Report from CA Presidential search advisory committee meeting #1

Although I was about 15 minutes late, I attended the first committee meeting of the CA advisory committee for the presidential search.  As readers know, I'm part of this 21-member committee.

My understanding from the meeting was that all of the information discussed Wednesday night was open, and meetings are generally open, except at times when the meeting will need to be closed for personnel matters.  For example, I am imagining that discussion of individual resumes and interviews of candidates by the committee will be closed.

All of the committee members attended, as well as four CA Board members (O'Connor, Cornell, Coyle, Atkinson-Stewart) and the recruiter from the search firm CA has entailed to assist them.  Here are the highlights:

--There have been over 500 resumes submitted for this position; of those, about 150 resumes have been screened.  Of those, about 8-10 candidates are considered strong by the CA search committee (AKA the CA Board Board Operations Committee + Tom O'Connor)

--The advisory committee's charge will be to review the resumes of the strong candidates, whittle that list down to 3-5 finalists, and devise how those finalists will meet the community.  Hopefully this charge will be completed by sometime in February.

--If we want, we can review the candidates that the CA search committee has not designated as strong.

--The committee elected officers: Neil Axel as Chair, Ginny Thomas as Vice Chair, and Sandy Cederbaum as Secretary.

-- Breakdown of committee members by village (there was a three member/village limit):
3: Hickory Ridge, Kings Contrivance, Wilde Lake
2: Long Reach, Owen Brown, Oakland Mills, Harper's Choice, Town Center
1: Dorsey's Search, River Hill

(Sandy Cederbaum is Village Manager of OM but lives in LR, so she is counted as representing LR)

-- The next meeting will be Monday, November 24 at 7:30pm in the CA Board room at CA Headquarters.

Although the meeting was very introductory and organizational, it seems like a good group of people; a wide array of backgrounds, experiences, time spent in Columbia (although I'm the newest resident of Columbia at 8 years, edging out a KC representative at 9 years) and demographics.  One thing the committee could have been is younger.  We didn't do an age check but I'm betting I'm at least the next to youngest member. 

I encourage anyone to attend these open meetings.  This is a crucial decision in Columbia's and Howard County's history, and it's important that we get it right.  And it's important that people see as much of the process as possible.