Columbia Council Committee Assignments

The Columbia Council/Columbia Association Board of Directors had their organizational meeting tonight. Here are the new chair, vice chair, and committee assignments:

Chair: Phil Kirsch (Wilde Lake)
Vice Chair: Cindy Coyle (Harpers Choice)

External Relations Committee
Michael Cornell (River Hill)
Suzanne Waller (Town Center)
Shari Zaret (Kings Contrivance)

Planning and Strategy Committee
Cindy Coyle (Harpers Choice)
Russ Swatek (Long Reach)
Gregg Schwind (Hickory Ridge)

Performance Oversight Committee
Alex Hekimian (Oakland Mills)
Pearl Atkinson-Stewart (Owen Brown)
Kathleen Dragovich (Dorsey Search)

Bagel Bin Listening Session

I haven't posted since shortly after I started serving on the Columbia Council, but I wanted to draw people's attention to the Columbia Council testimony on the Downtown Zoning Amendment (ZRA 113) and particularly the detailed response the Columbia Council will be providing on each of the County's Department of Planning and Zoning's recommendations on the Zoning Amendment.

I also want to invite anyone who is interested to stop by my monthly Bagel Bin Listening Session that will be tomorrow (Saturday, February 7th) from 11am to 1pm at the Bagel Bin in Kings Contrivance village center.

August Bagel Bin Listening Session

I will hold my next Bagel Bin Listening Session on Saturday, August 11th from 12noon to 2pm. Please come by and share your thoughts on any issues effecting our community.

Bagel Bin Listening Session

I will hold my next Bagel Bin Listening Session on Saturday, July 28th from 9:30am to 11:30am. Please come by and share your thoughts on any issues effecting our community.

A Window Into Life on the CA Board

I hope to have a longer post on my CA experience thus far up in the next couple days, but I saw this article by Sara Michael in the Examiner and thought I would link to it so here is a quick taste since I haven't yet had time to draft my longer post.

Bagel Bin Listening Session

I will hold my next Bagel Bin Listening Session on Sunday, May 27th from 12:15pm to 2:15pm. Please come by and share your thoughts on any issues effecting our community.

The CA Meeting

If I didn't have my sense of humor I think I would never get through the next two years. I just made it through my first full CA Board meeting. We made some slow progress and I think there is a lot of opportunity for this board really make a big difference if 1) some board members would stop attacking fellow board members (interestingly I have observed it is the board members that are first to shout for the need for civility that are the main ones trying to attack fellow board members) and 2) if we would develop a greater capacity to take action rather than postponing decisions.

Anyway here is a run down of some of what happened:

1) There is still a lot of disagreement over the Presidents Performance Goals. We will have a special public board meeting on Tuesday, May 29th at 7:30pm to hopefully finish them up. I will probably write more on this later.

2) The version of my Pool Sheds motion that was amended in committee was passed that says CA will prepare the ground and install the pool sheds that the CA Swim Teams need to store there gear if the Swim Team can find a way to purchace a shed and get RAC (i.e. architectural) approval.

3) My survey of pool usage to identify the causes of the parking problem at the pools was defeated.

4) My Online Searchable Database of Board Decisions went down on a 5-5 vote and was sent back to committee for more detail. Interesting all of the detail had been stripped from the proposal in committee this past time. I had used up my debate time on the motion by the time people were talking of needing more detail and was not recognized to answer these points as a result. I am not good at sitting on my hands and not being allowed to respond. I need to learn how to manage my two turns to speak better. I think I was getting better at it by the time we got to the performance goals, which was actually one of the later items we addressed.

5) The Board has fixed our committee structure to allow Vice Chairs to sit in if their Chair is absent on Board Operations Committee meetings. The Board Operations Committee is the committee of committee chairs that is suppose to manage the board and the boards relations with the President. The notion of whether the Board's overall Vice Chair can sit in for the Board's overall Chair if the Chair is absent from Board Operations Committee meetings was sent back to committee.

Columbia Council Meeting Tonight

The Columbia Council is having its first full board meeting since I got elected tonight. Its at the CA Headquarters at 7:30pm. Here's the agenda.

CA President's Performance Goals

As part of CA President Maggie Brown's new contract the CA Board of Directors has to establish performance goals for her to complete over the next year to get her bonus. The current proposed performance goals are basically made of completion tasks with no measure of quality of completion. If a goal is to "develop a plan" and then any plan irregardless of how good the plan is could be interpreted as satisfying that goal even though that is not what is best for CA. The Board Operations Committee will be meeting at the CA Headquarters at 7pm on Tuesday, May 15th to edit these for the Board's approval on Thursday, May 24th. I am interested in hearing your suggestions on what the performance goals should be. I will check the comments right before I go to the meeting at 7pm. I also encourage you if you have some ideas to come to the meeting and tell the committee during resident speak out.

Update

So I have not posted in a week. I have been very focused on learning everything I need to know to to do a good job on the Columbia Council and doing a lot of in person listening. I also want to wait and reflect a little more on my first week on the board before posting on it. I will be writing more on this in the near future and asking your thoughts on specific items, but for now let me do a quick run down on the past week in CA world.


May 2nd - New Board Takes Office
May 4th and 5th - attended CA Board Retreat
May 6th - I went hiking on the Billy Goat Trail at Great Falls to collect my thoughts
May 7th- attended External Relations Committee
May 8th - attended Performance Oversight Committee
May 10th - served on the Planning and Strategy Committee

I am still collecting my thoughts on all of this. While I collect my thoughts please share with me your experience both good and bad with the functioning on the CA Board. How do you get your information of what CA is doing?

CA Board Organization

At tonights CA meeting Barbara Russell was elected Chair and Phil Kirsch was elected Vice Chair. Committee Assignments were also made. They are:

Planning and Strategy
Gail Broida
Evan Coren
Phil Kirsch

Preformance Oversight
Mike Cornell
Cindy Coyle
Tom O'Conner

External Relations
Pearl Atkinson-Stewart
Miles Coffman
Hank Dagenais

First Listening Session

Last Sunday I had my first listening session at the Bagel Bin. I think it went very well. Eight Kings Contrivance residents stopped by to say hi and talk. I got some reading material suggested to me and I got to talk to serveral residents about issues in the community that concerned them. Owen Brown's Columbia Council Rep Pearl Atkinson-Stewart also stopped by to say hi. I look forward to seeing everyone at my next one which will be in late May. If you were unable to stop by, please feel free to use the comments in this post as a continuing listening session.

Searchable Database

Have you noticed how hard it is to find what decisions the Columbia Council has taken on an issue? Right now you have to go back and read through old minutes. I think the board, staff, and public would be better served if an online searchable database of board decisions were created. It seems much time is wasted and confusion caused over what the board has decided on and what actions the staff should be taken. To clear this situation up and bring organization to the board’s operations and its relationship with staff a unified searchable online database would significantly improve CA’s operation.