But that was an error. So this is our second special common council meeting of this term Would the clerk please call the roll Holder person boran Here Donahue Felde Acle here Decker here Sorenson here Savaglio Mitchell there are eight elders participating. Oh Barbara Felde Okay, there are nine elders participating Very good. Thank you. Next. I ask you to please stand and join me in the Fledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands One nation under God Indivisible with liberty and justice for all. The next item on the agenda is public forum. So this assistant city clerk Mike Brunette You can step up to the podium ahead Can you please state your address? 1925 Salt 26th Street You have five minutes to speak All right, Squid Porco to city administrator three About the same amount of mirrors that we've had in the same time and pretty much every argument Everybody had going into the whole city administrator mayor thing was longevity Consistency if we have a city administrator, they're gonna be there forever That's gonna make everything you uniquely great because they'll have that perspective That's out of the way on the step two and it's like last time when I came up to spoke It was pretty much the same thing you had a you had a Formal council member this time. It's a current council member that is about you're about to go into closed-door session You're going to discuss.  This is not this thing on you Todd. It's the practice of administration And it's like you are also going to suspend the rules which is a very very very Shaboyan thing, but that circumvents the whole process should be used for emergencies and I don't know. I mean, I knew about this for a month at least you probably knew longer I don't I don't know what it is, but bottom line is the search is over. It's done Todd's the new city administrator and Not officially, but it's what it's going to be and that's all fine. If that's what you want to do It's what you want to do, but it kind of makes a Ridiculous it makes the argument of having to have an administrator and a mayor an obvious ridiculous one Because its bottom line is not only do you have all those extra costs generated in there But it's one of those back in the day the mayor had those duties and some sure they're Done the mayor is was on top of the chart and it went down and you had financed people You had your public works. They have whatever just like you do now. Nothing's changed But it basically at the top we have a completely Unaccountable on by the public unelected official and in this case, it's basically It's a councilman Jumping over from being councilman jumping over the top of the mayor and Becoming city administrator and it's like NFR councilman had these skills Which I believe they do not everybody has all the same skills to a degree, but it's like what upsets me is There was no updates with anything about as far as I know About anything what's going on and other than me finding out that our city administrator is leaving which is good for him Whatever he's doing. I'm happy. He's doing good moving on. I'm not happy I mean, I thought he did a great job. That isn't the point but you but everything gets handled behind the scenes and In reality, this is a city government. I mean and we're supposed to do what the people want And it's like we're supposed to get things done and I disagree with Todd on a whole mess of things But that's not even really The point of this whether I agree or disagree whatever on topics that doesn't matter because technically according to the Org chart or whatever he's in him he will be an administrator Which means he's not making day-to-day decisions, but we all know in reality That's a big part of what administration is and he who sets the table he was sets the agenda in whatever But going into it the last time we went around I think it was an alderman rind flesh and it's kind of like and I spoke and I said squid pro quo how he's getting it but honestly, I knew Daryl was Pretty much assured of getting that job here. There's not even another candidate at this point We'll never know who the other candidates are and I'm literally talking to Probably 15 people totally because nobody even knows this is going on But I'm still thought it was worth voicing that Concern with the procedure and the whole thing and it's because one of those why do we still? Need the different layers. What's changed? What's this? What's that? You have 30 seconds? All right, and bottom line is here We go again and this is sheboygan all over again, and it's and it's kind of like the community has zero clue What's going on and yet and yet here we go and it's like that in virtually every decision And it's like there's no rebuttal. There's no argument. Have fun in your closed session. I'm going home Thank you, Mike I Need to take a step back on the agenda and Ask for approval of the minutes entertain a motion to approve the minutes from the sixth council meeting held on June 15th Thank you for that motion in support. Is there any discussion on the minutes? See none. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye Opposed motion passes Next we'll go on To item we're going to skip item 3.1 We've had some discussion within the council and we're not going to go into closed session so item 3.2 Is going to be an interview with the final candidate for a city administrator to start things out I'd like all the person Donahue Our council vice president to review the interview process that brought us to our final candidate All the person Donahue 3.1 I thought we're skipping over 2.1. Oh, I'm sorry next is Is item 2.1 and this is a resignation of Todd Wolf is all their person Need a motion to accept that resignation There'd be a motion to receive and file the the Resignation second boring Okay, that motion is on the floor all those in favor Please oh, I'm sorry. We have to call roll on that with the city clerk. Please call the roll get in right now on my computer So I'm gonna have to give you a voice vote of a high Okay, I'm the same trouble I fill up Okay, boring I nine eyes Motion passes Now we'll go on to item 3.2 all their person Donahue Thank You mayor Just because the information I want to convey at this point is of Significant importance. I'm going to take my mask down just a little bit with my apologies What I want to do at this point is review the pretty much in the extent the duration and the content of the Hiring process for the city administrator And if you'll just bear with me because it's a it's a it's a bit of a report but as we all know our current city administrator Daryl Hofflin notified us on April 27th that he was going