Board of Supervisors Adjourned Meeting - Board Retreat   9/9/2020

Okay, we're ready.

All right, good morning everyone.

I'd just like to welcome everyone who's observing.

We're going to actually calling the meeting to order at the moment.

We're waiting for our presenter to log on for the Board of Supervisors retreat, but we did want to let our constituents know that we are here

We are getting ready to start but there will be a brief delay.

So with that, I would ask the clerk to put us back on pause and we will come back online once we're ready to actually get started.

Thank you.

Okay you can go ahead.

All right thank you.

Good morning everyone.

I will call to order the special meeting of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors.

This meeting is being held pursuant to and in compliance with ordinance ordinance number 20-A8 an ordinance to ensure the continuity of government during the COVID-19 disaster.

The supervisors who are electronically present at this meeting are Supervisor Bea LaPisto-Kirtley, Supervisor Diantha McKeel, Supervisor Ann Mallek, and Supervisor Donna Price.

Supervisor Liz Palmer and Chair Supervisor Galloway are able to attend this morning at this time due to other commitments and they will be joining us later in the day.

The persons responsible for receiving public comment are the Board of Supervisors of Albemarle County.

The opportunities for the public to access and participate in the electronic meeting are posted on the Albemarle County website, on the Board of Supervisors homepage, and on the Albemarle County calendar.

I would also like to mention and welcome our County Executive, Jeff Richardson, our County Attorney, Mr. Greg Campner,

This morning's meeting will address contemporary trends in local government.

We have a special presentation by Dr. John Nabaldamian, professor emeritus from the University of Kansas.

And at this time I will turn the meeting over to Julia Novak, Novak Consulting Group.

Good morning and thank you very much for having us here today.

We're excited to spend our day with you virtually.

I'd much rather be with you in person, but we're all learning to adjust to this new way of being together.

So I'm Julia Novak.

I'm going to be facilitating the workshop today.

My colleague John Nalbandian is going to be the presenter this morning for the workshop on contemporary trends in local government.

And I have another colleague, Julie Giesecke, who is also listening to the conversation.

She's a visual facilitator and she's going to provide some visual captures for us to look at later in the day and to have for our reference.

In the afternoon, I'll also be joined by another colleague, Joshua Salyer.

Only people whose names begin with J can work with us.

Joshua is going to just help with note-taking so we have a good report for you and a record of our time together.

The agenda again this morning, we're going to get right to John's presentation and we'll take a lunch break at noon and I'll go over the rest of all of the important things later, but I want to go ahead and get to John since we have a little bit of a technical issue getting started on time.

Okay.

Thank you all.

I'm very pleased to be here again.

I guess, Jeff, I was there a little while ago with the staff, so

And that was, I thought, a good session.

So thanks for having us.

Thanks for having us back and try to do something a little different this time.

I did look at the website.

I did look at the bios and stuff and

I was quite impressed with the number of collaborative initiatives that you all are engaged in.

And I was particularly struck by the amount of experience that the supervisors, that you all have.

So you're not coming to this activity governing as

as novices.

So that's very helpful and I hope that my goal here is to try to provide some broad brush of trends and challenges that are broad enough to capture a variety of your experiences.

And so that's my goal here.

We're going to look at the two contemporary trends here that I say widen the gap between what's politically acceptable, which is what we want to do, and what is operationally sustainable, which is, can we do it?

This seems pretty reasonable kind of a thing to look at in broad brush.

What do we want to do?

Can we do it?

But it's not that simple.

Because what we've done over the years is, especially like in your form of government, in the form in Charlottesville, what we've tried to do is separate

The arenas of politics, what is it we want to do, and the arena of administration, which I put in all that stuff about, can we do it?

We've separated those for a particular number of purposes, but the one that I think is most important is what we want to do in the structure of your government is to create incentives, structural incentives, so that the administrative staff, the people who advise you,

can tell you what you need to know rather than what you want to hear.

And the way we've done that is to create the separation between political and administrative worlds.

But at the same time, knowing nothing gets done unless we connect those worlds.

And so that's the gap.

And there is a gap exists with every policy initiative.

Some of the gaps are wider, some of the gaps are more narrow, and we can talk about that a little bit.

The gap is in my mind, in the work that I've done, I think that gap is increasing, making it a little more difficult to get things done.

and what that does is it creates some leadership challenges that I associate with the idea of bridging the gap.

So we'll talk about both the trends and the challenges and then hopefully we'll get to the idea of the attitude, the mindset, the talents that it takes to deal with those challenges.

Okay, Julia.

Okay, so here's a graphic that lays this out.

And what I have in the upper right hand corner there

are the contemporary trends.

And I'm going to go over these trends, primarily because I really enjoy talking about them.

Oh, and I do want to remind you that we're going to have discussion questions.

So you're not going to have to be listening to me for an hour and a half.

Don't worry about that.

Okay.

So what happened?

Oh, there we go.

Contemporary trends, there's two contemporary trends that I see.

One is this broad sense of administrative modernization, which is this rapidly changing data-oriented world that we're living in.

And then in a second trend, which seems to be more having to do with the politics of identity.

And we've heard a lot about, we seem now to use the word tribes,

a lot in describing the politics.

The interesting thing about issues of identity is that they often are found, their anchor is often in the past.

And so what we have is this contemporary world that is changing incredibly rapidly

and we have the politics of identity in many ways that is anchored in the past and it creates the gap.

And so what's really important is being able to work in that gap without getting politically captured among the staff and for the elected officials of not diminishing the

the trust that you have with the staff.

So what we have here then, let's see, we've got the gap and then we have the leadership challenges, three leadership challenges in order to bridge the gap.

First, we have to develop bridge building roles and responsibilities.

The second is networked problem solving structures

and the third is engagement processes.

So these are fundamental challenges.

When you think about them, think about what could be more fundamental than saying our roles and responsibilities, our structures and our processes all are undergoing challenges due to the widening of the gap, the more difficult it is to get things done.

And

What is so important is if we are unable to get things done, then it diminishes the trust that people have in government.

So Julie, let's go to the next slide, Julia.

So the next slide.

is just a quick one I put together some years ago.

And on the left, you can see one of the orientations, which I say is learning.

And it's just high and low.

And what I'm talking about there is the ability to do the work.

Okay, so high means a greater capacity to be able to do the work, and low means basic capacity to do the work.

And then on the other line, on the other axis, I have, let's see, time, and I have then and I have now.

and I don't know when then was, but I do know it was before now.

So let's take a look at what has happened here.

Over time, my argument is that over time, the gap has grown and in large measure, the gap has grown because the technical side of the work

has given us more tools, more data, more analytical ways of thinking and doing things than our predecessors had.

So for example, your finance director is so much more capable than

than predecessors of years ago, not because they're smarter people, but because they have incredible tools.

And you can ask them questions that your predecessors as council members could not ask because the data just wasn't available.

So the curve, the learning curve for staff is increasing.

The learning curve for elected officials is not increasing as rapidly.

And I don't mean that in a way of diminishing your motivation, your skills, your talents.

That's not it.

The issue is, the point that I want to make there is the challenges that you have in making decisions, political decisions about

the choices that incorporate the values of your community, it's no easier making those choices today than it was yesterday.

You may have more information, but that still doesn't tell you whether the greater good is more important if it negatively affects a significant minority.

Is there a correct answer to that question?

Think about it.

We could say, we are committed to doing the greatest good for the greatest number over the long haul.

They don't count.

Now, the question is, how much should they count?

You each may have different value systems that say the balance between the greater good, where the minority representation fits into the greater good, it should be equal,

You see what I'm saying.

Those decisions that you have to make are even more difficult for you today because the consequences can be enlightened with data, accurate data that we might not have had before.

And so the gap is growing.

Let's go to the next slide, Julia.

And what you can see there is Julia's folks put this together after hearing me talk about this.

And what we have in effect is we have an hourglass.

And we have the politics at the top.

and that's the politics are entering into the hourglass.

And the administrative side is entering from the bottom of the hourglass.

And there we have a gap.

And the gap is fairly narrow.

So in this case, we can probably get something done.

Because there's not that much space, it's going to be a little easier to do.

Go to the next slide, Julia.

What happened?

The gap increased.

Now, this could actually be the dynamic of a single issue, which starts with you saying, this is fairly simple.

We've got the political, we've got the administrative, we know what we want to do, we can do it, and the gap is narrow and just a few people need to be involved in it and we can make the decision and get it done.

And then all of a sudden, you know, you get some input from another source or you discover something makes it more complicated and the gap widens and it becomes more difficult.

So the idea of managing the gap and being able to work in the gap is really, really important.

It's not news to Jeff because that's Jeff's work.

That's the work of the CAO.

The challenge is that the work has become

So challenging and so complex that it goes beyond the capacity of any single office or individuals, and others get drawn into the gap, including electeds.

And so the better able you are to work in the gap, the more effective things will be.

Okay, so let's take a look at the first trend, which is modernization.

And I'll just go over some of these things.

And then, and then we'll do the, the characteristics of identity too, so you can get a sense of what I'm talking about.

So let's, I'm just going to read these.

Strategic planning, what's it?

And now this is

My friend Bob O'Neill, Jeff knows Bob O'Neill and Julia knows Bob O'Neill, but Bob is a former director of ICMA.

He's this and that.

I mean, he's a guru.

And I present my stuff to him because he worked together and he always corrects me.

And so I'm always of the impression that strategic planning is long term, right?

It's long term places.

No.

No, strategic planning is are you dealing with the most important issues at this time?

And that's what's strategic.

And so what I put there is strategic planning, I've added what is important and connecting administrative processes and data to the strategic goals.

And so COVID-19 is a great example of that, where we have the politics of COVID, the economy, the complications, and then we have the science side as well, and we're trying to bring the two together, okay?

And that's part of this challenge.

So facing and accepting the challenge of organizing around problems, not departments and hierarchy.

So strategies to reduce homelessness, dealing with COVID-19.

These are all indicators of the modernization.

decentralized decision-making for timely responses, significant databases, centralized tools, market orientation, citizen as customer, results-based, quality-based, performance measure, benchmarking.

You've heard all these terms, but many of them are, you know, they're not generations old.

I guarantee you they are not generations old.

Goal-based, team-based, performance-focused, connecting to residents through social media, and then what I think is most important of all is changes in expectation of time.

I can't emphasize that enough.

I mean, think about how the

The mobile devices that we use, think about how they've changed our world, especially how they changed our expectations having to do with time.

Twelve years ago, and think of all the changes

and think then of the changes that our predecessors had to deal with, not in those same periods of time.

So this business of time, data, change is very, very important in terms of a fundamental challenge that we're facing.

Okay, Julia, next slide.

Now, in contrast to that are the indicators of a desire for community and a desire for identity.

So we see an emphasis on branding.

What is unique about our community?

We see more emphasis on neighborhoods as base units of community.

We see more engaging of citizens in administrative processes, phone apps for pothole repair, participatory budgeting exercises, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube channels, all those things.

A focus on us and them, passion in the community, neighborhood, identity issue, tribes,

emphasis on preservation of the past.

And then here's my one of my favorite quotes.

The past viewed in idyllic, wistful, nostalgic terms.

Past nostalgia for the misremembered past is no way to run a government.

especially at a time when we have seen a transition from citizens as feeling as trustees of the greater good to citizens who are assertive and alienated.

So we have this desire to search, create, maintain, and preserve community

fundamentally influenced by our desire for identity.

This is why Make America Great Again resonates.

It strikes an identity theme.

Now, here's another little bit.

We are seeing that issues of identity are obviously very important.

They can be captured

in our fears as well as our hopes.

So what we have is on this identity side is we have this, I'm gonna overstate it, but a tremendous emotional dynamic here.

Politics, national politics are filtering down

to the local level.

We used to say all politics is local.

Now I heard somebody say all politics is national.

So it's getting very complicated now.

Now, no presentation like this would be

would be good without a Walmart example.

So let me talk just a moment about Walmart.

This Walmart was being built in Lawrence a few years ago.

