Title
Rebalancing Boards and Filling Vacancies (NB)
Explanation
At its October 7, 2019 Regular Meeting, the City Commission requested that staff present a solution to reestablish staggered terms of city boards. A few boards have a number of members whose terms end at the same time, thereby leaving few members with institutional knowledge left on the board. It is important to achieve a balance between retaining a certain portion of members with institutional knowledge while also reinvigorating the board with new members who may have fresh ideas.
In order to rebalance those boards, the City Clerk proposes to send a letter to the affected boards requesting current members volunteer to lengthen or shorten their terms. If more members volunteer than are needed to rebalance the board or not enough members volunteer, the Clerk will select members at random to lengthen their terms.
If lengthening a member’s term would violate a term limit in the Code, the Clerk will request volunteers to shorten terms. If more members volunteer than are needed to rebalance the board or not enough members volunteer, the Clerk will select members at random to shorten their terms. Another option is for boards in which member terms are unlimited, the Clerk can request volunteers to shorten their current term and then reappoint the member to a full term upon expiration of the shortened term.
When the Clerk has developed a plan to rebalance a specific board/committee with lengthened and/or shortened member terms, the Clerk’s Office will place the plan on a Commission meeting agenda for approval of the appointments for those new terms.
The Clerk requests City Commission direction in establishing procedures for filling vacancies after the boards have been rebalanced. Moving forward, the Clerk proposes certain procedures for filling vacancies. It takes approximately 2-3 months from the date the Clerk advertises an opening to filling the position. If a member resigns with less than 6 ...
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