to retire from the city department The from the city as a city administrator We Reviewed that we knew that Daryl would not be with us forever and ever and ever and we are very sorry to see him go but we moved Immediately into a hiring process in that our time frame to replace Daryl With someone with his skills and talent and so forth It was very short 60 days. It sounds like a long time, but it really isn't and I think he'll understand why as I go on The first thing that we did was we asked Daryl to review the His job description. Are there things that you want to add or subtract based on your four years of experience? Are there different things that we should be doing and Daryl felt comfortable with the job? Description as it was written So We are very lucky to have a new HR director Vicki Schneider who was invaluable in this entire process and Vicki Has been very helpful in posing or Composing I should say questions that that that we can be asking and And she sent those along It was our intent at that time to interview each department head and as well all council members to talk about What they would be looking for in a new city administrator We Had a discussion on April 30th a discussion and outline for the hiring process So we posted the position on a variety of websites We don't We don't do newspapers so much anymore, but the position was posted on indeed the Wisconsin City County Administrators Association the League of Wisconsin municipalities the City of Sheboygan website the City of Sheboygan linked in and Facebook I Requested that a Special session of the council be held on May 6th to constitute the hiring committee and to really listen to what? Alders had to say in terms of what they would be looking for as we were starting the hiring process Alders started with I think the very good news that our city administrator position under Darrell's Efforts has been highly professionalized. We've really made gigantic strides in the past four years In terms of how the city operates how we treat each other how business is being done in terms of Other attributes and values that council members would be looking for you told us that you were looking for openness on financial matters One alder said I don't want surprises One alder said that that he really wanted to speed up what seemed to be a slow pace of change We talked about the need for a smooth transition For an administrator who is proactive and has strong development skills Alder's voiced substantial concern about our finance department The issues that the department faces and how to resolve those plans We agreed that the strategic plan process probably needs to be more innovative and that we needed to look at 21st century methods as we were attempting to solve the problems that the city faces I Thought it was a good meeting and gave a direction to the hiring committee the hiring committee was mayor van der steen me Alderperson Ryan Sorensen and also a retired city administrator from Theansville Diane Robertson I Thank the mayor for his insistence on including an outsider on the hiring team She was I think invaluable in all of our review of applications and our interviews and And we thank her for the work that she volunteered for us Between May 7th and May 12th Mayor van der steen And or Ryan and or me met with every individual department head The these discussions as well as the findings in the in the CLA assessment. That's the finance department assessment We're guiding factors and determining the qualities that we need for a new city administrator. I'm going to share some of the Some of the responses and insights and concerns that department heads voiced First of all, they were almost uniformly appreciative of the professionalization of the department and city management in general In terms of what they would be looking for in a new administrator they would I say they but you know These were individual responses. We needed a morale builder someone with a cheerleading Personality We needed a patient but assertive person someone who can coach and who has good communication skills as a good listener who's approachable a Person who would be organized enough to involve departments at early stages someone who can prioritize who Has the professionalism and respect that the the the position needs someone who will engage And and has team-building skills creating a good culture a team environment Getting rid of silos that might exist in the current structure The city administrator needs to roll up sleeves can't just sit in the office needs to get out and Help people own problems as a team Needs to have command of operational issues Needs to work side-by-side Department heads felt with the administrator and needed to be involved with all departments One department head is looking for a person who will step in when things are simmering and not boiling over Somebody who can rally the troops understand people person who has the ability to Take input and make decisions and to act on big decisions in terms of specific skills Certain skills were outlined an ability to fully understand the structure of the water department Embrace state debt collection processes understand economic development and understanding the market Handling multiple priorities an ability to deal with the CLA report solving it problems balancing costs with revenue coming in Seeing that the grant and donation policy would be revamped Dilling in skill sets pay grades creating and revamping organizing policies orientation for new employees Process improvement across departments and purchase process For example or the city wellness initiative really working on core services Getting support for both HR and the finance department and making resources available and smarter use of IT many of these qualities are already present in our city administrator and but We felt that this discussion with both council with you know all of you here and on the screen as well as administrators Really focused for us the kind of person that we would be looking at in terms of a potential new City administrator now as of May 26 2020 24 applications Were received All of the applicants all of those applications were reviewed by the search committee which chose six applicants to interview The other applicants were basically felt not to meet basic job requirements either in terms of experience educational background Or the like One of those six withdrew So on June 3rd and June 5th Two candidate three candidates Let me back up. We interviewed three candidates on June 3rd and two candidates on June 5th We did this by zoom and for those of us who have done phone interviews as of as the