Okay, so just take a look at it.

You're looking at it from the parking lot.

It hasn't been opened yet.

And unmute yourselves.

Can you unmute yourselves?

Yeah.

Good.

So tell me what this facade is supposed to look like.

What's it supposed to remind you of?

Remind me of?

A government building?

A government building.

Almost like a civic center.

How about the facade of a number of small shops?

The shopping center.

The shopping center.

Well, to me, it fails at that.

You don't see that?

No.

Well, when you look and see it, but that's not what I would have seen initially.

And when you have Walmart written on the top, I have to just to come up with

Yeah, so- A little bit.

So in effect, I mean, I don't know if you've dealt with Walmart.

Have you guys dealt with Walmart?

We have one.

Was there controversy about it?

Yes.

We had a lot of controversy regarding ours.

and I really learned when I was, oh I didn't tell you I was on the city council for eight years in addition to my academic work and I was mayor as well.

So I was involved in some of these kinds of things and I learned that for Walmart the idea that time is money is not just a saying.

You know, it's real.

Time is money.

and so eventually they just came to the point of saying, tell us what facade you want to see and we'll do it.

You know, not as easy as that.

But basically, and so what I see here is a facade that is a memorial to all the small businesses that Walmart put out of business.

And we ask them to do that.

Okay?

All right.

So there's just a little bit of humor there.

All right, so let's go to the first challenge.

So we've been through the trends and now I want to talk about the challenges.

First challenge, major challenge.

How do we use the techniques of modernization to build communities of character?

Okay, how do we integrate these two trends?

Is it as simple as putting a facade on a Walmart?

Can hard data replace common sense?

If not, how is common sense acquired?

Rhetorical questions.

Now let's look at the first challenge.

The first challenge, how do we use the techniques of modernization to build communities of character?

Is it as simple as putting a facade on a Walmart?

Okay, let's go to the next slide, Julia.

Challenge one, how to create and reinforce bridge building roles and problem oriented approaches

without inappropriately intruding on the political, this is caution for staff on the bridge, or administrative realms of formal responsibility, that's caution to elected officials on the bridge.

So how to reinforce bridge building roles without compromising staff or the elected officials?

Okay, so now we have a question for you.

Julia, next slide.

Here's your question.

What skills do you think are needed to appropriately work in the gap?

Okay, so what I want to do is I want to give you a few minutes by yourself just to think about your response to this question.

and then what we'll do is we'll talk about it more generally.

We'll have a discussion about it, okay?

So take a few minutes just thinking about it yourself.

Jot down a few ideas if you'd like to.

What skills are needed to appropriately work in the gap?

I have a comment.

It may be a question.

If you went back two slides

That one.

I think in the second little greater than sign down there, whatever you want to call that different type of bullet.

Yeah.

No, you go back to, yeah, no.

Nope.

I think that question, can hard data replace common sense, and if not, how is common sense acquired?

I think it completely overlooks one of the major factors that we're having to deal with today, and that is bias.

People seem to have a bias towards an outcome that is neither hard data, i.e.

facts,

more common sense based.

I read a science fiction story

where the aliens were commenting on human beings, who they called the SLOWs, S-L-O-W.

And they said, the SLOWs are capable of intellectual thinking, but their exaggerated emotionalism dilutes it.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah.

And I think what you're talking about here, again, is the us and them.

And that's, and see, where does that come from?

And see, that's an identity issue.

And see, okay, let me just go, I want to, this is one of my favorites.

It's about change.

And change is loss.

Okay, a lot of times we talk about people are resistant to change, but that's much too general a statement.

The more accurate question is, under what conditions do people oppose change?

So Peter Maris was an anthropologist, and he came up with three categories of change.

The first change is a change that is substitutional in nature, okay?

So maybe you change from an iPhone to an Android, okay?

It's, you know, there's some difficulties, you got to learn some things, but it's not like you go, I'm never going to do that.

All right?

You might say that, but most of us won't, all right?

Or it's like updating a version of some software, okay?

We'll get used to it.

So it's a change, but it's not really resisted because it's substitutional in nature.

A second category of change is and can be

upsetting, but this is the kind of change that is anticipated.

It doesn't mean it's easy, but it's anticipated.

So for example, a high school student moving to a college campus.

So there's a lot of change that's involved there.

It may be an expected transition in their life,

But it will be difficult, okay?

And it may have some resistance to it, but it won't be resisted in the same way for the same number of people as the saying, people resist change.

But there's a third level of change that is resisted, and that's the change that comes with loss.

So a person who perceives a change that is coming with something that they are going to lose is likely to be resisted.

We can't say what exactly the resistance is going to be, but it will be resisted.

And the biggest loss

I'm exaggerating here, but go with me.

I exaggerate a lot.

The biggest loss is loss that is associated with one's identity.

See, and that identity, that identity, especially as we grow older, that identity is anchored in the past.

and the past is reinterpreted all the time depending upon the narrative that we're living in the present.

So, and then go back to, are you really able to create the past as it existed?

Did the past actually exist as an empirical event or how have we reconstructed it and so on and so on and so forth.

And so this is the business of inventing the past to justify the present in a way.

And so that's part of what we're seeing today as we confront

the rapidity of the change and that's why in some ways we have the tribalism, the tribalism that exists.

Okay, any comments on that?

Well I have lots of thoughts but I'll jump in just at the very end to say I think when people feel left behind

and threatened by what they feel they can cope with for any number of different reasons that exacerbates all the things that you've been talking about.

That's a really good point.

And see, this could happen with innovations at work as well.

Someone who's used to doing something in a particular kind of way,

and now something very different comes along and it negates their knowledge.

So for example, in the old days, a public works director might have a hands-on knowledge of the condition of streets, for example, in a particular area.

Now that knowledge is embedded in a database.

So what does he do with his knowledge that he took pride in and others looked to him and respected him for?

That's what we're talking about here.

Okay, so this juxtaposition.

Really a question for you and the question for you, John, would be what you've just talked about

and I won't describe it as well as some of the board members would, but in our community of 725 square miles, large geographic community, we have development zones and non-development zones.

We have 5% of the county, which is about 35 square miles, development area, and then we have the 95% of the area that's non,

there is very stark contrast in our county as you drive across it.

Some of the most stark contrast I've ever seen in my professional career is something that is splendid about this community that holds the character together in a way that it's a real guidepost.

So when you take that and overlay it, does that

Sure, especially citizens.

A lot of times in a lot of places you have differences between newer residents and residents who have been there for quite a while, right?

Newer residents expecting certain things and older residents

having their anchors of their lives in the way we're doing things.

Yeah, they're true.

So what skills do you think are necessary or appropriate to work in the gap?

This space between political and administrative,

All right, let me ask you this question.

Let me put it in a different way.

Think of staff members that you think are really good at moving between the politics and the administration

They don't compromise themselves.

They build trust, but they're still able to go back and forth.

They relate well to you.

They relate well to their staff.

They relate well to the outside.

I can speak to that, if that's okay.

Please.

To me, what I see is someone willing, in that particular instance, willing to tell the board members the truth, what they need to hear, not what they want to hear, but just being factual, open, honest, and not taking sides one way or the other, but just presenting

the facts of the factual matter.

That's what's important what I hear because I have worked with people who will tell me what I want to hear and I don't like that.

I've never liked that.

I just want to know it's like give me the facts just the facts what's going on and then I think you make the best decisions based on that and you make political decisions and you make administrative decisions.

Can these people make your life a little easier?

Are there ways these people can make your life a little easier?

Absolutely, absolutely.

I think that's it.

As I reach out to my constituency, I just tell them, I try to tell them the facts, what I can do, what I can't do.

And I even tell them, you may not always like the way I vote, but I'm going to tell you why I voted that way and be honest with them.

Okay, let's see, Supervisor Mallek, you had your... Yes, I agree that having staff who are brave enough and confident enough to tell me what I don't want to hear and to understand that this is part of making it possible for me to do the best job I can to explain the truth to citizens.

But at the same time, the second part of your question just now

It's not a question to me of making it easier.

I mean, I don't want them to try to make it easier for us to make the decisions we have to make, because that puts them in a trap.

that somehow they're having to modify that whole honesty thing in order to smooth the way.

And so I guess I really appreciate so much when people say, whoa, wait a minute, you don't have all the information.

And my question is always when something comes up and it's a horrifying news of some sort, I always say, okay, I'll find out and find out the rest of the story.

is always important.

There may be things that need to be fixed.

And it may be something hopefully as simple as communication that didn't get all the way through to the person who doesn't understand or needs more information.

And sometimes there may be something more significant that Jeff's going to have to deal with because of that sort of chain of command.

But having people who are not defensive

when questioned, is so important.

And that sort of quiet self-confidence that says, and we have once, I've heard, I'll mention Bart Scoboda's name just because I've seen him in action with groups of really hot under the collar citizens in the last year.

And his wonderful demeanor and he said, folks, I'm just here to tell you the truth.

I'm not going to make you happy because what I have to say is not necessarily going to solve your issue for Airbnb, but here are the facts.

And it was absolutely spectacular that this group of 30 people in the church meeting room, you know, was they certainly understood far better what the circumstances were.

And yes, some of them were placated.

Some of them were still mad, but we did exactly what we needed to do.

to help everybody understand.

Well, that's what I was talking about, Ann, is that it's not that they make our job easy, but by giving us the facts, it personally makes my job easier because now I take the responsibility of having to make a decision one way or the other.

I can't make a decision unless I have the facts.

I don't want

I just want someone to tell me the facts.

The onus falls upon me to make the decision I make based upon the facts.

So that's how they make it.

They make it easy in that I have all the facts to do my job.

And I don't believe in placating at all.

I think also you have to be able to avoid both making and taking things as long as you can focus on the issue rather than personalities.

And people on every side of the equation, not both sides, but every side of the equation are open to actually engaging in meaningful conversation.

There is a segment of our society that is just angry.

And that's more about them than about us.

It's more about them than about what the issue is.

Jeff, let me ask you, thank you all.

Jeff, let me ask you a question.

What do you expect of department heads in terms of connecting with community

That's a wonderful question John because I think about working the gap from the administrative side and our department heads are subject matter experts and we have a number of our department heads who are

on this Zoom retreat today and they are watching and they're watching if their schedule is allowed because they want to learn and grow and they want to be able to do as good a job just like the county executive's office and being able to respond and serve our board and our community.

But in addition to being subject matter experts,

our department heads also have to have what I would visually say is a hand on the pulse.

And it's not a hand on the pulse maybe like our supervisors, but it is a realistic hand on the pulse, a vibe of what is going on in the community and what are our citizens dealing with and what is the mood and the

the vibe of what's going on to where when our department heads are asked and engaged by our board members that our board members feel like that there is some level of political sensitivity and political connectivity to the community that our boards are elected to serve.

And so it's not being political.

but it is being politically sensitive to where a department head is able to talk with a board member and understand a little bit about what that board member may be facing or what that board member is hearing.

And our board is very astute at being able to be connected to all of our different neighborhoods and communities.

And our department heads don't have to be as connected but they do have to have a feel for what that means.

and our county executive's office needs to help with that too.

Okay, I think that's a great way to end this little

This little section here because I'm doing some research and one of the things that we're finding out is that the roles and responsibilities of department heads are changing.

It's sort of like your law enforcement, law enforcement, I guess a sheriff in your case or police chief.

Okay, so you were ahead of the curve, right?

Yep, yep.

But you see that kind of, and think about things, there are other departments too that have so much possible connections with citizens that they really become, it's possible for them to become extensions

very cautious extensions of the governing body in terms of their understanding of the governing body, the political and so on and so forth.

I think of, for example, Parks and Rec.

In our case, I'm on the Parks and Rec board, and my gosh, we do not take advantage of

the idea that Parks and Rec, it's funny, Parks and Rec in Lawrence, Kansas, we're 100,000 people, and our gardens, our public gardens are beautiful.

Our roundabouts are landscaped wonderfully.

And, you know, so I suggested, I'm on the Parks and Rec board, so I suggested to the chair, I mean to the department head,

said, you know what, why don't we take like a five minute video of each of the really prominent gardens in town and have the horticulturists narrate and say how they picked the flowers, how they picked the plants they picked, how they landscaped it, and so on and so forth.

And we could do one of those videos a month.

and in the winter time, people might really appreciate it.

And it would really add some value, enjoyment to the idea.

Now, my sense is why, I think that's, first of all, I think it's a good idea.

But the issue for me is why did me as a board member, why did I think that up?

Why didn't the staff

take advantage of the idea that Parks and Rec is rated so highly in Kansas.

Okay, let's move on.

The second issue is the structural challenge, okay?

Now, this is the realization that problems extend beyond established boundaries.

Again, can you imagine?

I mean, COVID-19 has just totally highlighted the different boundaries that we have, federal, state, local, all the different agencies at the federal level, the international.

I mean, it's all about boundaries.

There's boundaries here.

And the question of contributing to the gap because

because the structures that we have in place are not always designed to deal with the scope of the problem.

So in many ways, the way we organize, like in departments, those are organized according to yesterday's problems.

Okay?

and if we were reorganized, if we were starting, here's the classic question, if we were starting from scratch to organize to govern Albemarle County, would we have the same departments?

Or would there be cross departments?

Would there be this?

Would there be that?

So as the gap

increases, other entities are invited and invite themselves onto the bridge, which complicates life and in a positive sense that produces.

So we've seen shared services among jurisdictions, regional authorities emerge,

cross-sector partnerships, contracting out, privatization.

All of these things, all of these innovations are designed to accommodate the existing boundaries that we have to try to, in a way, to overcome those boundaries.

Okay, let's go to the next slide, Julia.

So the question here is how do we synchronize government jurisdictions and third-party players, so this could be third-party players or nonprofits for example, private enterprise, so on, with problems to be solved.

In other words, if we started to with this particular, if we started saying, okay, we got a problem with homelessness.

All right, now, how are we going to organize to deal with homeless?

Well, right now you have to take bits and

pieces from different social service entities.

If you were starting from scratch, you might just create a team within a particular whatever with representatives who were responsible for different aspects of dealing with homeless.

So here are the leadership management considerations.

First,

This is the structural challenge.

When Julia did the survey with you, this question was the only question that had

Two disagreements.

The question was something like, we do a good job of balancing our district interests with the greater good.

And there were two of you who disagreed with that statement.

No other two disagreed with any of the other statements.

One person did on other ones.

There was one on other ones, but not two.

And so

Let's talk about that just for a minute.

I don't think in drive rule, but I think we all recognize back to the, you know, the old saying, all politics is local.

Well, that also applies, if you will, in the respect to the difference between a district versus a county interest.

And I believe we all recognize that each of us has the overlapping district and county responsibilities.

but there are times where the particular needs of our district may become sort of preeminent for a particular issue over the county.

And we also recognize that there are political aspects of every decision that we make.

I don't think you can ever have a cut and dried rule on things like that.

I'll jump in and say it's a combination

because if I am not aware of the consequences, something's going on here, let me turn something down.

If I'm not aware and present to the board as a whole the consequences on the White Hall district for some decision

I have no expectation that other supervisors are going to do that.

So if I don't do it, nobody will.

And they have their job to be sure that they are tuned in to everything in their district that they share with the board as a whole.

It doesn't mean that any of us ever win all the time because war is what it takes to make a decision.

And so we just need to be sure that we're

prepared to be able to represent, stand up for a meeting, represent the thoughts and the consequences for the people and their quality of life on a particular issue.

To me, it's why process is so important because when people have differences of opinion, and we have lots of that right now, the process and relying on the fact that they're going to be heard and they're going to have a chance

to make sure that people understand their point of view.

Helps them to get through it when they don't get what they want.

And they can say, yes, we did the best we could and maybe next time it'll turn out better.

But that also brings the board members together when we have a good process that we can follow to make sure that we are sort of

Okay.

All right.

Let's see.

Oh, I will jump back in with that because it was before we went to structural change.

I just wanted to brag when you were talking about the silos versus the group approach and the COVID challenge.

that what the senior staff has created with this incident management team has really saved our bacon every single day because there are people from every single department who are working together and they've exhausted themselves meeting seven days a week for months and months to be able to keep us organized and on track and able to do the very best job that we could for Albemarle, very different than what lots of other counties have done.

Yeah, and so what that shows is the ability and willingness to manage boundaries.

Boundaries are really important because boundaries are a source of identity.

You know, this is my department.

That's a source of identity.

So that when you are willing to drop the boundaries temporarily, so to be able to connect because the problem is bigger than any single one, that's a real tribute to the organizational culture.

Yeah, just quickly, I know between the district and the county as a whole, what I find is a very good example is everybody wants cell service, but nobody wants cell towers.

So that has been a challenge.

And what I will say also about the staff is the fact that the way it's managed, they've been able to change direction

depending on what's happening in the districts.

And I'll give you a good example.

That's with the fire department whereby they came up with a plan that didn't resonate well, at least in about two to three districts.

And so they found a way to accommodate everybody.

And not to the fullest extent that everybody wanted, but they thought out of the box.

They came up with different solutions.

and one of the things I greatly admire is the fact that people are thinking outside of the box.

They're not just coming with, well, here's a solution.

They're coming with ideas that maybe have never been thought of before.

So I personally appreciate that.

Yeah, how do you balance the district not wanting cell phone towers, but they want cell service for the county as a whole?

I'll just jump in a minute and say that I really see over the last three, four years that our staff has really been working to build bridges, not only with our school division, but our community partners and the other local government jurisdictions, whether it's the university or the city.

and tearing those silos down and building those bridges whether it's internal or external has been critical to our ability to work our way through as other board members are talking about the challenges whether we're talking about a pandemic

That's wonderful.

You build capacity.

And so I think at some point, the idea, the concept of managing boundaries is going to go into job descriptions, particularly leadership jobs.

descriptions.

One of the characteristics is how well you manage boundaries, you know.

Okay, so let's see.

Well, you've already kind of answered this question.

But let's read it.

Oh, no, let's go on to the last one, Julia.

We only got about 10 minutes.

So let's go to the last engagement.

The next slide.

Okay, so the process challenge.

Oh, now this is a tough one.

Developing forums for deliberation as well as expressions of voice.

Let me talk about that just for a minute here.

Deliberation

When you say you are a deliberative body, okay, that we say governing body is a deliberative body.

A jury is a deliberative body.

What that means is you are in a situation where you are forced to confront the consequences of your views.

See, you can't just disregard them and go home.

No, you've got to sit there.

And if somebody asks you a question, you'd answer it.

But this is so important because many of the engagement opportunities that we have with citizens are opportunities for voice.

But what I really want is for that person to be forced to consider in a reasonable manner the consequences of those choices.

And I think that's what one of you was talking about earlier.

Yeah, one of you were talking about that earlier.

So in citizen engagement that becomes very important and that's why a lot of citizen engagement is now facilitated rather than the idea of just come up to the mic and tell us what you want to say and you're actually just talking to the other people who agree with you.

We know that.

And then there's another piece here which is in the engagement process

Who will speak to the unspoken values?

Okay, and that's a big one.

And that's one that I put that responsibility on the staff.

If the issue of individual rights is not being addressed on a zoning, unlikely that it would be, but on a zoning issue, then it's the obligation of the staff to bring up

The idea of individual rights is an important piece here.

All right, so let's look at this.

Private sector is profit driven.

Nonprofit sector is mission driven.

The public sector is values driven.

And if government shrinks, who will bear the values challenge?

When I do another presentation, I talk about political values.

Values of representation, values of efficiency and effectiveness, values of inclusion and equity, and values of individual rights.

and these are fundamental democratic values.

And if you look at the processes of governing, those values are embedded in the process of governing.

So when we have a debate or conversation and one of those values is being excluded, whose responsibility is it to speak to those values?

Okay, let's go on.

John, can I say one quick thing?

Yeah.

As you transition, it's just ironic that you're speaking about this at this particular time because our county values and what Albemarle County's values are is, you know, we commit to an excellence in public service and traditionally over the last 20 years, I've not been here for 20 years, but we have staff on the call today who have

and we've built that excellence through really four county value lens.

And those are integrity, innovation, stewardship and learning.

And over the past year, our staff with a lot of involvement with our board, we've developed a fifth county value and that's community.

And it has to do with equity and inclusion.

and really making sure from our public service lens that we do pay close attention to the potential for exclusion.

And so we're working through that as we speak, and it's been very rewarding.

Speaking to the unspoken value.

May I jump in and just add too that what you described of the public sector values also have built-in tension because what one individual person wants is often contrary to what the community has chosen over decades of work with comp plans and other things.

And we have to have that common understanding that the community values count.

because that protects individuals and not have their neighbors destroying them by bad behavior or whatever.

Before cell phones.

People thought very differently and as time goes by and as the decades as Ann referenced go on

and generations perhaps, but those values can change.

Yes, they certainly can or at least take different shapes and so on.

That's right.

But what I say when I do something on the values, and we have, by the way, we have a video, a 10-minute video on the values.

If you'd like to see that, it's on my website.

But those four values, one of the points that I make is you cannot have all four optimally at the same time.

Okay, I think that's the kind of thing that you're talking about.

And a classic example is, what is the appropriate balance between majority rule and individual rights?

And who are individual rights protecting you from?

Majorities.

What's the balance?

That's what governance is governing is about, right?

Okay.

All right.

So a summary before we close up here.

Roles and responsibilities.

Political and administrative actors moving into the gap without inappropriate political involvement or administrative compromise.

This is the trick.

The structures, developing skills and a mindset where the problems to be solved drive the political administrative work and jurisdictional and or departmental boundaries adjust, acknowledge, and challenge to identity issues of loss.

and Processes, the imperative for engagement that incorporates public values and deliberative processes.

Okay, so next.

If we, Julie and I will talk a little bit and maybe we can do these after lunch if you'd like.

Otherwise, we can move on to some other things, but

I think we're right up to noon and it's a lunch break.

So when we come back, what we'll do is we'll sort of debrief this, what was important to you about this session, and then we'll move on.

Okay.

Thank you, Professor Nalbandian and Ms.

Novak.

You're muted, Jeff.

I'm sorry.

I do not have anything at this time.

I know that Board Member Mallek had her hand up.

Thank you.

Will we be able to keep, have access to this outline, the slides?

Yes, we will include the slides as an attachment to the report that we give you.

Okay, thank you.

All right, thank you.

Then at this time I would just ask our our clerk to close the screen for the public.

We'll take a break and would ask everyone to be back and log in not later than five minutes till one, a little earlier if possible, and we will be able to start right back up at one o'clock.

Thank you all very much.

Okay we're ready.

We're back from lunch and so at this time I'm going to turn it back over to Ms.

All right.

Well, thank you very much.

Just quickly to kind of orient us on where we are and where we're going to go today.

We're going to spend the first few minutes this afternoon revisiting the workshop that we had this morning with Dr. Now Bandian.

And then we're going to shift into those prompt questions that I had sent you all as part of the agenda preparation package to just kind of explore what governing together looks like to you, what's important to you, what values are important.

And so we'll spend some time on that.

And then we're gonna look back to the operating guidelines that you all adopted in 2018.

Appreciated that you spent some time on the survey in advance, providing me with feedback on how you think you're doing and you think you're doing pretty good, which is great.

But in the context of the workshop and whatever is shared during the governing together exercise, we wanna give you a chance to reaffirm your commitment to those operating guidelines or make adjustments that you feel are appropriate.

And then we'll have a discussion about peer accountability because the guidelines are great, but it's up to you to uphold them.

And as John sometimes points out to elected officials, none of you are each other's boss.

And so it creates a very interesting dynamic for accountability.

And so what is peer accountability look like and how can you help one another help the body.

by holding yourselves accountable to those guidelines.

So we will get you out of here at five o'clock.

I promise to give you adjustment time to stand up and move because sitting for this long is hard, at least it is for me.

But we're going to go ahead and get going.

This morning, I didn't get a chance to kind of go over my norms or ground rules that are important when we're working in groups.

The electronic environment creates some special ones and you all are very practiced at this.

So just waiting to be called on.

And since I can see you waving your hand is fine.

Using the Raise Your Hand feature in Zoom is also great.

And then I think we experienced the benefit this morning of

as many people keeping their microphones on mute when you're not speaking because it creates some background noise and it worked like magic when somebody shut those off and all that went away.

So nobody's got a ceiling fan so we don't have to worry about visual distractions.

Have a little grace as we fumble through the technology, hopefully we'll get it all right.

Listen with respect and when I say that it's just about being attentive to who is speaking and

When you do disagree, we'll do that agreeably.

I hope that you'll be bold.

Part of our job today is to create an environment together where you all are free to say what needs to be said and said in such a way that other people can hear it.

So be positive, be realistic, candid, honest, patient, self-aware and engaged and fully present, which usually when I'm in person, I say

Technology takes us out of the room, but our room is virtual, so we need to be focused on the technology at hand in order to stay present in the meeting today.

So we're going to start with revisiting the workshop and while y'all were talking, my very talented colleague Julie Giesecke was listening and kind of just put some things out on paper.

for you to look at and kind of as a reminder of that conversation.

But the questions that John had posed as we were wrapping up for lunch, were which of the challenges is the most relevant to you and to Albemarle County right now?

And what's one step that you can take to prepare yourself to meet this leadership challenge?

Who'd like to

Thank you.

Well, I think that all of us work

very effectively and with the proper amount of tension when we're bridging that bright line, looking at that bright line about operations and policy because the community counts on us to really work hard to make sure that our processes and structures are right, but also that we are doing the right thing.

and living up to our sort of moral obligation to represent the values that the citizens have had for a long time.

So I think we are aware that every day there's that, well, here's a suggestion I have that somebody else would have the responsibility to carry out or here's what I'm hearing from my citizens and I'm gonna share it with you because it's not my responsibility, it's yours.

But for staff to be able to do the job that they need to do

They need the information that happens to come to the board so we can share that on and react when they have worked on something that we can use or can decide about.

Thank you, Julia.

I think we do a pretty good job here, but I think anytime you have an organizational structure where you have governing board, managing the boundaries is something that we have to always be cognizant of.

And so I'm not necessarily saying we have not met that, but I think that's an ongoing challenge that we have to face because everyone on the board

is here because of commitment and confidence in the ability to get things done.

But we are the board of directors basically and we have the county executive and county staff that are the operators.

They're the action officers and so I think that's just a constant challenge that we have to be mindful of.

And I do believe we have a very good board and I think we have a very good

County Executive Management Team.

But it's sort of, in a way, it's almost like bumper cars or a bowling ball going down the alley with the gutter guards that trying to make sure we stay in our lanes on both sides of that.

Others?

You know, we could take that metaphor a little farther.

I'm a metaphor person.

I love it.

Chairman Galloway, I see you joined us.

As I hear Donna talk, especially when she mentions our county executive, three of us, it really only worked with one with Jeff.

And I guess I hadn't really reflected on this before, but both Supervisor Malek, Supervisor Palmer, Supervisor McKeel have worked under, this is Jeff would be the third and for Supervisor Malek, yeah, the fourth in a line of

different county executives and each one of those would have a different organizational culture.

So when you talk about the path, the road, you know that for them it changes and it may have been wider, it may be low, I mean there's different elements of that.

and now that we're into this other one, three of us are working under just one reality.

And thinking of some of the challenges of working with staff and working with organizations, that thought hadn't popped into my head for us.

Well, I mean,

I can't speak for them if they feel tripped up.

It's just I know that when you come in and you have a set of operating guidelines and you have exposure to just one county executive and the way his understanding of those operating guidelines are, that's all you're used to.

That if you're still working under maybe an old mind frame, not an old mind frame, but a different view just because it's your experience, a longer experience with it,

It has been fascinating over the last 12 years, 13, 12 and a half years, to see how our whole operation and relationship has evolved because in 2008, the county executive ruled the roost and the board

While they pushed back some, there was complete deference to what he wanted.

And when he retired, there was a shift and a sort of gradual step to more inclusivity because the board people said, wait a minute, we're not going down that road anymore.

And so we need to have a little better.

And so I've been just so thrilled to see the evolution and the collaboration and

Thanks.

Yes, I agree with Donna regarding staying in your lane.

I think that's very important because we have a professional dedicated staff that knows all the codes and zoning ordinances.

And we set policy.

They actually get out there and make sure that everything happens.

And of course, that's the executive team's job and the executive

County Executive's jobs to make sure that our policy is implemented.

So I like to kind of, you know, I like to know what's going on, but I also like to stay out of the way.

Let them do their jobs unless, you know, unless something's not happening.

And then, of course, that is told to the County Executive.

Otherwise, I have to say with

I've got years of political experience and I'm very comfortable with the staff and the leadership and the board because I think we all respect each other.

We don't always agree, but it's always done respectfully.

I think it's important.

You don't see sniping at each other.

And that's maybe behind the scenes, not really.

I think that's very valuable, very important.

Good.

Diantha, I see your hand.

Go ahead.

I agree with what's been said so far.

Having had, as Bea might say, years of political experience, specifically, though, for me in this community,

I will say that our county executives over my 23 years have been very different, have approached things very differently, have very different styles.

I think we're in a great place right now where we're building bridges.

and partnerships and working as a team.

I will say though that our community has really changed too.

I understand all communities change.

Our community has gone from a very rural community

We went through a stage where we were urbanizing and now much of our community is a very urban community surrounded by, or at least with a large rural area.

And that's different for us, wouldn't you say, Ann?

Over the last, you know, you have been involved as long as I have.

Well, maybe not as elected as long, but over the last 22, 23, 24 years, we have really, our community has changed.

And as you change, expectations change.

And we've had a lot of

Well, we certainly have had a growth.

Depending on who you're talking to in our community, some people would say a huge amount of growth.

Other people would say, well, compared to other communities, we have had a growth that is sustainable.

but we focus on our land use policies are different from many other communities and so when people move into our community they're not really they see us through the lens of maybe the communities that they left and don't want to replicate necessarily but they are not in tune to

Do you call it the rhubarb there?

Rhubarb is where rural and urban meet, right?

And some of us represent, of course, a much larger

rural community, some of us represent a much larger urban area.

We all have some of both.

Yes.

Yeah.

You know, so if you look at my district, which is tiny compared to Liz's or Ann's district, right?

I'm teeny tiny.

But my district is dense.

That's why I'm so, the Jewett district is so small.

Yeah, and different values are important at different times.

And that's why you're there to reflect those, right?

So John's point earlier.

Yep.

So what other, you know, as you reflect on John's presentation this morning,

Are there any other kind of trends that you see revealing themselves in the context of Albemarle?

One of the things I've noticed since I moved here 13 years ago is that more, and as I canvass a lot, there are a lot more people moving in from the outside.

In fact, I think our biggest growth is not from within, but people coming in from the outside.

Speaking to Diantha's point, they don't know the history.

They don't know what took place before.

All they know is they come here they see the beautiful rural areas and wow I like this and your traffic is not as I used to have and this is wonderful and yet you talk to the people that have been here

It's like, oh my gosh, don't take away our rural area.

The traffic is horrible.

Don't build anymore.

And yeah, that's a challenge because I think we have that in all of our districts.

What insights do you have for us?

Yes.

Yes.

I've been fortunate to have really good attendance at town halls.

I did not do them this fall yet, but usually it's a sort of September, October, and a March, April meeting time.

And that is a great opportunity at these rural community centers to bring out lots and lots of very long timers.

who we've discussed is thinking about how good it used to be for them, and lots of newcomers who have very different desires.

But the little town, which is the urban area in the White Hall district, but is removed from the growth area around Charlottesville by about 11 miles, it has been remarkably welcoming

and much more so than I've been told by people all over the Commonwealth of Virginia who have, they have families who are still engaged after six generations and yet are the ones who are dragging their new neighbors to come to meetings and get involved because they want to keep that community that they treasure and have other people understand

the values of it and what's going on.

It makes for very exciting community meetings and advisory committee meetings and things like that because of course it's a microcosm just like the rest of the world and they're very different opinions about everything and so it gives us a great opportunity to hear

each other and for them to hear each other's questions.

Thank you, Julia.

You know, 2020 has been a year unlike anything that I believe any of us have ever experienced.

And, you know, as Ned mentioned earlier for the supervisors,

have been serving on the board for a period of time.

Some have many years experience with different county executives.

Bea, while Bea and I both started in January, she has a lot more local government experience from her past than I do.

We missed out on all of the VACO training that usually is available for new supervisors.

And once the pandemic hit,

You know, we've been living in this virtual world, which has made communications with our constituents substantially more complicated.

Now we get hundreds of emails, and particularly on the more significant land use issues that may come before us.

So we do a lot of one on one type communication, but the ability to have the larger group

P.A.

would not be as great as it has been.

Good.

And thanks again, Donna.

I just ditto what she said because that's exactly what I feel.

Donna has a wonderful way of thinking what I'm already thinking.

It is scary, it is scary.

Same thing, I don't have the opportunity to have those meetings, town hall meetings, and I really look forward to those, but it hasn't happened yet.

Just starting.

And I do agree with how the pandemic and not being able to have the large meetings has been a concern and maybe in a way a setback.

But if you make lemonade out of lemons, we do have a lot higher rates of community engagement if you look at our numbers.

So there are some positives that are coming out of this new age and I have discovered that

If I have a constituent that reaches out to me or several people with a problem, I've had two Zoom meetings now with neighbors over the last month with staff around stormwater issues.

People were able to attend those meetings even though they were at work and would never have been able to have attended those meetings.

I had them down at the county office building and they had to leave and drive.

In several cases people were at their offices out of town and attending.

So there are some real positives that are coming out of this and what we're going to have to figure out is how to capture that lemonade, so to speak, and not lose the

the change that's been a positive and just throw out the baby.

Yeah, there are certain bells that we will not unring when all this is truly behind us.

This has to do with the old and the new.

I remember I was doing a consulting Flagstaff in Arizona and they had a split council

split between old and new.

And the new people, you know, they wanted to get things done.

And they said, one of the issues was they said, you know, those of you who've been around for a while, you just keep saying, no, we tried that.

No, we tried that.

And you're not taking this and you're not taking this seriously.

And, you know, and the old people said, well, you're not appreciating our, you know, the history and

and what we live and what we believe in.

And so they came to an agreement.

And the agreement was very interesting to me.

They said, the new people said, we will be more sensitive and respectful of the past if you would be good enough to tell us

what you think is precious about the past and what is expendable so that it becomes less of a old new it becomes more look at this is the core of who we are and and this is and when that's threatened then we get our hackles we get our hackles up

That's really fascinating.

I really appreciate that approach, maybe because my personality is that I always feel like, well, number one, you hire the best staff and then you let them do their job.

But number two, I really, my personality embraces, I think, change because I feel like if you're not changing, you're not growing and addressing challenges as they come forward.

Having said that, my urge to move forward and make things better, which is perceived sometimes as change, is off-putting sometimes.

and it gets to what you're saying and that's it's not that I've been around because I've been around probably as an elected official in this community on this board 23 years between the school board and board of supervisors but it's more my personality that wants to embrace change and I really that's a really interesting idea.

Thank you.

You know, Diantha, I really appreciated those comments and I find it, you know, so counterintuitive to what we often think of people who have been involved longer, maybe less susceptible or open.

And then John, your example just struck me as how wonderful it required both sides, so to speak, the old and the new, to step into the middle of the conversation rather than remaining on the perimeter.

And to literally, you know, offer that hand across to the other side and say, let's find a way to work together but in a non-confrontational way.

which opened the dialogue rather than what so often we find happening where we are closing the other side off that you must listen to us first and then we'll consider yours.

And the new people are invested in it as well because clearly something brought them there.

And so realizing what that is, that's part of the comment that's precious.

John, did you have another comment?

Yeah, there actually is a way to document and negotiate these kinds of relationships.

It's called a psychological contract.

And what you do is

The two groups, they split up and what they do is group A, or let's say the old guard, they list what they expect from the new in order for the old guard to feel comfortable.

And then they list what they will provide to the new guard for the new guard to be comfortable.

It's fascinating to me in this old guard, new guard kind of context, and I want to be careful here who I pick to represent the old guard at my own detriment.

This is not about AIDS, because that would be probably me.

I think there's a dynamic here.

I mean, I hear and I think it's valid and it makes sense.

And I think on top of this old New Guard dynamic, there's also a sense with our old guard who would represent the old guard that we've been trying to get at this for a long time.

and you know whether it's organizational speed or budget constraints or maybe past political makeup that the votes weren't there but I often hear Supervisor Malek, Supervisor McKeel, Supervisor Palmer talk about it's been x plus years trying to get

And as a newer supervisor, you have your own priorities, your own things that you want to focus on.

And when you hear that, it's like, how do you help?

If that's been the case and it's been frustrating board members to move something or advance something forward, how can you get in there as a newer person and then try to facilitate or help that along?

All right, yes, Ann.

And my response to Ned's query is I've always taken it as a failure of my own to convince three other people to join me.

All right, I take that as a sign.

Go ahead, yeah.

What I wrote down very early in the morning discussion, I would just

So to bring back now, when we are working with engaging citizens and having meaningful engagement, one of the biggest obstacles is that balance between how much work staff does first in order for the community to react and how flexible staff is perceived so that the community feels as if what they say is actually taken into consideration.

And that is a tension I don't ever expect to go away.

But I know that staff is aware of it and we try hard to find that balance in our master plan work, for example, to really encourage people because people are not going to come to a meeting and spend their time and share their ideas and do their homework if they feel like decisions are already made downtown and what they say is irrelevant.

So I know we sort of obliquely talked about things like that earlier this morning, and I just wanted to bring that up.

And Donna.

I think Diantha hit a major point just a few minutes ago when she talked about how much the county has changed over the last few years.

And as I look at the data for our surrounding counties, I do not see any of them going through the same changes that we have gone through.

Yes, there may be other communities far removed, but if we take Albemarle County and then look at our neighboring adjoining adjacent counties,

None of them seem to have gone through the changes that we have gone through, which is that very rapid change from a very rural community

to a largely urban community still with a large rural land area and with that desire to protect what brought all these people here to begin with.

Because what we don't want to lose is the uniqueness of what Albemarle County is, but we definitely have these major changes which make much of Albemarle County much more like a city rather than a county.

And I think that we benefit from a very stable county staff and a large degree of stability on the Board of Supervisors which brings the wisdom of the experience from those times to help those new people here to really get an understanding of how to navigate through these, you know, these difficult

Diantha?

Yeah, and to piggyback on what Donna just said, some of our most challenging discussions among the supervisors, and when I say challenging, I mean not only in trying to find solutions, but in just the length of our discussions, are the issues that we

that come to us and sometimes the solutions that are presented are rural and development area, right?

We'll do this in the rural area and we'll do this in the development area.

But the problem is that because of where the boundaries are for the rural area and the development area, some of us are saying, wait, we can't solve those problems for our constituents with just using that hard line of rural area and development area.

There is so much

overlap and the borders, it just doesn't work.

And so trying to negotiate or navigate

The issues we're trying to address becomes more complicated.

Ann, go ahead.

Thank you.

One example to support that is in the old days, people said, well, that's just life in the country.

When you had

really awful livestock and animal protection issues and guns going off all night long and hunting across people's properties and literally it has taken 25 years to try to get a different approach to those things because I know people in the countryside are absolutely as capable of doing better on all of those elements I just described and so I very much agree that we

While we have different impacts and therefore different costs or something on some issues, everybody has the same responsibility to watch out for their neighbor.

Anything else on this before we shift gears?

Okay.

Well, I say every time I work with John, which is a good bit, I always learn something new and I always appreciate what he brings to the conversation.

And I think you'll find that as we go through the afternoon, the academic side of him and then the practical experience he's had as a fellow elected official will continue to add value to our workshop.

So I'm glad he can be with us this afternoon.

So as part of the agenda prep, I had asked you each to spend a few minutes kind of reflecting on some questions, some questions about what governing together looks like for you all.

And there was the series of prompt questions which I'm sharing on the screen again.

And what I'm going to ask is for each of you to kind of go through your responses to these questions.

and then we can have a conversation about where there are similarities and overlaps and what might be outliers or differences that you see among you.

But I'll ask you to each to answer each question and between Joshua who's taking really good notes and Julie who's working doing a visual capture, it'll be a great way to memorialize this conversation.

So who would like to begin?

Okay, so what does good governance look like to me?

That's what we're supposed to go down this list and give you a few sentences.

Yeah, just a couple of thoughts on what it looks like to you.

Okay, so I would say respectful

investigation and decision making on the elements of our and focus on our established rules and adopted ordinances for the benefit of the community would be the first one.

The values are that are important.

I think all the ones that were mentioned this morning, but our community values over many decades have been based upon environmental protection and natural resource protection, those kinds of things.

And the growth area, rural area divide was based upon financial decisions about the most financially

feasible way to provide urban services in a restricted or a more condensed geography than running water and sewer, et cetera, throughout the countryside, which has cost other counties a fortune.

And that's been quite successful, and it also has benefited in the community in the White Hall District, Crozet, developing wonderful

the walkable neighborhoods and lots of bicycling and those kinds of more urban or small town values that they're clinging to very hard.

What's important to remember, wow, being a gracious winner and a gracious loser, I think it's important when one doesn't agree to go down in flames and vote no.

That's nothing to say other people are bad or anything if they don't agree.

I'd never expect to win all the time or be on the winning side is an even better way to describe that.

And when things don't go as I wish they would, then there's more work to do and more understanding that's needed for me to catch on with the rest or for others to catch on to what I'm working on.

type of relationship.

Respectful and I think friendly and I'm very pleased with what I've learned from previous retreats with my colleagues and the things that they have shared that helped me to understand where they came from.

There are some things that pop right into my mind from previous meetings that has helped me to

really be able to participate so much better.

Oh boy, I'm very thrilled with the relationship that I personally have with being able to ask any question and get the honest answer and understand how our staff is so incredibly important to our success as a county and how envious other counties are

of the staff who work for us and how protective I am of them because they are as individuals and as a group really important to us.

And what we will be known for, even though we think that there are so many things that we have to solve,

and how many more things we need to do better.

I mean, somebody called me this morning and said, what are you doing about the fact that you now have the authority to ban plastic or to tax plastic bags?

And I said, wow, nothing yet.

But that's something we've been asking for for five years.

And we finally achieved that from the assembly.

So there are constant improvements that we would all love to have happen.

But when I'm involved in meetings across the state, people look at the Albemarle County on my name tag and they say, oh boy, you all are doing such a fantastic job.

And I hope that in 10 years, our county will have achieved what you all are doing today in XYZ.

And so that's always a good thing to think about because we've achieved a lot and our predecessors have achieved a lot and we're all standing on their shoulders all the time.

Okay, thank you very much.

Who would like to go next?

We'll get through all of you, so it's just a matter of when.

Well, with that lead in, I'll go ahead and take it.

I think good governance looks like providing the services that our residents expect, protecting the economic viability of government,

so that we don't put the ability to provide those goods and services at risk through financial mismanagement.

And providing an environment which allows our residents to be successful.

And successful comes in many different forms and fashions, economic, physical health, mental health.

I would say that the most important value to me in governing is integrity.

That reasonable minds may differ on what the solution may be or the process to achieve a goal, but that our residents have absolute confidence in the integrity of what we do.

And that's everything from

avoiding the appearance of impropriety to being able to trust us.

When we say that this is our policy or our plan, that we will follow that policy or that plan in the absence of facts or circumstances that necessitate a change.

I mean, nothing is forever, and you have to be able to adjust to changes.

but that they can trust and rely upon us when we say something and that it's not going to change next week or next month without there being a factual basis and reason to make that change.

I probably agree a lot with what Ann Mallek just said about your position whether it's prevailing or not prevailing.

I think one of the main things is to recognize that

Well, we each think we have the right or best approach to something that we need to recognize other people also believe that they may have the right approach.

And just because my position on a particular issue was not the prevailing position is not as important as having that confidence that decisions are being made properly and we're then able to execute them.

I think that we are blessed by an incredible professional relationship with the personal side to it with all of the supervisors.

And over the many years of my life and the many locations where I have lived, I believe that the Board of Supervisors here at Albemarle County is

Pretty unique among governing bodies that I have seen.

We know how to disagree without being disagreeable.

I think that carries over to whatever the next issue we have to deal with may be.

With the county manager and staff, I'd like to think that I have a similar sort of relationship, albeit on a different level.

We are all peers together on the Board of Supervisors.

using my Navy background, I kind of see the Board of Supervisors as the Admiral staff and the County Manager and County staff as being ship's company.

We established the policies.

They actually execute those policies.

I hope that this governing body will be known.

Again, I'm going to go back to the value.

I hope this governing body will be known for our integrity and for our ability

to make decisions.

And I kind of put decisions in two categories.

There are some situations where there literally is a right or a wrong.

And examples of areas where I think there's a right or a wrong are a lot of the areas that our Office of Equity and Inclusion is very involved in.

I mean, civil rights, social justice, those things, there is a right or a wrong.

Everyone is equal under the law.

On other things, it's not necessarily a right or a wrong as much as it is the best possible decision that you can make under the facts and circumstances as you know them to exist at the time that you make that decision.

and that I believe is more where reasonable minds may differ.

And I think we are also very blessed, we don't mention it here, I think Supervisor McKeel mentioned it earlier or one of the other supervisors if I misidentified who said it, but we are blessed with a very intelligent, well-educated and very engaged

residents in our

of how we make some of the decisions that we make.

And so it really is, in that respect, I'd say it is a three-legged stool.

We have our county residents, we have our county staff, and we have the board of supervisors.

And there is a mutual respect among the three of us

I mean, I get emails from constituents all the time that they'll start off with something very nice.

Thank you for what you're doing, your public service.

I disagree with what you've decided, but they make it very clear that they're being respectful.

Thank you.

That's great.

So when I think about what good governance looks like, I think of it like I'm standing back as a constituent thinking about what good governance is.

And to me, that's accessibility.

How do I have access to put my input in, to be heard, to criticize, to compliment, to participate in a way that will be felt and be thoughtfully considered.

And then, you know, whether you agree or disagree, when I look at a decision, I can say that I understand the decision.

and she says, well, I appreciate your service, but I didn't agree with what you have done.

But that to me is, if it's clear, if our constituents believe and feel confident that they can be heard and know how to participate and then can see how the decision is made, I feel like that's what good governance is about.

In terms of what values are important to you, I'm gonna use this word, I think it's an overused word,

But transparency.

And I think transparency is used in ways that are, well, it's used in a lot of different ways.

What I mean by transparency is that I hope that when I take a vote,

that I feel a responsibility to say what my thought process was leading up to the decision so that not just can they learn where I'm at on that particular vote or that particular action but they can also understand as an elected official how I think through

And that to me is transparency.

It'd be very easy to sit back and say yes, no, make a comment or two on even just an application, but not really open up the door, open up the windows for people to see how you think through things.

In my time on the school board and this board, I often, I think I try,

to express my thought process, whether it's on the dais when we're making the vote or if it's out in the community meeting to say, here's how I think through this, because now it's your job as constituents to elect me or not.

And if you like that thought process, I'm not always going to get it right on your particular issue.

We may not always agree or disagree, but if you like the thought process, then I might be a good person to be out to sit on this board and represent you.

And that leads to a certain confidence.

If you do get elected, as I'm sure my other supervisors would say, I mean, there is a confidence to know you've been elected to the position.

It's even more so when you run a competitive race.

We've all had competitive races at different times.

And then there's an ease of mind to be able to say, well, if I'm not getting it right, I'll not get elected.

And you can accept that decision as well.

So the values for me are trying to make sure that constituents understand how I think through these type of things, but then also knowing that they have a role to play as well of letting me and

What I remember on prevailing or non prevailing is the same answer, that the board's will rules.

The board's will is

I'm perfectly fine saying this is what I felt and explained my vote, but here's what the board decided.

And that is the way things are going to go.

That's the decision.

And it's my job, whether or not I'm on the winning side or the losing side of a vote, is to make sure that the board's decision is then supported and that that's how things are going to move forward.

What type of relationship do I hope to have with my colleagues?

I've learned in my short time compared to some of the others that if you're just not direct and candid, boy can that create a lot of problems with your fellow elected colleagues.

You just have to be direct, and any time you try to be coy or not direct, it creates more trouble than it's worth.

So to me, I hope that my relationship with each of my supervisors would be one where I can just be straightforward, direct, and forthright, and know, and I feel that way, that

In terms of relationship with the county manager and staff, easy is the word that came to mind.

I hope I have an easy relationship.

And I mean, if there's tension involved, whether it's the county executive, the county executive's office, or any person on staff, if an interaction or relationship with me is one that creates tension for me or for them, then there's something not working right.

So, you know,

Our jobs and our policy decisions, of course there could be tensions in other ways, but I'm just saying that I hope that the relationship can be one where it's just tension-free, communication is open, and that same candid and directness, thought or frankness can be there in our conversations.

I do appreciate often in some meetings that I've been in when staff kind of stand me up a little bit or push, no, this is how it works, buddy, that kind of deal.

And I appreciate that.

I mean, you want that.

and somebody to be candid and frank with you.

And then what do I hope that this governing will be known for?

Well, I hope that they think we're good stewards of our tax dollars.

We have a huge budget.

It's a huge responsibility to plan strategically of how that money is going to be programmed.

And I think we're thoughtful in that.

I think we do a good job with that.

and I hope that that's something that can be recognized from the policy level decision of setting the priorities and then our job is to line those priorities up and show the threads that connect to how the dollars are being allocated.

And then the second part of it is that we do our other big task, right, is hiring a county executive.

And, you know, as comments earlier have said in the past, there were different different reactions to how past county executives have been.

But it's important to have the right person running the day to day and running the ship, captaining the ship.

And that's a big responsibility as well.

Great.

Thank you.

Okay, wonderful.

Well, being one of the two new people, what does good governance look like?

Exactly what we're doing, I mean, from the county,

Executive side to the Board of Supervisors side.

I agree with Ned regarding transparency.

I think if you don't have that and you look like you're trying to hide something, that doesn't go over well with the community at all.

But when you

You are transparent when you do explain things.

That's what I found.

When I explain things to my constituents, even if they, and I tell them, you may not agree with me, but I'll always tell you why I made that decision.

And to a person, everyone has said, that's fair.

That's fine.

That's fair.

We don't always expect you to vote the way we want you to, but we do want you to listen.

So, and that's something I try to do all the time.

The values that kind of goes in there also the values that are important are Reaching out to the community Anyone who writes an email to me Whether good bad or whatever and I know I know if they're in my district I will respond so no email goes unanswered if I know that they're actually in my district and That's very important to me

and being honest and open and direct.

That's what's important, I think, important values for governing.

I don't think we have time for games.

We don't have time for not being honest and upfront.

And I think people appreciate that.

Prevailing decision, what is, of course, it's always nice to win, but that's not realistic.

And it doesn't matter.

I have been passionate about

and on the non prevailing decision.

I've been passionate about that.

But as soon as the vote went through, it was like, okay, next thing.

And I was surprised that, you know, really, it didn't bother me because of everything that went into regarding what the other supervisors said.

And I'll give you another example.

Sometimes,

We all think something is good and then somebody brings important information up that I hadn't thought about or the other supervisors we hadn't thought about and it's like, you know what?

That actually makes sense.

Okay, let's back down.

Let's not do that because that actually makes sense.

That's something that I really highly prize and value with this board.

They let you know what they're thinking, where they stand, and why.

It's not just a, well I don't agree.

They let you know why.

Same thing with county staff and the type of relationship.

I am thrilled.

I'm just thrilled to be a part of the Board of Supervisors.

I feel like I have a really, really good relationship and a friendship with each one of them that I can just be forward, honest, and direct.

And that's very, very, very valuable when you try to govern together.

What type of relationship do you have with the city manager, with the city executive, county executive?

I have to tell you this, Jeff and the whole team, executive team and even the staff, they really are professional and I

I like the fourth, the honesty.

I like it if I'm pushing, they can push back.

We both push and we, you know, we see what happens, but you don't want someone that kowtows to you.

You want someone that gives you the facts, gives you what you can do, what you can't do, and have an open and honest relationship.

In my opinion, we're all peers and our focus is service to the community.

So if that's your focus, then you take all egos and everything out of it because your focus is service to the community.

I hope the governing board, I don't know, I haven't been, unfortunately I haven't been out amongst other counties yet because of COVID.

to know how we look, but I do know from my past experience, I think we're looking really good.

And I like the things we're doing.

I think I would hear from my constituents if we were doing a lot of things that were like really out there and I'm not hearing that.

I value my community because they do let me know what they feel.

And what I really like is they don't really, they only come to me when there's something that

that means something to them.

It really bothers them.

They need something.

That's when they contact me.

I don't have people that just arbitrarily, routinely, excuse the expression, but bitch and moan.

They don't do that.

And I'm very, very, you know, I'm glad about that because I think I've got a really, really good community.

And I think the whole entire county is basically like that with a few exceptions that are not in my district, so.

We won't even ask you whose district they're in.

No, I won't mention names, but they know who they are.

But in any case, it's a really, really good organization.

I have to say it's easy and it's a lot of hard work, but it's not something that is overwhelming because

The board, I feel I can and I do call every single one of them and I can say, can you help me with this?

What is your opinion on this?

What about this?

Am I messing up?

Thank you.

Thank you.

So, Diantha and Liz, you're it.

I'm happy to go.

No, you go ahead.

I just got back and I'm drinking and eating and trying to catch up with what we're going, so it's probably a good idea and I apologize for being late.

You go ahead, Diantha.

Of course, it's really hard to follow all of this in a way because

There's not one supervisor who has said anything that I disagree with.

And if you look at the thread, we are all saying pretty much a lot of the same.

We're just saying it in different ways.

I might just add a couple of things because I don't disagree with anything anybody has said and I really appreciate all the good comments.

One thing I might add that's a little, I'm thinking about what I might add that's a little different.

What does good governance look like to me?

Good governance I think has a, part of good governance is to be data driven.

and in our decision-making that we take the emotion out and we determine our decisions based on data.

Now, that's not to say that we can ever take the politics out, because I think that's very different.

But I do think it's important to look at process and data along with

Certainly.

We talk about values and good governance, respect and trust, opportunities for the public to participate, to make sure that the public feels like they were heard.

I agree with all of those points that were made.

What's important to remember when your position is the prevailing decision

I think we're all in that, we all feel certainly, to add a little humor, we all feel relief.

Let's be honest about it.

But that's right, you are in the prevailing, you have prevailed, but there are some certainly residents and citizens who feel like that they didn't

their position wasn't heard.

And I think that's important to remember.

It's also important to remember that once the board makes a decision, then while you can say honestly that that position you may not have supported, it's important not to give the impression that you're in the community

undercutting or stirring that position up again.

And I don't think that we really do that, but I have been on boards where that's happened.

What type of relationship do you hope to have with your colleagues?

I would hope the ability to laugh together, to trust each other, to feel like there is transparency among all the supervisors.

What type of relationship do you hope to have with the county manager and staff?

I think we are really blessed with our staff and I want the staff to be honest with me or with us, to give us the data that we need to make the decisions and that we trust them with their recommendations and what they're presenting to us.

A casual relationship is what I prefer and

the ability to talk to each other honestly and to tell me, as many of us have said, the truth, even if I may not necessarily want to hear it, I need to hear it.

And I want the staff to feel like that I respect their position as staff.

I'm not staff, and I don't want to ever be, I don't want

the staff to feel like that I'm trying to interfere with their work in any way.

What do you hope that this governing body will be known for?

I guess it goes back to integrity, to taking really, really seriously their

Thank you very much.

All right, well, Liz, hopefully you had a chance to eat a bite and now it's your turn.

All right, I'll go through this.

What does good governance look like to you?

I have this, I am continually repeating to myself that I'm here to protect the health, safety and welfare of residents and that's why I was elected.

So I repeat that to myself a lot.

and I know it can seem kind of a nebulous saying and interpreted in different ways, but I frequently go back to that whenever I'm making a decision and I evaluated based on that, you know, on that phrase.

And of course, always transparency and honesty and thoughtful decision-making.

Values are important to you in government governing.

Well, there you go.

That's a repeat of what I just said.

What is important to remember when your position is the prevailing decision and what's important to remember when your position is not the prevailing decision?

Oh, you know, I mean, you lost, move on.

You didn't lose, move on.

You respect everybody else's opinion and

and just move on and learn from what went right and what went wrong.

I frequently, after a meeting, will try to find a time when if I've lost a vote, I'll go back and try to listen to a previous meeting or some other meeting to try to understand why the decision was made,

Sometimes I'll call up a staff person to try to explain things that I might not have understood or that I thought the board didn't understand, just so that going forward I have a better idea of what happened.

I think most of the time we pretty much vote.

Yeah, we have all pretty similar voting patterns.

You know, there's been a few of late that have been different.

But what most of them are land use, so I have to admit what I'll frequently do is call up my planning commissioner and say, just explain to me this or that I seem to maybe not have understood something.

What type of relationship do you hope to have with your colleagues on the Board of Supervisors?

I, you know, I look at it bad as being collegiate and professional.

And I like the supervisors.

Everybody's got a different personality.

And some I feel like I has, as Diantha said, laugh together.

Some I feel I can laugh together a little bit more with than other ones.

Sometimes I

I feel like I have a slightly different sense of humor, but whatever.

But over all in all, professional and collegiate would be what I would, and transparent.

What would your relationship do you hope to have with the county manager and staff?

Same thing.

Collegiate, professional, transparent, honest.

And what do you hope this governing body will be known for?

Well, I guess I would go back to health, safety and welfare on that, protecting health, safety and welfare of the community and wise decision making.

I think that we all work very, very hard, staff, elected officials, to be thoughtful in our decision making and

attempt at being always wise.

And for the most part, I think we do a decent job.

Sometimes I don't, but the majority of the time I do.

Okay, thank you all very much.

I'm gonna just briefly stop sharing my screen and make some space for

My colleague, Julie, to share her kind of iteration of what she heard you all say and just give us something to take a look at while we're talking and debriefing this.

So I think as you all pointed out, as you came towards the end, there was a lot of commonality in terms of how you answered.

these various questions.

But there's also subtle differences.

And so I think it's important to probe just a little bit and make sure we understand, well, what did you mean by that?

So in some of these situations.

So, you know, the conversation that struck me kind of the decision when you're on the prevailing side or not.

To a person you talked about, you need to perhaps understand it, but move on.

And I think it was Diantha that made the comment about how important it is to not stir up the other side.

I think this is one of the

I think that's what you said.

I don't want to put words in your mouth.

That's what I said.

So it's important to kind of honor the decision, be respectful in your dissent, and live within it.

So, you know, one of the things that can be challenging for a governing body, and I think even more challenging than for the staff, is

when we don't let go and we go to the staff and ask for, well, what about this?

And what if we did this and we could bring it back and kind of wanting to revisit things that have been decided.

So I think that's something that just kind of struck me in listening to you all.

Others, John, what struck you?

I was struck by how much compatibility there is in terms of agreement.

I mean, there are a lot of things that you said very much in common, and they were very positive.

So I think that's a real, you know, I didn't get a sense like, oh, well, somebody, this person's an outlier.

