Chapel Hill Technology Advisory Committee

["Ralph Beisner" <rbeisner AT nc.rr.com>]

Terri,

What you or anyone else does as an individual we all respect your right to
do so.  It is important, as I think Gregg has pointed out, not to imply that
the TC backs what the individual wants unless it has been fully discussed at
a regular meeting and agreed upon.  I am not sure that using the TC
listserve for this purpose is necessarily appropriate.

Ralph

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Terri Buckner" <tbuckner AT ibiblio.org>
To: "Chapel Hill Information Technology Advisory Committee"
<chtechcomm AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, June 20, 2005 2:28 PM
Subject: Re: [Chtechcomm] Petition to work with DEDC on wireless initiative


> Gregg,
>
> Unless there have been private conversations going on, only one person
> has expressed concern prior to your message and three others have said
> to add their name to the petition. As you know, the suggestion for
> sending this petition, under personal names rather than the full
> committee, came from our council representative. He also suggested
> asking the DEDC to submit a similar petition.
>
> This has nothing to do with bypassing committee approval, undercutting
> teamwork, or not including new members. This is expediting a benign
> process and working within established town practices. If we act now and
> submit this with the agenda package by tomorrow noon, the manager will
> have the option of including this as part of the consent agenda and it
> won't take up the council's time on their last meeting of the
> year--which will be quite full of budget and other year end issues.
>
> I fully support democracy and collaboration. But we are a committee that
> meets once a month so we also need to be flexible, especially when there
> is no cost and much benefit and the action is recommended by our council
> representative.
>
> Terri
>
>
> Gregg Gerdau wrote:
>
> > Terri,
> >
> > As we previously discussed, I believe your idea has some merit and
> > deserves the opportunity to be thoroughly vetted with the TC before any
> > action is taken on behalf of the TC.  If you would like to add it to the
> > agenda for tomorrow's meeting, we could try.  As several people have now
> > pointed out: if, after these discussions, a petition to Council is in
> > order, there should be sufficient time to present it as a Committee
> > action for their 6/27 meeting, either via agenda or from the floor.
> >
> > I say "try" because this is not a one step process.  It has to fit into
> > an overall plan for how the TC approaches the achievement of its
> > purposes.  Step #1 is "building cooperative interaction with Council and
> > staff by establishing an atmosphere of compromise and give-and-take that
> > works consistently".  We'll make a good "jump start" on that with the
> > Mayor and Manager tomorrow.
> >
> > Step #2 is realignment of old subcommittees and establishing new
> > subcommittees. This should be no surprise, as it is the basis on which I
> > offered my candidacy to Chair the committee: "I believe in teams. They
> > can be far more powerful than the sum of their individual
> > contributors.".  That can lead to getting many good things done without
> > having too much discussion that leads to inaction.  I'd like to propose
> > two right away  - open source (pilot) initiatives and community
> > networking (wireless) initiatives.  Although included in the
> > Infrastructure Subcommittee's strategic plan, these areas are growing in
> > activity and interest.  We could also consider having a subcommittee for
> > PR/communications.
> >
> > We have new members who will need a subcommittee to team with, retiring
> > members whose subcommittee slots are vacant, and a new chair and vice
> > chair who may not be leading or permanently part of the individual
> > subcommittees.    We need to discuss with who leads and serves on each
> > one.  Looking forward, I would hope the subcommittees would work toward
> > goals and report progress monthly. Frankly, I'm not sure I have a good
> > record of what the existing assignments are beyond the Infrastructure
> > Subcommittee.
> >
> > Interaction with the DEDC might be a separate subcommittee, if that's
> > what the TC decides, but I would start by proposing that it fits in with
> > the community networking subcommittee.
> >
> > With Best Regards,
> >
> > Gregg
> > Gregg Gerdau
> > Chair
> > Chapel Hill Technology Committee
> > cell     919-593-0037
> > office  650-302-3500
> > efax    650-618-1578
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
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