first Measure to determine who goes on in the process Actually, the zoom interviews were terrific and gave us a really good idea of the of the five candidates Who we thought any one of them might be a good fit for the? For the for the position our search committee met multiple times on zoom and by telephone and We reviewed all five applicants to determine which ones we felt would appropriately advance to the second round and two candidates were chosen to To move forward one more application was received The way our job Announcement read was that May 26th would be not the closing date, but the first review date and Because we were all already into the process the June 8th application was not considered Now we did interview both Candidates candidate a and candidate b here in the chambers Those were in-person interviews because we were wearing masks. It was Really not quite as satisfying as a zoom interview. I would have to say but nonetheless, they were More extensive more in-depth Questions and we spent some time Gathering answers and analyzing responses after each Interview we asked all department heads to come into the chambers here and to essentially conduct their own interview of each candidate That process went very well. I thought so again our committee met and We selected the final candidate who was Todd Wolf. He was one of the two who was interviewed in the second interview process and We Offered him the position of course Subject to approval of the Common Council the hiring committee does not get to choose who the new city administrator is The council gets to choose that and that candidate as I said was was Todd Wolf. We also needed Successful completion of background checks would which included drug screen criminal background check verification of education employment references credit check and we also asked Todd to take a psychological and leadership assessment On So all of that happened between June 12th and June 19th on June 19 We negotiated a tentative employment agreement with Todd again, that was a negotiation process back and forth and And we reached the agreement that you all have seen on board docs There was give and take Some things Todd wanted he didn't get some things we wanted we didn't get and it so in every respect It was a successful negotiation So we are here today to Have you as the council essentially conduct the third interview to see if Todd Wolf is the candidate that you want as as as your City administrator the reasons why the Search committee is recommending Todd at this point is that we believe he brings a unique blend of both business experience and municipal management We did send out Todd's resume and his cover letter so you can see that he has had extensive business experience particularly with management issues and process issues making things work better and When he said he was a lean six sigma black belt, I thought that was Jujitsu, it's not it's a management tool, but it is a way that businesses It's a process that businesses undertake to make themselves more efficient and productive Todd's been around Sheboygan for a long time He was at Paperbox for a long time and is currently at Kurchoa He has been on the council. He was briefly here as an appointee Left and came back and he has been on the council since 2015 He has been president of the council for the last at least two maybe three years He has chaired the transit commission finance and Personnel he has chaired does chair now public works the redevelopment authority Marina parks and forestry and capital improvements This unique blend of knowledge of our city And the many challenges facing us and this is not only in the finance department, which of course is of great concern and Is a structural problem We're just facing all kinds of challenges right now we need to very quickly prepare a budget And deal with a wide variety of issues from my perspective Todd is full of good humor and often very bad jokes. He has energy that is To me pretty stunning I think The energizer bunny has nothing on Todd Wolf I have seen him bring full energy to city matters after long days at work And he has an ability to work with others and make us feel like a part of the team so it is for those reasons that I That the search committee is recommending that we hire Todd Chuck I will defer to you on this, but it would seem to me We have two decisions to make one is whether or not we will make an offer to Todd and then secondly a review of his contract Would it be appropriate at this time for me to move? that Todd be hired as our new administrator or Or And then the contract be discussed prior to that vote or would you suggest another way of dealing with this that up in the on the agenda is there is a resolution and the resolution Points Todd as the administrator and authorizes entering into the employment agreement You could use that resolution and you know make that motion and then talk through both of those sets of issues If if you wanted to I think you can divide for the question in the resolution If you so choose do you have any opinion is to the better way? dividing the question Me it depends on how you divide the question so you know if there is a concern that Leads an alder to believe that they need to divide the question. I think then then you should do that but without hearing that I think probably the the best way to proceed would be to to make the motion in the resolution and then see where things go and I Sit from my perspective it would make sense to make that to to put that resolution forward in an undivided manner With a second and then we would begin discussion on both Mary Lynn I think we need to conduct the candidate interview first and then take care of that. You're right. Yeah my mistake I am so sorry. Yeah, but after we get done with that we will proceed so at this time I'd like to invite tad wolf to come to the podium and We're open for questions, which all the person would like to go first. I've got a couple mayor go ahead Vice President Donahue sent out an email today with the with the The first the first interview questions and then the second interview questions. I have it in front of me But if vice president Donnie who has those handy in front of her I would think we maybe could go over those five questions with Todd I thought all of the questions in the first the first round in the second round were very very very good questions Mary Lynn do you want me to read the questions or do you have them handy? Jim why don't you pick out the one you think is the best and start with that and we'll give some of the other Alders a chance to follow All right The first one the first