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Council committee adopts new thresholds for boards and commissions interview selection
Summary
Policy & Services adopted a selection process standardizing how many applicants are invited to interviews: if 6 or fewer applicants, interview all; if more, council members will vote and the top candidates up to a set cap (6/8/10 depending on vacancies) will be invited; motion passed unanimously.
The Policy & Services Committee on April 8 approved a new, more-prescriptive process for selecting which applicants will be invited to interviews for city boards, commissions and committees.
Deputy City Clerk Francesca Reyes presented four options and supplemental methods for the committee to consider and noted staff proposed a fail-safe that would allow the mayor to adjust the method for anomalies or special recruitments. The goal, Reyes said, was to provide predictability for applicants and reduce ad-hoc variations in practice.
After discussion, committee members agreed on a hybrid approach to balance applicant volume and staff/council time. The method the committee adopted (staff to finalize precise wording) can be summarized as:
- If there are six or fewer applicants for a vacancy or set of vacancies, staff will invite all applicants with a complete application to interview. - If there are more than six applicants, council members will cast votes to identify candidates to interview. The committee agreed on a scaling cap (for example: up to 6 interviewees when there are 1or 2 vacancies, up to 8or 9 for 3 vacancies, up to 10or 12 for 4 vacancies); staff will finalize the exact caps and implement a simple top-vote-winners rule.
Council Member Lou said the objective should be a replicable, nonpolitical, time-efficient and simple process; Council Member Stone emphasized the importance of having a policy the council follows so applicants are treated consistently. Several members stressed that the committee should consider the overall composition of a commission (skills and diversity) when making final selections, though the selection-threshold policy addresses only the interview invitation step.
The committee adopted the approach by voice/roll-call vote; the record shows: Council Member Liu, yes; Chair Vinkar, yes; Council Member Stone, yes. Staff will return with cleaned, actionable language and a final procedure for Council adoption.
Ending: Reyes said staff will prepare final ordinance/administrative language and the mayoral fail-safe language, and return the item to Council once the draft procedure is polished.
