HomeMy WebLinkAbout11-28-23 Public Comment - D. Kaveney - Commissioner appointmentFrom:Dan Kaveney
To:Agenda
Subject:[EXTERNAL]Commissioner appointment
Date:Monday, November 27, 2023 11:40:56 AM
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Dear Commissioners,
During the recent mayor/city commission campaign we heard a lot about rebuilding trust
between the city and Bozeman's citizenry. I’m not sure how interested you, the incumbent
commissioners, are in the “rebuilding trust” project, but if it is something you’d like to take on,
the appointment of this new commissioner offers an excellent opportunity to get started.
We can be sure of two things about this process:
1. Some people will be unhappy with your decision, and some of those will levy
accusations that your decision results from cronyism, anti-democratic bias, self-
interest, and other inappropriate behaviors.
2. Like anyone, you will fall victim to your unconscious and conscious biases unless
you create a set of standard criteria and requirements and evaluate each candidate
against those benchmarks. I’m certain you’ve already created and used these criteria –
how else could you hope to reasonably discern the right choice between 20
candidates?
You could begin the process of rebuilding the public’s trust in the commission and make a
dent in the anticipated accusations of inappropriate behavior by releasing your criteria to the
public, so people can see how you are approaching this very important decision.
I’ve already written a letter suggesting some criteria you might consider for this, and I won’t
re-iterate them here. I will add one idea, and that is that an appointed commissioner needs to
be treated somewhat differently from an elected commissioner. One difference is that an
appointed commissioner must be absolutely free of any appearance of conflict. Given that, I
don’t think it would be appropriate to appoint anybody who works in the real
estate/building/development field. The appearance of conflict is simply too great. To be clear,
I think someone working in those fields could serve well on the commission but only if they
were elected to the position by the voters. In that case the voters can weigh whether or not
they think the potential conflict is serious enough to outweigh whatever other qualities the
candidate would bring to the position.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
Dan Kaveney
Bozeman, MT