Let's take Monday, May 15, 2012, as an example. I had four "must attend" meetings scheduled that day. None could have been easily postponed so I decided to take the Tim Gunn approach and "make it work." I did have enough time to read the background packets on each meeting, so I was prepared.
Meeting 1: From 10 AM to noon, the Board of a Joint Powers Agency (called "Area 12 on Aging) was conducting a business meeting in a shared session with the group's advisory council, followed by a meet-and-greet-lunch. The location was the Union Hill B&B out at the Pedro Wye. I'm a member of the JPA Board, assigned to represent the Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors. Other members of that Board include Supervisors Merita Callaway from Calaveras County; Jim Allen from Mariposa County; and Richard Forster of Amador County. The Area 12 meeting was organized by Pauline White, who is the Executive Director of the organization. Merita is the Chair of the JPA Board this year. Tuolumne County (at my request) assigns two Supervisors to the Area 12 Board, so either John Gray or I attend the meetings. Sometimes both of us do, such as on May 15. I'm very happy to be a part of Area 12 and try to help them out anyway I can. When the meeting and lunch ended, John Gray and I went back to our respective offices in the County Building. I had a half hour or so to get ready for Meeting 2.
Meeting 2: This meeting started at 1:30 P.M., and I had to leave it at 2:45 P.M. to get to my next one. The name of the group holding the meeting is Central Sierra Child Support Agency. Like Area 12, it has a Board consisting of Supervisors from counties in the region. Evan Royce and I are the assigned Supervisors from Tuolumne County and we meet on a monthly basis with these folks. The actual meeting location was in San Andreas, so I had to participate via telephone conference call. Things got set up for me to be a part of the meeting, and we went over some "housekeeping" type items during the time I was there. Tuolumne County used to have its own Child Support Department, but decided to join three other counties in a JPA arrangement in order to save money. This change came about nearly two years ago, and some of the organizational work still remains to be done. We have an outstanding person at the helm of this agency. She is Adele Hendrickson and she used to run the Tuolumne County Department before it joined the JPA. Now she is in charge of all the counties in this new effort. We are lucky to have her working for us.
Meeting 3: I left the Child Support Agency meeting at 2:45 PM and walked from there (County Building at 2 S. Green) up Washington Street to City Hall. I had to allow fifteen minutes for the walk because I had a knee replacement in January and am still recovering. What used to seem like a small distance (County building to City Hall), takes on a new meaning when you are working with a new knee. Anyway. I made it to the City's Conference Room by 3 PM and got the meeting started. I am the Chairman of this particular committee which is a state-mandated oversight committee set up to monitor activities of the City of Sonora as it goes about the task of dissolving its Redevelopment Agency. Present at this meeting were City staff members, including the Chief Administrative Officer Tim Miller, and a group of stakeholders from local agencies. These agencies include County Schools, TUD, City of Sonora, Tuolumne County, and Columbia College. This group has met twice and only just begun to go over the documents we will need to conduct oversight. This meeting included some good discussion, helped along by a "special counsel" who came in from Sacramento to answer technical questions about the dissolution process. I was out the door of City Hall by 4:30 PM.
Meeting 4: I had anticipated that this evening meeting (which started at 6 PM) might be a little emotional since it was the final meeting of the Youth Commission as currently constituted. The next session of the Commission won't be until September, and it will have new members because more than half of the ones who have been with us for these past two years are graduating from high school or otherwise moving on. Attending the meeting were Commissioners Kristie McCluskey, April Robles, Jared Smith, Luke Houghton, and Kendra Jamar. We had a quorum! The Commissioners were joined by Todd Stolp, our Public Health Officer; Sarah Carrillo, our attorney; Craig Pedro, our substitute secretary; and myself, our Board of Supervisors' liaison. We reflected on the two year experiment that was the Youth Commission. It was the first-ever Youth Commission for Tuolumne County government and the students knew that they were trailblazers. They learned (among other things) how government systems work. They learned about the Brown Act and creating By-Laws to keep our meetings organized. They learned about each other too. One thing I contributed to their experience was a different way to think about leadership. I asked the Commissioners to be aware of "leadership moves" that they saw people making in their school settings or the community (A handshake? Maybe a fist-bump?). I think that noticing the component parts of leadership helped them think about it more accurately than they might have otherwise. We had a "leadership report" based on their observations at every meeting from every Commissioner. This final meeting was co-chaired by Luke Houghton and myself, and we had one last "trip around the table" to talk about leadership. Then it was over and it was 7 PM and the long day (May 15) came to close.
Not a moment too soon!