one Todd is you will be starting on the city's 2021 budget as soon as you begin the job. What what will be your approach to developing the budget? Well, Jim, that's a obviously a really good question and obviously I've heard this one before The interesting part is there's quite a few portions of the budget that are obviously in in place and for review and The management team the direct the department heads have been tasked with With options for us to review to continuously look at ways to reduce our budget So not only are we looking at the budget for obviously next year But we also have to look at the ripple effect that's going to be happening, you know in 2223 and so on so what we really need to do is we need to get together as a group we need to see where we are with the the latest numbers that Marty has been working on with his team and we also need to work with the department heads and make sure that They've basically vetted all of their options to see what the best Combination of savings that we can do and then we need to look at it and see how is that savings going to be reflected in You know 21 22 and 23 and so forth and it also, you know, we need to look at The borrowing and the refinancing that that's also on the table and see if there's any additional options in that in those in those areas also Does that help you Jim? Yes, it does just to follow up on that Todd I've been asked by a couple constituents that have looked at you know have looked at your your background and It's not really a concern to me, but a couple constituents that You know, you have an excellent resume, but it's a little short on municipal finance And I and I realize you've been on the finance committee for many years and even shared the committee But if there are any areas if there are any areas in the municipal finance area where you think you may need some help What what means will you take either through coursework or Talking with contemporaries and other cities if you need help in that area, what would you plan to do to address it? Very good question. I've obviously been thinking about that Significantly, there's there's groups within the league of municipalities that you can reach out to I'll also be working with You know Carol worth who it has many years of experience working with I'll also be working through our groups You know with the CLCL RA is that I can't remember to acronym, but anyway I'll be working with the auditing group that that we work with as a city So we have great people within the city and we have great groups that we work with During our auditing process and those are the areas that I'll be working with and learning very quickly on Is there another question? Thank you. Is there another question? Feldy, please go ahead bar Todd one of my concerns is Strategic planning and the cost of some of the items that are on the strategic plan Coming off of the COVID-19 and less income coming into the city And I know you said everybody's going to be looking at their budgets, but How willing are you to put some things on hold or move them out a year or two? If it needs to be because we're having a money crunch in the city I'm very willing. I mean, let's let's all face it. We all have budgets whether it's personal or You know within the companies that we work and we have to be able to ebb and flow as I call it And you know this we're in unprecedented times We're in a situation that none of us a year ago would have even thought of so We we've been doing a lot of great work as a city trying to get our hands wrapped around Some of the deficiencies from years ago But we've always had the problem of planning for the future So we have a strategic plan that we've been following and we're at the end of that strategic plan But we we've got to start looking at you know revising it and and potentially extending it so My team and myself will be coming forward and we'll be talking about some of those options to the council and saying okay This is this is what our plan is This is what we've all agreed to and this is where we see That we need to go not just for like I said not just for 2021 But for 22 and 23 and and so forth we've got a we have to plan like I typically look at it plan for the worst and Hope for the best. Is there any other questions? I Have another one mayor from the list of the second round John Jim Jim Ryan Sorenson is next Thank You mr. Mayor Todd can you just talk about your your kind of view of sustainability and conservation efforts with the city and when you're looking At you know preserving parks or right now. We have a lot of lakefront erosion, you know What would you do as your role as a city administrator to prioritize sustainable efforts and initiatives within the city It's a really good question As we all know that the last time I believe the city actually did something look in a large manner With in particular with erosion dates back to the to the mid 80s mid to late 80s Unfortunately, it's not something we have money laying around for at this time So we as a community need to band together with other area communities along the lake We need to put pressure on on state and federal To say hey what what can you help us with you know, whether it's grants or federal funding or something? Because this the problem that we have in Sheboygan is not just Sheboygan related. It's all up and down The lake it's everywhere. I Know that we need to do is we need to reach out. We also need to plan for some of this stuff I mean we we need to have a plan and you know, the water will go down at some point hopefully and We still got to have it in our strategic plan for the future that we will address when economically we can and when Just mechanically we can get to the to the erosion areas as far as parks and that again We are very fortunate to have as many parks as we do obviously Because of COVID we've kind of locked things down a little bit, but things are starting to open up But we we need to continue to maintain them and we need to find better ways to To use these facilities and let people enjoy the great community that we have. Thank you Okay, Alderperson barn Thank You mayor This is question number two from the second interview questions a hypothetical the The city's finance department has very significant issues and making the transition from a department head Who ran the department for many years in her own? Individual manner the staff remaining after her departure is under trained Finance financial records are hard to ascertain Monthly budget reports for departments are difficult to produce What approach would you take putting the department back in order? Thank You Jim