could be talked about and analyzed before you went out in the public. The discourse was much more intelligent if you had staff that had worked through issues and briefed councilors.

Chair Condit felt that they needed to have staff, the question was who did they work for and what was the reporting process.

Mr. Jordan said he had a bias towards having everything go through the COO. One of the reasons he felt this way was that he thought the public got multiple opinions about what the policy of the organization was if in fact staff was out doing constituent relations for individual councilors.

Mr. McClave agreed with Mr. Jordan's perspective.

Chair Condit spoke to the issue of how much contact could individual Councilors have with staff without the COO or the Council President knowing about it. This was always an issue.

Mr. Jordan expressed caution about too much contact.

Mr. Burton spoke to the ICMA #5. He suggested the committee defining inquiry.

Chair Condit suggested that was how the question was answered. He summarized the hiring and firing timing and process. There were two methods for hiring, either you made the manager the top of the classification plan or you hired them on contract. He supported a contract approach so that you had the non-litigable ability to get rid of them if the Council lost confidence in them. The person in that position needed to have the protection that the contract provided from an arbitrary decision.

Mr. Jordan agreed and added that he thought the COO needed to have some connection to the rest of the organization regarding salary structure and some of the standard public policies that an organization would have. He felt there should be a classification and a salary system for the COO. You negotiate your deal when you get hired, if there were no parameters for the Council regarding that hiring discussion you could create problems for the organization. He felt that it was advantageous for an elected body to have some guidelines.

Chair Condit said you would also have to offer the same benefits, salary was a bit more flexible. He noted that Metro was so unique that it would be very hard to set up a salary range. He suggested some similar organizations such as a city manager of a 2 million-person city, TriMet, or the Port of Portland Director. He said the level of people that apply would be somewhat reflective of the salary and compensation package being offered.

Mr. Blackmer spoke to the risk notion.

Mr. McClave noted the dollars you were dealing with in the organization.

Mr. Gustafson concurred with the need for flexibility; he encouraged the compensation to be blind.

Mr. McClave said there needed to be a clear job description.

Chair Condit called for additions to the list.

Mr. Jordan asked about the appointment of the Deputy. He noted it was an annual organization resolution.

Chair Condit said he assumed it would be the Deputy Councilor President.

4.  Confirmation of Schedule and Revised Work Plan for 2002

The Task Force discussed the meeting schedule. Chair Condit said they would be meeting on January 9, 2002 with the full council. There was question about meeting time and day. The clerk said the task force had agreed to every Wednesday at 3:00 p.m. at the last meeting and asked if there was a vice chair. Chair Condit appointed Jeff Alden as Vice Chair. He noted that February 6, 2002 could be a conflict for him.

Chair Condit said Wednesday's were difficult for Matt Hennessey.

5.  Citizen Communications

There were none.

There being no further business to come before the Metro Transition Advisory Task, Mr. Alden moved to adjourn, Mr. McClave seconded the motion. Chair Condit adjourned the meeting at 4:58 p.m.

Prepared by,

Chris Billington

Clerk of the Council

Attachments to the Public Record for the Meeting of December 19, 2001

The following have been included as part of the official public record: