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raised over the last year and a half. There's no reason to go fall into the same pit all over again when <br />you can map it out and avoid it on round two. So I would put that out there as a suggestion -staff revisit <br />concerns that have been expressed over the last year and a half and look at avoiding those same <br />issues all over again. It wastes time. And I think we can go back over and over the same stuff again <br />and there's no reason to do that. <br />Commissioner Brown: Could you give an example of what might have transpired over the last <br />year and a half? <br />Commissioner Halkiotis: I was just mentioning that I had heard in some circles that some <br />people felt the deck was stacked by having Phil Boyle be the facilitator for collaboration because he had <br />children at that time in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school system. But what I'm saying is you eliminate that <br />argument from any side by having somebody come in who has no affiliation with either school system to <br />act as a facilitator. And when you mentioned the Dispute Settlement Center, I keep on thinking of the <br />wonderful work that Andy Sachs has done over the years. And we've used him in County government <br />for a number of undertakings, and very successfully. So that's all I'm proposing -avoid the mistakes of <br />the past if that's the road we're going to go down. <br />Chair Jacobs: I have spoken with Andy Sachs, and he is willing to undertake this project. I had <br />made a proposal working with Commissioner Brown on some possible areas of collaboration, and what I <br />would like to suggest is that we take this Attachment 5, the original memorandum of understanding <br />about collaboration, we give it to Mr. Sachs and to the two school boards, and we send them forth with a <br />timeline and with some areas that we've identified that we're interested in at least finding out if they may <br />be fruitful for collaboration. Then ask them to come back to us by the first of June with a report on what <br />they think they can do together and what they can't do together. And perhaps the first item on their <br />agenda should be to define what collaboration might be and to respond to this memorandum of <br />understanding, which was developed with Mr. Boyle, which the two school boards did endorse, and that <br />we offer that the two school boards and the County Commissioners jointly pay whatever nominal <br />amount of money that the Dispute Settlement Center would charge as a way of saying, "We're all in this <br />together". But I personally don't want to be involved in those discussions and don't think that County <br />Commissioners should be involved in those discussions. I think that there's nothing wrong with our <br />suggesting areas that we think, based on having listened to the public and listened to the school boards, <br />might be fruitful areas for the school boards to discuss. I read in the papers that some school board <br />members thought that we were exceeding our statutory authority to even have the audacity to suggest <br />certain areas to discuss. And I note in the memo that we got from the attorney that the Orange County <br />Commissioners have historically not exercised some of their statutory authority to mare closely regulate <br />what the schools do. We're trying to be collaborative. I see this as an opportunity to say, "Go forth and <br />do good things. We support you. Here are some ideas that we have." So, Mr. Sachs is excited about <br />doing that. He was working this evening with the Richmond Hills community in Efland, or he said he <br />would be here. And I would suggest that that would be a good way to at least get those discussions off <br />the ground as one aspect of what this Board, I believe, would like, which is more cooperation and more <br />information. <br />Commissioner Gordon: I could certainly support that approach. It's very similar to what I had <br />suggested. I guess the only thing that I would add is that we ought to bring it back on our agenda for a <br />formal charge and a formal procedure. Over the holiday break, I think I would like to see them take our <br />ideas and bring it back to our agenda as well as sending it forth to the school boards and to Mr. Sachs <br />for a formal charge and a formal process as soon as we can in January. <br />Commissioner Halkiotis: The only other thing I wanted to mention on that is, to save Mr. <br />Sachs a whole lot of time, I think it's really important far the Manager and his staff to sit down and give <br />Mr. Sachs a prep session on everything that has gone before here. I don't want to see a study come <br />back, and I can speak to this with some experience, telling us that both school systems have been <br />collaborating in transportation. The only reason that both school systems have been collaborating in <br />transportation is because the way the State funnels the money down to them. They decide to funnel it <br />through one allocation source, and that's it. It was not decided upon by the Chapel Hill-Carrboro <br />schools and the Orange County school boards. It was a State decision, and that's the way it is. Deal <br />with it. And it's worked very well, there's a pretty seamless operation going on in school bus <br />transportation because there aren't any politics involved in it. It just happens because you have to work <br />