very good question Hypothetical is a really unique situation there that you guys are talking about What I what I plan to do is obviously working with the department heads not just I mean finance is obviously one of them That we have to work on but we need to focus on training. We need to focus on the processes The city of Sheboygan still is using the air AS 400. I believe it's called we've got to get off of that We've been on Munis for over 10 years, and we're not utilizing it correctly or to its optimum point That's going to be a struggle for some departments, but we're going to work on it together We're also going to make sure that we review and update all of the job descriptions We're going to be reviewing the processes that people are doing Some of the things that I've seen in my career is you get you get some longevity and people are doing the same thing year over year Even even if the even if it's not needed so you don't realize it But it's it's one of those habit forming situations where they're just used to the day You know day in day out day in and day out situation, so we need to review and see is Everybody cross-trained are they able to help each other and are we doing the things that are needed or are we doing things that are maybe They're they're wants but not needs, you know, where's the data going? So we need to use technology We need to make sure that the the That our employees have the training that they have the tools and that they understand what their expectations are And then we have to hold them accountable Just like we have to be held accountable by with what we do Is there another question? Go ahead Dean Take the mask off it's easier I'm gonna borrow one from on from here because I would like to hear the answer in this one Sheboygan is becoming more even more ever more diverse in the next school year majority of students in the sheboyganary school district Will not be white what opportunities and challenges do you see for the city as we become more diverse? What should city governments role or involvement be? Very good question. This is something that's in my opinion, you know, not just the city and a community issue It's a it's a it's a world issue. It's a it's a country issue We as a city need to be setting the stage. We need to be getting involved We need to make sure that people understand that we we want diversity. We were open arms to it Today's a lot different than it was when I was a kid and and that's good We need to grow we need to change sheboygan is a great community It's an old community. It's it's you know, and this is gonna sound a little cliche, but it's I Was going I went to some meetings big It's a German Russian group and it's funny how it was explained to me that sheboygan actually was kind of like a melting pot There was a lot of Germans that came here Dutch that came here Russians Greeks, I mean you think about that that's that's amazing the heritage and the ethnicity that we have here But yet we don't realize it We need to get more people involved with it. We need to be more open open-minded open open hearts and we have to You know get a group together that can help us spearhead that spearhead that into the future Thank you Other question. I have a question Go ahead Marcus Thank you Mr. Wolf if you wouldn't Mind indulge me for just a moment a presidency is set in the first hundred days What is your plan over the first hundred days to make the best impact? Well, I'm hoping that it's not going to take a hundred days to be honest with you We have so much that needs to be done so quickly We have budgets that have to get reviewed not just by the department heads and not just by finance But also by the council so my focus is going to be working very quickly on obviously our two two large large areas of concern one is obviously finance and We need to get them Structured a little bit better, but we've got to work with them. We're not broken We just need to make some improvements do some tune-ups. We're not going to rebuild everything overnight But we need to define what what is needed moving forward what in that's also looking at CIP and Working with the department heads and finding out what we can do in Strategically planning for the next couple of years not just next year, but the years further So my hundred days is going to be introducing myself to everybody making sure that we we understand that there's new processes and Practices that are going to be taking place Making sure everybody understands that communication is is key making sure that we are reviewing the the department needs and What the goals are where are we with the goals that are have been put in place by the prior city administrator? make sure that they have the the tools and the Resources to achieve those goals make sure that those goals are actually still on target to what we want to do moving into the future and Making sure that we we make a plan for not just Focusing on finance and HR, but also looking at other areas within the city that We feel need to be addressed in a in a quick manner Does that help you Marcus? Thank you Thank you next question All the person Sarnson, thank you got got a few more they're popping up Todd can you explain sort of your supervisor sort of in management strategy, you know How will accountability be different when you're working with the department heads? And how will you change that moving forward? very good question Ryan one of the things that I brought up during the interview process is my It's gonna sound kind of funny, but I have five steps So I'm I am somebody that I'm the kind of person that gets in the trenches works with people I like to understand the processes and practices so that I can help coach mentor train so Part of my five steps is basically the first step is coaching so I believe in coaching coaching is where you basically are working with somebody just You know in the office you're giving some some tidbits of maybe some improvement areas or Some training on some things, but it's it's really open and and it happens daily Those are things that everybody should be doing whether it's department within the departments or departments helping other departments and It's it's team building and it's communication and it's making sure people have that openness The next step is number two is is mentoring so you go from coaching to mentoring mentoring means that you really you're You're doing a much closer Review of assisting somebody you might find out that somebody doesn't have some training in let's say munis And that's why they don't want to switch over to munis. So maybe we work with them on that. Maybe it's