You know, I mean,

It sounded like, yeah, there's issues where some people are in the minority, but that doesn't mean they're always in the minority or whatever.

And I think that is really, really positive.

A couple of observations other than that.

One is, what I've learned over the years, because I was last on the council in 2008, I guess,

2007-2008, two four-year terms.

And to this day, there will be people who recognize me, not many, but some recognize me as the mayor.

And you know, I think the funny thing is, is that when they greet me or make a comment, they never say, I remember when you did so-and-so.

I remember when you accomplished so-and-so.

It's not about the accomplishments.

You know what they remember?

They remember how you conduct your business.

How you go about your business, because they don't remember, my God, you did a stormwater utility.

That was the greatest thing that happened in this city.

Nobody says that.

But they just say, I wish you were the mayor again.

not because, okay, that's one.

The second is, there were a lot of comments about integrity, letting go, respect, and trust.

And really important, because when you don't have a hierarchy, you don't have a boss, you don't have job descriptions, then these kinds of things of respect and trust is essential.

And in my mind, respect and trust comes from deploying your talents in ways that not only you find useful, but deploying your talents in ways that the other supervisors value.

I think that's the key to influence and respect and trust.

Do other people wait to hear what you had to say?

Do they want to hear what you have to say?

Okay.

Let's see, I had one other.

Oh, if I were running for office in Albemarle County, I have your slogan for your next election.

There's a residency requirement, though, John, so I don't know that you'd- Oh, darn it.

That may be the way of the future, for sure, might be.

What struck others as you were listening to your colleagues, or even I really appreciate John's kind of pulling some of these threads together for us?

I just love listening to what each of the other supervisors had to say, and I thought about how, you know, Bea and I, we just started in January, but in the eight months now that I've been on the board, how many times I have found myself working so closely on a or a number of issues with one or two other supervisors and just really been able to

to appreciate their wisdom and experience and knowledge.

And yeah, we really are blessed.

Great.

One thing I wanted to say in response to John's comments is that I think that what, at least this is what I do, we have so many things on our plate

that I usually look to the supervisor whose district it is to talk first about that because I recognize that, you know, the vast majority of the time that supervisor knows more about that specific issue and knows how the constituents feel about that specific issue.

So what I've noticed for this board is that we're more looking, you know, to the supervisor, you know, since it's most of its land use.

You know, we look to that supervisor to give information.

Okay.

I found the same thing that I will go to that supervisor, wherever the district, wherever the concern is, because what I respect about this board also is that everyone does their homework.

So they all do their homework.

So, and as a new person,

There's not one person that I've reached out to who wasn't there to help.

And that actually goes for the county staff also.

But the board members, every single one of them, totally open.

They're there for me.

They've got my back.

I hope they feel that I have their back also.

Like I said, we don't always agree, but we all respect and really care for each other.

Yeah, Ann.

In listening to all the comments from others, I kept thinking, oh, I wish I'd said that because there is so many different ways of expressing things.

And I think what I was articulate in that what was just said is so much better.

But the other is that discussing issues amongst each other, you know, one at a time or whatever, to me, it is so important for me to affirmatively share what I think, but also to say this is, remember, just one person's opinion.

and we have to all bind these different things together to make sure we're working with the established ordinance or however, you know, what our grounding is in process.

But we do have different approaches to things and it's really important that we all, that I remember that particularly and I'm very careful to use that phrase a lot with constituents as well to say yes, we're working on it and this is one voice and so

Yeah.

You know, John talked earlier, he reused the term the psychological contract to talk about, you know, and you can you can say it out loud.

The reality is so often it exists, but it is silent.

We don't ever articulate it.

So it's the silent expectations that we have.

And I just want to kind of

I want to highlight that by noting, as you all are saying what you do, which is reach out to the person whose district it is to hear from them first.

You are also modeling behavior that you expect that that is you are demonstrating respect for the person's district by asking for their input and in doing that you are not saying out loud.

but implying that you would ask for the same turn of the favor, that you would like to be asked when it is something in your district.

Just want to, excuse me, sorry.

I just wanna add and piggyback in a little bit on what Ann just said it triggered for me.

I want to really say it's important and kudos to our staff for really working hard to make sure that all of us are operating off of the same data and the same information.

because it's really easy with six of us and we're out there and we're trying to figure things out.

It's very easy for us if we're not careful to get into a meeting and find that we're not all making our decisions based on the same information.

Excellent.

And I will say one of the things that our county executive does and Jeff does is, and Greg and the others, that if I have an email regarding a question, they make the decision that this is the answer, the question and the answer is important enough that they share it with all the other supervisors.

That

Thank you, Bea, because that's exactly what I was referencing.

That's great.

And one of the advantages of that is I am very reticent to send reply all or send emails out to everyone on the board when asking the questions because then the cluttering of the email inboxes and as Bea and Diantha and Ann and Liz were all saying that one of the advantages is I can go ask them a question

Thank you, Julia.

I'd like to kind of pick up where the board has been just in the last couple of minutes.

I love what Julia said when she was focused at the board level about

how board members work with board members and they go to the board member whose district the issue is in trying to find out more information and that is also an indication that they would like to have that reciprocated and the board talked through that and then that led to a discussion about where Diantha said that the staff tries very hard to push all information out to all board members at the same time.

That is a real tried and true with me as a county manager who's been around longer than I'd like to say it's been.

I don't want to share the number of years I've been in this business but it's a tried and true and that is even if the board does not

articulate what Diantha and other board members have articulated both to me personally and in board meetings and that is we expect all six board members to have all the information at the same time.

I preach that to staff.

Doug and Trevor does the same thing.

The department heads who are on the call today are hearing that and it is not, trust me, it is not the first time they've heard that

We've got to push information that is meaningful information that is helping the board to do their best work.

We've got to package it and push it to all the board members in the same way.

So the connection though that I would make back to your operating guidelines is basically that, and board members from time to time will hear me, they will hear me gently remind them to follow the chain of command,

Copy the county executive's office when you go into the organization either to ask questions, ask for help, or to figure problems out.

You've got to please copy the county executive's office if for no other reason we are continually trying to monitor

what the information is that's going back and forth between the board and the staff.

And we're doing it with an eye of get all six board members all the information so that there's not a board member or board members who get behind on an issue.

So we're trying to keep you all on equal footing as it relates to the information you have, the currentness of it, and the relevancy of it.

And you all six are extremely busy, but you're all six extremely busy in very different ways.

None of you work the same way every day.

If Julia asked all of you to say, tell me a typical day, there would be six variations of what your day is like.

And so that even makes it more important that we pay close attention.

Trevor, Doug, myself,

with the help of our department heads to get information back to the board because there are a lot of competing issues that is vying for the board's time.

So that's the connection that I would make, Julia, into it more from the administrative perspective and less from the board's perspective of what's important for me to remember and it's important for my staff to help us remember as it relates to packaging and getting information to all of the board.

Ann, I see your hand.

The other side of that that is, I think, really important for Jeff to be able to do his side of the house is to make sure that he is informed.

And this began, I began to learn more about this about three managers ago because it was explained to me by the then county executive that if you want me to hold members of a department accountable,

then you need to get out of the way and lead the county executive.

be in charge of making the changes that can be done with the concerns that you have.

And so that began my practice of sending long, long, long emails to the county executive then who was, I think, horrified.

But anyway, because it does put the responsibility where it belongs to share.

If I can share that information or here's what I'm hearing,

This is only half the story.

It's now in your court.

Then that allows the operation to happen.

Thank you very much.

Any other reflections on governing together?

OK.

I'm going to give you 10 minutes to adjust your fluid levels.

Stand up, stretch, do whatever you need to do, and we'll take a quick break and come right back to the screens and be ready to go.

Thank you.

All right, so we're going to shift gears and kind of think about your all's operating guidelines.

both in the context of your experience in working with them for the past two years or six months for those of you who are new to the board, but also in light of the conversation we just had about things that are important to you about governing together and the observations about sometimes what we give is what we expect to get and how do these operating guidelines frame them for you.

So just for a kind of by backdrop,

I've retyped the eight operating guidelines that you all have on the screen.

So the first four are here.

And maybe what I'll do, just because I get tired of my own voice, is I'm going to ask you to each read one of these and we'll go through all eight of them.

I'm just going to go by how you show up on my screen.

So Donna, you are first.

Would you read one?

And then Ann is two.

And then I'll let you know, it'll be Liz and then Diantha.

Okay.

Ann?

You gotta unmute though.

We will honor the express will of the majority and respect the concerns of the minority.

Got to get to the mute button.

Okay.

We ensure that policy decisions and directions to the county executive communicated by the entire board where this is unclear the county executive

We'll seek clarification from the board.

No single member of the board can provide direction on policy implementation to the county executive.

Diantha, for.

Board members do not want their interactions with and requests to staff members to negatively impact staff productivity.

Staff members should use judgment and explain the resources that would be required to respond to board requests.

Okay.

I'm going to go on to the next slide.

When a board member sends a communication to a staff member, it should be copied to the department director and the appropriate member of the county executive's office.

Thank you.

We are responsible for our districts, the entire county, and the region.

And then eight, Ann.

You know, it's interesting just kind of an observation listening to these being read in the context of the last discussion.

There is clearly one guideline that's about what do we remember when we're on the prevailing side or not.

And that's about, you know, we will do the work of the will of the majority and we will respect the concerns of the minority.

So that's kind of reflected in that.

The majority of the other items up here really speak to the relationship with your staff, the county executive and how that translates across the bridge, if you will, down into the administrative apparatus and then sums about role.

The unique role that only you can play as John talks about kind of determining what the political acceptability is of any particular issue.

And so it's your role

how you all will relate to one another when a vote is made and you decide as a body, as John said, what consequences will prevail and then how you will relate all of that to the staff.

So as you heard these again and in the context of the conversation,

I'm wondering kind of what's your reflection and experience on how these are helping you and where you're struggling to live up to them?

Yes, thank you, Donna.

You know, when I was in the Navy, they have a certain set of regulations called Navy regulations, and they're very much like our operating guidelines.

And they set really out the ethos, the mantra of what we expect of people in the Navy.

And I think this is something for us and periodically, and for each of us, that periodic time period is for each one to calculate.

But periodically, I think we need to remind ourselves

Kind of being deliberate and intentional about reflecting on this is what we've agreed to and we need to uphold it and don't just happen into it or not.

A few more than eight, okay.

I like how simple this list is though, I gotta tell you.

Other reflections, so one just kind of, we need to remember them, we need to keep them in front of us and make sure we are doing everything we do to uphold them.

Yes, how do they help us?

It helps us help Jeff because if we, I've learned that if I'm not informing Jeff and the executive staff, then things can fall between the cracks.

There could be miscommunication, there could be misunderstandings.

And I think of it as an effort to, okay, I'm not gonna bother Jeff and the executive staff.

However, it turns out to be just the opposite.

because then I get in.

you know, I won't say trouble, but trouble, okay, go ahead.

And the staff does, may also, so I've learned that following the chain of command, as I used to do when I was a director, a school director, I've always asked the parents when they would call me, I said, have you spoken with the teacher?

Have you spoken with the principal?

Okay, so you need to follow the chain of command before

You come to me, give them an opportunity to solve a problem.

And I think informing the executive staff and the other thing being new is sometimes I don't know who to direct my answer to.

So once I direct it to Jeff and the executive staff, they know where to send it.

Yeah.

So Jeff plays that important role of conduit for you all as board members to get information to and from the organization.

It's why he needs to be in the loop.

It's why you all need to know everything that's coming back.

It helps you be informed.

It helps you have an even playing field for the decisions that you're going to make.

Other observations on these?

So another point of view is that I am reminded frequently

about the guidelines and how helpful they have been when I am accosted by irate citizens, including a text last night that said, shame on you.

for the decisions, you know, that there are things that I am not doing individually to save the world and don't have either the opportunity or the responsibility to save, to change on my own.

