Serve on a Chapel Hill board

As printed in the Chapel Hill Herald on Saturday, March 24th:

One of the great things about our community is that everyone has an opinion. The number of folks coming out to speak at public meetings and writing letters to the editor is far greater than most other places of a similar size.

The volume of people participating in these sort of one-shot ways of expressing an opinion on a town issue are thankfully as plentiful as ever. Unfortunately, though, it seems the number of folks willing to participate in the public service activities that require a sustained time commitment has declined in recent years.

During the last Chapel Hill Town Council election there were only seven candidates running by the time the dust settled. This was the smallest number of people putting themselves forward for service in at least two decades, even as the population of our town increases.

It’s not just the number of folks standing for election that has declined, though. There’s also been a clear decline in people interested in serving on the town’s important volunteer advisory boards.

For instance, last fall there was a real crisis with the Transportation Board. There were a number of open seats due to people quitting. There were some qualified applicants to replace them, but it took several meetings before a recommendation could be made to the Town Council that they be appointed because so many of the remaining board members were missing the meetings that they couldn’t get a quorum!

I can see the decline in the number of people willing to serve even just over the last four years through my own experience. I first applied for the town’s Planning Board in late 2003. Over the next two years I was justly passed over four times when vacancies on the board arose because there were folks who wanted them who had more experience in serving the town than I did. I finally got appointed in late 2005.

Contrast that with the situation that faces the Planning Board next month. Board chairwoman Ruby Sinreich, who has served the community in too many ways to count over the years, faces a term limit. There is only one person who has applied to be on a town board in the last 12 months and listed the Planning Board as their top choice!

With the amount of interest townwide in the development future of Chapel Hill, it’s amazing to me that more folks have not stepped forward to serve on the body where they can have the greatest impact on that short of being on the council itself. In the past four months alone the Planning Board has passed judgment on major projects like UNC’s latest development plan modification, Greenbridge, and East 54. Many folks in the community have stepped forward to speak out on these projects but none of them have stepped forward to help make those decisions in the future.

So I’m asking, maybe begging, interested citizens to apply not just for the Planning Board but any other board that they might want to join for next year. Choices range from the Greenways Commission to the Bicycle and Pedestrian Board to the Human Services Board, among many others.

Seats end on June 30, so over the next month or so the various boards will be hearing from interested applicants, and then making recommendations to the Town Council on whom to appoint. The council will formally make these decisions for the most part in May.

The form for applying is short and easy to fill out, which is good because if you’re interested in serving you should do it sooner than later. I know out board will be hearing from folks as early as April 3 and 17.

Some folks may be reluctant to apply because they think they’re not qualified or that it will be too large of a time commitment.

On the issue of qualifications, the main one is that you care about the future of Chapel Hill and have a genuine interest in serving the town. It’s easier to get up to speed if you have a lot of background in service to the town, but certainly not a requirement. Really, the only attribute absolutely necessary to be a good board member is an ability to work cooperatively with people even when you disagree with them. One bad apple can ruin a whole board.

On the issue of time commitment, it is to some extent what you make of it. For instance, Planning Board takes a huge chunk out of my colleague George Cianciolo’s schedule because he serves as the board liaison to several other committees. But for other folks it’s just coming to a meeting twice a month and carefully reading the packet. Either approach is fine, depending on what you have the time for. Some other town boards meet just once a month.

The next time you’re annoyed about something going on in town, write your letter to the editor, but think about heading over to townofchapelhill.org as well and filling out an application to be on an advisory board. It’s one of the best ways you can serve our community!

A tale of two towns' head hunters

As published in the Chapel Hill Herald on July 1st, 2006

I grew up in Ann Arbor, Mich., a community in many ways similar to Chapel Hill.I continue to be very involved in both places, although in Ann Arbor, my greater interest is in the governance of the school district, while here I am most interested in the town.

This dual residency often gives me an opportunity to compare how each place does things. About half of the time, I see things in Chapel Hill that I think should be replicated in Ann Arbor, and just as often I see things in Ann Arbor that I think should be replicated in Chapel Hill.

Never was that more true than in the past two months as Chapel Hill embarked upon its new manager selection process while Ann Arbor picked a new school superintendent.

The most important thing in picking a new chief executive has to be getting a large field of qualified candidates.

When governing bodies need to do this they frequently hire consultants. Chapel Hill hired two experienced human resource experts who are also very involved in the local community, Anita Badrock and Tim Dempsey.

This decision drew criticism from some town activists who thought that hiring a firm that specializes in these kinds of positions would have been a better choice. Ann Arbor, on the other hand, hired the Michigan Association of School Boards to conduct its search, a group that among other things specializes in conducting superintendent searches.

Based on the number of applications for each position, the hiring of Badrock and Dempsey was clearly the right choice. Chapel Hill received 120 applications, while Ann Arbor received only 26.

The reasons for this are pretty clear. Not only are Badrock and Dempsey talented professionals, but they also have a personal interest in ensuring that Chapel Hill has strong governance.

They made this their priority for three months, and the results speak for themselves.

With a much larger pool to choose from, Chapel Hill was able to hire a manager with years of experience as the manager in a sizable city. Although I'm confident the new superintendent in Ann Arbor is going to do a great job, he has never held the top position before, and the district where he was the assistant superintendent is smaller than Ann Arbor.

The choice to hire qualified local residents to oversee the manager search process was a good decision by the town council, and one other communities could learn from.

When it came to engaging citizens in the selection of a new leader, Chapel Hill could learn some lessons from Ann Arbor, though.

For instance, while trying to develop a profile for the new manager, Chapel Hill invited about 30 citizen activists to a Saturday morning meeting to give their feedback at Town Hall.

Ann Arbor, on the other hand, had several well-publicized meetings at a variety of different times that the entire community was invited to for the purpose of stating what it wanted in a superintendent. This was a better way of encouraging people to get involved.

Once finalists were chosen, Chapel Hill invited the community at-large to ask the candidates questions at Town Hall.

However, there was no formal channel for residents to give their feedback on the candidates.

In Ann Arbor, the school district solicited applications for citizens to serve on a committee that interviewed the superintendent candidates and then gave formal, written feedback to the bard of education on what it felt to be each of the finalists' strengths and weaknesses.

This gave community members a more formalized stake in the process and is something local governments should think about doing the next time they hire new chief executives.

That said, I think the process as a whole for selecting a new manager in Chapel Hill was very well done. Some have questioned the fast time line, but I think it's great that the new manager now has two months to learn the lay of the land before moving into the position. He will be much better prepared now to hit the ground running than if he had not been hired until later in the summer.

Even though it only took a few months, the subcommittee of the town council that chose the finalists thoroughly vetted the candidates, going through a multilayered interview process.

It took an extensive amount of thoughtful work to choose the three finalists and Kevin Foy, Bill Strom, Bill Thorpe and Ed Harrison should be thanked for their willingness to put in all that extra time on top of their already large duties as members of the council.

And most important, Roger Stancil will be an outstanding manager. Not only does he have a lot of experience, but he is also a courageous leader. He has shown a willingness to make the right move even if it isn't the most popular one, and that's a trait I greatly respect.

Thanks to the work of the consultants and the town council, Chapel Hill has a bright future even as it loses Cal Horton's steady leadership.