internal Help you know working working with some other people that are doing similar jobs But it's it's a much more hand-to-hand kind of situation. So you have coaching and mentoring the third one is Training and where training comes in is making sure that that the employees have the tools that they need and that Typically when you're done with coaching and mentoring the deficiencies or the the missing link is basically identified Coach mentor trained those three should be cyclical They should always be happening for all of us whether it's me and you or any of the city employees we should always be coach mentoring training everybody within the group and the reason for that is You're going to continuously make each person better with everything that they do Unfortunately step four is basically discipline discipline isn't always a negative It's perceived as a negative But it's still it's still a building tool and that's why you have different steps within discipline The whole concept and we've all been disciplined At some point you get that aha moment you realize it. Oh my gosh my boss really does mean I've got to do this This is part of my job. So you have your coaching your mentoring your training and sometimes it does go to discipline 99% of time when that happens the person has that aha moment and a choice is made and they they they get it They understand this is this is the vision. This is the mission of what we need to do here Sometimes though you have the fifth step and that's dismissal Sometimes that's a hard decision But what I found in my career is typically when I get to the fifth step either the employee has moved on they've resigned because they realize that The job that's expected and what they want to do don't Basically align so they move on on their own Sometimes you still have to sit down with that person and have them understand that things have changed we've taken these steps and It's just not a good fit So those are my five steps and for me in my in my career and management It's been a very very good success and I've I've I've never had anybody sitting in my office going I didn't see it coming or I've had people that have left and said You know Todd, it's just it's not you. It's me. It's just you know, not that we're dating But it's it's we need to move on and they realize that it's not the direction they want to go So that's kind of that's real quickly. That's my management tactic and and explanation Another I got another one So right now we have an empty industrial business park And with the national recession that we're enduring and with everything going on with the coronavirus You know, it is difficult it's going to be a difficult task to To to recruit and find you know businesses that want to relocate there and as a city You have to make some pretty big payments coming up To support the business park So I guess what is what would be your approach to work with our planning and development office? And hopefully attracting and recruiting businesses to that park There's you know, even with this challenge Companies are Globally are having to recreate themselves. I totally agree. We we did a great job as a city You know developing the industrial park for continued growth The city does need that for for the future. It's unfortunate that we weren't able to land some some businesses prior to that But I from what I understand an industry with with my background Businesses are recreating themselves But the benefit of the cove it for the United States is that businesses that were once promoted to be Off-seat offshore are now coming back So I really think that what's going to happen is and we've got a great work ethic within the Midwest within Sheboygan County. We have some great companies within our community There's a lot of companies that are going to start pulling their those factories back to the US and There's a lot of stuff that's going to change So we need to promote the fact that we're here. We're shovel ready. We we have the community We have the support. We have the infrastructure. Everything is here And it will come back. We built it. It will come It's we just have to make sure that we're marketing it right that we're communicating with these companies And we've got to put our hand on the pulse and we've got to watch what's going on It's amazing how quickly things are changing and how quickly the United States and companies Realized how dependent we are on other countries, you know, not just Asia but other other countries in general and Nobody wants to be caught like this again So I think the benefit that we're going to see is you're going to see the need for automation the need for manufacturing the need for hard working individuals and All of that plus many other things are here in Sheboygan County already So we just have to expand on it. Thank you Any other questions? Mayor Park, Feldy. Yes, sir. Please go ahead Okay, I'm gonna go there the number one survey question is Sheboygan we're still chasing that down And seeing it still at the number one I want to know Todd as He's been an older person for long enough and now is looking at a city administrator What can you do to make sure we can get more of these roads fixed? Well, first off roads are one of my pet peeves if for anybody that that Talks to me about it. What we need to do as a as a council and as a city is we need to have a Realistic plan we need to actually have a budget that actually says okay It's gonna we've got to what 216 miles of roads in Sheboygan not counting alleys and things like that But we got to put a plan together. It might be a 10-year plan It might be a 20-year plan, but we need to get everybody to understand This is what the plan is and this is how much it's gonna cost and then we've got to start Finding ways to budget that money so that it's we know we're not gonna get it overnight But at least we know we're nibbling at it and if we're not putting this much money in We're gonna it's gonna go from say 20 years to 21 years at least then you guys know what the ramification is There's too many things. I think that in the future. We need to have a better understanding of What the cost benefit is for projects? Whether it's part of our strategic plan or part of our just overall infrastructure of of yearly maintaining it I don't in the years ago. There was really never a Designated amount of money that was put to roads guaranteed. It wasn't like 10 million dollars a year or something. I'm just making that up, but there was it was never Defined and locked in so when things started going south people would just pull and shuffle and move things around We need to have a plan