And so having this document, which has been, I think, had a lot of good work and discussion, and probably will have more in the future, really helps to keep us all working

together as a team as opposed to even having and also I can say this is a group effort you know it takes all of us and staff to carry things out and so I find it very helpful.

and then I'll go to John.

I'm just going to make a comment that the guidelines to some degree go back and connect to what we were talking about very early this morning and I think Liz wasn't here at that point, but we were talking about staying in our own lane.

These guidelines really address the supervisors staying in their own lane.

I personally really appreciate and want staff to really be able to say to me, Diantha, number one, I don't have time.

And to help me stay in that lane.

Yeah, I think that's a good addition.

I said one of them dealt with roles and the other were how you relate to the staff.

that whole picture of how you relate to the staff really is about your role as well.

John.

It would all run screaming out of the room, but thank you.

If you work that, I would like the invisible plane, please.

So that would be helpful.

Other observations on your guidelines.

Where are you struggling in terms of falling short?

John mentioned in the workshop this morning the one question that a couple of you disagreed with, which was about kind of the district versus the county-wide perspective and the natural tension that exists in that.

Talk a little bit about concerns that you might have with how you all balance those competing values.

Actually, you know, I think it may be the slide before this.

I think it was so significant where it talked about, you know, responsibility.

Yeah, the second, the number seven, the one I think districts, the county, the region.

And I think that is so important, but we have a really good practice here on the board, I think,

as some of the other supervisors have mentioned in terms of not necessarily a deferral per se in terms of responsibility but a deference in terms of allowing the supervisor for the district in which the particular item may be located to sort of take a bit of a lead on it because we expect the supervisor to have more knowledge but when it comes time for making a decision

then our general practice is to let the supervisor of the district in which the item is located be the one to make the motion either in favor of or in opposition to what is coming up before the board.

And I think that that allows that supervisor, but as you mentioned also Julia,

Not necessarily spoken verbally, but clearly understood is that the same respect will be given to each supervisor when something comes up in their district.

So Donna, you kind of said this is a practice that you have.

It sounds like an unwritten rule or expectation.

I think it's more common courtesy.

And if it's written down, I apologize, I don't know where it is.

But I think we all appreciate it because it allows that supervisor, because there's the political aspect of it.

And by that, I mean the constituents.

So again, and maybe that happens every time like clockwork, but I'm hearing this is an expectation you have of one another and it's important to keep those in mind and say them out loud.

Yes, yeah.

And if the supervisor of the district representing their constituents is not in favor of the proposal, then someone else is asked to make a motion in favor.

because that allows us to keep our own personal vote in line and I think that's a really, really good plan.

Someone a little earlier talked about how important the quality of life of the county residents as a whole is and this is another example where there is this built-in tension between what might be really impactful to

the quality of life of a particular part of the county as opposed to things which might benefit the county as a whole and how tight that tightrope is sometimes and all six of us have to work our way across that tightrope on different issues and I'm sure that will continue as we go along because we all are trying to provide infrastructure and the support mechanisms to allow

the quality of life of our current residents to be protected as more and more, 1,500 more people move in every single year.

But our existing residents and especially our lower and moderate income residents who have been here for a long time are really in jeopardy as we grow financially as well as for all sorts of land use pressures.

Others.

It sounds like you're all in agreement on this one, but in fact, two of six disagreed.

So I wonder what that is.

That disagreed with that you all are upholding it.

Well, I wonder if at the time

Each of them may have filled out our responses if there may not have been something in particular that was on that individual's mind.

It may have been what Ann was talking about where sometimes there's a feeling when we have all these infrastructure pressures

that, you know, whether the whether the money's going to one district or not, I don't know.

I'm just throwing that out and just brought it up.

And we've heard that before, you know, from time to time, just that feeling that and it's really, you know, there's just so much pressures.

There's so many pressures on and deeds that the community has that we just can't afford to pay for.

But

You know, I don't know.

I'm not sure how it was brought up in the survey.

Yes, Diantha.

Yeah, we are just trying to think about this particular bullet.

We're in a time right now where

We are turning our focus, I think rightfully so, to equity issues.

And we have in our community, we have a very wealthy community, but we also have not a very large middle class.

So we have, if you think about it, a lot of wealth and folks that are not so wealthy.

And so we have either ends of that social and financial divide.

And I think as we move forward with our work around equity

that it's going to be, this is going to perhaps take the edge off of maybe this a little bit because just trying to just, I know that our equity work we will be receiving at some point I think in the near future

the ability to look at our decisions and our policies and actually factor into them equity, which we really have never looked at before in this county as we're making decisions.

And for me, who represents the densest, most populated district, as I said before, the smallest and the

One of these school campus, while I represent more than just the one, but certainly have right in the heart of my district the most diverse education complex with the highest diversity and the highest poverty.

It is critical for me that we begin to look at every decision, whether it's affordable housing or

Well, just every policy and decision that comes to us, we need to start looking at it through a lens of equity.

Interesting.

And John, I'll go right to you.

And I just want to make an observation.

When you all talked about what is good governance, a couple of you mentioned, without using the word, but you mentioned efficiency and effectiveness.

You talked about

the brilliance of your growth area rural area divide and how that created logic to how you would extend services and be able to do that both efficiently and effectively and perhaps more sustainably.

You talked about providing service and protecting the economic viability of the government.

And I think what we're seeing, Diantha, to your point is those values, efficiency and effectiveness

They are born from the professional local government mindset that gave birth to the form of government that you have in Albemarle County.

And this lens of equity, so the three E's now are what people are talking about.

It needs to be efficient, it needs to be effective, and it needs to be equitable.

and equitable won't always be efficient.

And so you have those inherent tensions and it gets right at the four values that John talks about.

But I just wanted to kind of connect those thoughts with how you think of good governance and this concept of equity.

And I think what we see in our community is not unusual for university towns, right?

I mean, it's not unusual.

But we somehow or another have to come to grips with it and recognize that it pervades everything

Every decision that we're making right now, we have the ability to improve or maintain status quo.

And some of it's about letting data because we have a lot of, we're getting more and more data that is showing us exactly where those gaps are, education or in connectivity or in our affordable housing.

Yeah.

Yes, Ann.

In support of that, I would also add that it's across the whole 740 square miles that we have rural poverty, people without running water and living clean to the sides of the mountain tops and on the river banks and other places where their families may have historically been in

either impoverished or minority enclaves for generations.

And this information that is being gathered to help us all be more aware of these is definitely helpful to be able to make sure that our stretching of our

so that finances as far as possible is going to be bringing programming to help people.

But it is always my dilemma when we're talking about investments for solving any question is every town hall meeting I have 85 and 95 year old people who have lived here since they were born who say I can't afford another $100 a month in taxes or I will have to leave.

Please don't make me leave.

And so we have making sure that we're doing a good job of collecting all that information on our current affordable housing stock to make sure we don't lose it, or allow it to, you know, to be negligent and almost encourage it to be gentrified out to Airbnb or something else.

We'll

will help us to have more of that whole breadth of our residents in mind, because we do have this reputation in the state of being over the top income, but if those nine or 12 families were not counted, we would be way down in the middle.

as far as our finances are concerned.

So it is a real struggle when we fully appreciate the wide range of ability to be resilient to all of this modernization and changes.

And those same folks are quite often left behind when

That's true.

Other reflections here.

on these operating guidelines.

If you go to one of your questions, I think was where do we get tripped up?

Yeah.

And of all the eight, I think sometimes number three can trip us up.

No, I got you, I got you.

We are all very used to telling people what to do.

and we have no problem doing that.

And we have to remember that that will on the board, that collective entity is the one that has to give that direction.

And even then it's only to the county executive.

So we always have to be very mindful that shooting an email or

going into a meeting, I mean I know there have been times where I've kind of stomped my feet on the door.

That puts staff in a very precarious situation.

to not be responsive to that one person providing direction, but it's just not, it's not the thing that we can or should be doing.

We all have our individual meetings with the county executive and I'm sure we've all called Jeff and said you got to do this, you got to do that.

And usually that's probably done with some

but in reality, he can't do anything if the other five members are not on board the same page.

And so I think this is one, I think there's probably, I'm sure there have been times where it's been intentional but I think the vast majority of the examples could be unintentional because you're just trying to advocate either for a constituent or for something that's important to you or for something that you see that needs to be corrected.

So I think that the intended

or the intentional part of it is not nefarious or trying to do things around the other board members.

It's just the nature of being in the position of authority and wanting to see something happen.

So our instinct is to go tell people what to do.

And we have to be very careful with that.

And that's one that I can think of times when I myself have been guilty of that.

And I've obviously heard examples of when others have been guilty of that.

And we all just have to remember that six members have to give the direction.

And it is not our job or our right to go in and start directing what would amount to basically be day-to-day activities of staff.

So despite the efficiency of just telling people what you want them to do, you still have to get a few other people to agree with you.

Absolutely.

And that's why, as Donna said, you know, you got to keep these in front of us.

We have to remember these are our guidelines.

Yes, and I'm going to piggyback on what Ned said.

Just in the first few meetings that I attended, I would notice that things would be said like, well, I certainly hope the county staff looks at this or someone looks at that.

And then I'm thinking, well, okay, now are we all voting on that?

Are we all doing that?

Because that's what I'm used to.

If you want something to happen, you need to vote on it.

and I didn't notice the vote and I'm thinking, okay, that doesn't follow Robert's rules of order.

If you want something to happen, you definitely have to have a vote on it.

So I agree with what Ned says.

And the other thing, actually, it's a question to Greg.

I hope he's here.

He was.

Greg, our attorney, Kepner.

Yeah, he's here.

Okay, because

I'm getting a ton of emails which I do even if they're not belong even if they that person doesn't is not in my district I still read the email so this is my question that's a FOIA question actually so if I were to get a an email let's say I send out an email no an email comes to me from from someone to the Board of Supervisors okay

I do not have to keep that email because it goes to the Board of Supervisors and Claudette has that.

It's not a substantive comment.

Generally, those types of things like a thank you or just something like so-and-so call, they just need to be retained for as long as they're necessary for your use.

Okay, if I wrote this thank you, then I would keep it.

I understand that.

if it's solely between you and a supervisor and it is a public record and is something that is something more than just like a thank you or so and so call, please call back.

No, I guess what I'm talking about, if the original, the email A goes to the Board of Supervisors, okay, then a supervisor B, no, okay, a supervisor C responds an innocuous response.

So I don't have to keep the email from the A because of the fact that it went to the Board of Supervisors, but now that another supervisor responded, do I have to keep that?

If it is part of, if it is going back through the Board of Supervisors group, that is retained by the clerk.

So you don't need to retain it.

And I would ask respectfully to refrain from that because then I end up having to read something where it's, you know, there's a lot of emails to read.

Gotcha.

I'm going to make a note of that in my own little, I used to call it a parking lot, but I have a little bike rack over here of issues.

So that comment made me think of something I want to bring up with you all.

Thank you, Bea.

Other reflections on your guidelines.

And then I think we need to kind of address head on the question of,

Do we need to make any changes to these and adjustments based on this conversation we've had this afternoon?

I don't see any need for it personally.

I think they're good also.

And it's nice that there's eight of them.

It's not 27, so I'm sure, like I said, we know the Navy probably had more, but this is concise.

Ann, did you have a comment?

All right.

Jeff, I wanna put you on the spot a little bit because I'm far enough away you can't step on my foot.

And just kind of these guidelines are important to you.

You've talked about kind of your own ethos as a professional manager and sharing information and kind of staying in our lanes and all those things we've talked about today.

I don't believe so.

I look at these with regularity, and certainly with the help of Doug and Trevor, I have worked and passed this through.

our upper level management in the organization and I've shared these appropriately with our departments maybe at least two times on two prior occasions and emphasized the fact that these are the guidelines that our board has adopted and they ascribe to work within this framework.

I have not had a time, Julia, where I've sat and looked and said we have a gap here that we've got to address.

I will also say that last year at ICMA I had an opportunity to participate in a pretty large session.

It was one of the most well attended sessions.

And it was on this topic of governance and roles and responsibilities.