Agenda - 03-06-2014 - 6a - Laserfiche WebLink

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25 1 2 Commissioner Rich said she does not want to discard the other ones. 3 Commissioner Gordon agreed, and said that all of the goals suggested by the 4 Commissioners should at least be considered. 5 Rod Visser said the assumption he would test is that the feedback that the Manager and 6 staff have received from this exercise is useful because it IS prioritized. He said that 7 you can see what the highest priorities are, and there are other things on the list that are 8 still desirable, but you have to take into consideration available resources. 9 10 Michael Talbert said that is a fair assumption. His quick reaction is that there are three 11 goals that are clearly everyone's highest that he and staff will move forward with. He 12 said they will deal with the others in priority order— if they are on the list, maybe they 13 don't get funding next year, but they don't disappear. 14 15 Rod Visser asked for the Board to take a few minutes to reflect on the retreat and to ask 16 themselves what went well, and what did not go so well or what they might do 17 differently. He explained his reason for asking is that it might be useful in planning next 18 year's retreat or future work sessions. 19 20 Commissioner McKee said the opportunity to be able to rank budget goals was a good 21 thing. 22 23 Commissioner Dorosin said he thought it would be helpful to share everybody's budget 24 goal rankings. He noted his next comment not as something that didn't go well, but as 25 something that didn't go enough - an opportunity for them to dialogue with each other. 26 He wanted to spend less time on budget (that can be addressed in other ways) and 27 more time about poverty. He wanted a chance to engage and test each other's 28 assumptions. There should be more time for dialogue, and they should be selective 29 with regard to the time allocated for presentations. 30 31 Chair Jacobs said he agreed with Commissioner Dorosin up to a point and that 32 periodically they need to review what their goals are. He said they are operating on 33 goals and objectives from 4-5 years ago and this Board needs the opportunity to work 34 on those. They do not have enough informal conversation —other settings like regular 35 meetings, public hearings, and work sessions don't lend themselves to that. He would 36 like to get some feedback from staff on what they discussed and what the "marching 37 orders" were. Rod Visser said he expected the minutes would record that in detail. 38 Chair Jacobs said he wanted to see actual follow-up so they don't wonder if they 39 accomplished anything beyond feeling good about what they said. 40 41 Commissioner Rich said she wanted to make sure they have next steps listed. She 42 feels they lacked that at the end of last year's retreat even though they had some really 43 robust conversations. She wanted to follow through the entire year on those 44 conversations. 45 46 Commissioner Pelissier agreed with Commissioner Dorosin that the Board does not 47 have a lot of interaction that helps them gel as a group. She thinks they had some good 48 outcomes today, but there were so many topics it felt like a long work session. She 49 feels both satisfaction and not. 50 51 Commissioner Gordon said the statement she will make demonstrates that things went 52 both well and not so well. She said that some topics required a two-step process that 53 involved getting information, with some time to process that information, before making 54 a decision. They tried to do both on a lot of topics today. She said they need to lay out 55 the decision points before having the discussion.