whether we like it or not We have to have a plan and then once we have that plan if somebody says hey, you know what and again I'm just making this up if it's a 20-year plan and someone says I can't wait 20 years Well, then we've got to look at what what can we give where can we pull some money from? What's it gonna cost to take it from a 20-year to a 15-year plan? We right now? We just don't know and Things have changed. We we do a lot more of the roads ourselves As far as you know overlays and things like that, but we also know that The roads are crumbling faster than we're paving them and fixing them So we need to know what that's going to look like in the in the near future Thank you Next question. I have another question, Mayor born Todd this this position is all-encompassing and you've got a tremendous amount on your plate And I really appreciate the high energy level I've seen from you over the years that I've served with you But my question is once you get into this for you know a month or so Do you think you're gonna need an assistant to the city administrator? What do you think you might be able to delegate and what would you be looking for in that person if you if you need an assistant? I believe Darrell has one or had one and Just give me an idea what you would be looking for and maybe what that person could help you with Thank you, I do agree that the city administrator's position does need assistance and Darrell Mr. Hoffland had had that assistance For the majority of the time that he's been here, but he that assistance was also Feathered into The finance department and we need to get assistance into finance So to me we should be able to do the same thing that we were before bring somebody in that can help out in finance and also with budgets and nose mu-ness and we can and Obviously can help Help me with reports and stuff like that that are going to be needed to keep the communication Open with everybody as far as like we've been doing I want to keep going with the great Reports that Darrell has worked very hard with his team to develop Thank you for that question anyone else I have a question older person Phillips here go ahead Thank you Todd looking at the budget moving forward and understanding that we are going to have a somewhat lost at least of revenue For example looking at room tax and how that might look going into the summer month A lot of businesses are facing this challenge and having to make contingency plans and reduce expenses Have you personally put any thought into areas of the city budget where we could? Reduce our expenses Yes, it's going to be a difficult difficult discussion on that topic just because of the fact that The city over the over the years has continued to downsize as I call it We do have to understand that you know the city provides a service to the constituents and that's what they pay us for so we We as as a city need to make sure that we're Optimizing our resources optimizing our services But we also need to look at the services and find out if again, you know using the cliche their needs and wants Are they things that are that are nice to have or things that they need to have? We The city does a great job with all of the things that we're doing But there may be some areas that Constituents really don't value as much as we do We need to also look at technology and and see what we're doing and see if there's ways that we can Automate things so that these services can be Continued but at a lower cost From the city's perspective again, the city is like a business. We are a business we need to continuously look at how we do things and make sure that we're doing them as efficiently and as effectively as possible and Those are those are things that we need to do it and review together as a council and as a city administrator and Find areas that we can potentially make some cuts Thank you another question Well, if there's no other questions then we can proceed on to the Item 4.2, which is resolution number 40 of 2021 by all the persons down here with Sarnson to appoint Todd Wolf as the new city administrator effective July 7th of 2020 and authorizing the appropriate city officials to enter into an employment agreement with Todd Wolf All the person down here Thank You mayor At this point, I would move to suspend the rules and adopt the resolution the the Reason for suspension is that Administrator Hofflin will his last day will be July 3rd, and we need to move with due speed Is there any objection to suspension? Seeing none then we have a motion from Alder Donahue in a second by Alder Sarnson that item is before us for discussion I would like to make a comment, please. Please go ahead Thank you. I just wanted to express a little bit of disappointment in the process although I do think Todd is a very qualified candidate and As many of the characteristics That I think we are all looking for and I do have faith in the Members of the search committee that they have done a very fine job. I just think there was a little Lack of communication between the search committee and the rest of the council. I didn't you know last we talked it was We're looking for a new city administrator and and what are what are we looking for in that city administrator and now here? We are we've got one one Applicant before us. I know that it was a process of being narrowed down, but I would have preferred to see the top view candidates be brought forward to the council or at least have had some Communication or discussion or opportunity to maybe review and compare Some of the top candidates So I just wanted to make sure that I shared that concern that I have and again That's not to say that I don't think Todd is a qualified candidate because I do Thank you for those comments. Is there any other discussion? Mayor I just wanted to mention one thing. I had some discussions Had some discussions with our HR director today and Vicki was very kind to not only We all were aware of what the starting salary was going to be of $150,000 but I asked I asked Vicki what the total package would be and The total package for Todd including health insurance dental insurance and Are the city's contribution to the Wisconsin retirement service the total package for for Todd will be 186,000 $606 for the for his contract and That does not really surprise me And I think for you know for a qualified individual We have to we have to step forward and and give give our city administrator that support But I just wanted to let the council know if they if they hadn't done their research themselves that that's what the that's What our all-in cost is going to be for the city administrator. Thank you Thank you, Jim for those comments Any other discussion? Mayor I just want to if I could I'm going to support Todd tonight for this position and The reason I'm going to support Todd is I think it's very important that we have a candidate for city administrator that come in that can come in and Hit the ground running If we would have had an outside candidate and I'm sure there was a couple of them that were pretty good But the problem there is you're going to have a candidate coming in that it's going to probably take a year to get up to speed and Todd has the background with being an alder and working with many many of the department heads Either being a chairman of the respective committee or building Relationships with them since he's been on the council and I think that's going to be invaluable as we go forward that Todd can hit You know can get off to a fast start and make some changes that are necessary and Dig in and work on this very difficult 2021 budget, so I have you know, I have no I'm convinced that he's the right candidate and I'm convinced he's going to do an outstanding job for us. Thank you Thank you for those comments Alderperson Sarnson Okay Any other comments or discussion with that? I'll ask the clerk to please call a roll Ackley foreign Decker Donahue Felde Mitchell Phillips I Savaglio Sorenson. Hi There are nine eyes Motion passes unanimously Congratulations, Todd. We'll We have a name plate down here that you can take home for your past experience on our city council Yes. Okay, Todd. You have some comments you'd like to make mayor city council City attorney if you can see me And city of Sheboygan residence It is with great gratitude and council support that I have been chosen to the to take this position of city Administrator for our great city starting July 7 I am taking this position at a time of great change Uncertainty and questioning about the lot about our lives together As the past Alder and council president I have assisted in our development and growth I've always been conscious of enforcing best practices and budgetary stewardship Our future path will be exciting and laborious for all For all of us as we are in an uncharted times Our future path our overall views of the pandemic our local and state and economies Will all provide opportunities and challenges as we move forward. I Personally bring years of business management and leadership that will assist Will assist us in the future growth and development while working with the city's department heads We we will be reviewing and working together as a team to determine and develop a strategy For the areas that need to be the quickest and most attention Additionally, there has been a righteous demand from people in our community That we look at how to do business with each other how we treat each other What is in our hearts about how we are different and how we are the same in what we want for our families Our prosperity our sense of what is what living in our city is all about. I have much to learn About these issues, but I but it is my pledge to you here in this in the community That the city government each department in the city Will in weeks months and years Look deeply into the diversity means to us and Inequity looks looks like how we are to conduct our business to ensure a just and equitable and inclusive community for everyone who lives here Thanks again and together and only together we can continue to help make our city community Open to all to live work and play together. Thank you Thank you Todd Next of adjournment older Donahue Second thank you for that motion and support all those in favor of adjournment, please signify by saying aye Opposed we stand adjourned. Thank you for your time tonight


Hey everybody, I'm Adam. You're not Coming to you all the way from South Florida quiet waters park. See you're watching trucker Josh likes subscribe hit the notification Do whatever you like? Thank you very much. Hope I passed the audition Monday morning everybody. We're at the yard. It's already the afternoon and we need to get going right now We have a load out in ear falls, Ontario. That's going down to Bemidji And we got to be there for tomorrow We have to get that load off my trailer tomorrow because we have a load down in Iowa That's coming on back up to Canada that I have to deliver Throughout this week yet. So we got a busy busy couple of days not much time to talk. I'll give you a quick look at the trailer 53 foot step deck It's empty. We're loaded up. We're done our pre-trip just about buckled in so we don't fall out Let's go Ontario area here. This was like a daily daily route for me here as I was doing the two lawn and arboric stuff Hey, we're going a little bit further Having a little bit more fun Put of a nicer truck too. So I do like the old Pete, but Needed a little bit of work But what truck doesn't right and this truck needs a bit of work too The only trucks that don't need work are the brand new trucks and You almost got to be a rich oil tycoon to be able to afford one of them Monthly payments on a brand new truck and go like anywhere's from four to five thousand dollars a month And you got to be running hard like constant Like 12 13 thousand miles a month just to make ends meet with a brand new truck And then it's still in the shop quite often or it can be Because those new trucks have so much over engineering put into them So many extra sensors that you don't need that they think would be convenient or handy Or good to have. No, they're not good to have. They're actually quite annoying Because they're always breaking right and then you got to replace sensor after sensor after this after that Plus all the stuff into the motor to make it compliant with the new truck stuff It's a it's a headache to have a brand new truck I prefer the older trucks. This is a 2008. That's about the newest I would want to go Sad to say that right because I love trucks so much and It's just the the way they've built the new ones. They're just not very appealing and they seem to have more problems than Then solutions You know, they fix one thing, but in the meantime every every problem they fix they create two more I don't know. I don't know just my thoughts on it. Look at all these purple flowers and the ditches here I've never seen that before here in manitoba. That's new Is that some kind of invasive species or something? Probably means the world's about to end Quick raise our taxes save us from the purple flowers That's the only way you got to raise the taxes Ron trans canada eastbound now pointing our nose towards ontario area and that's The corner the corner that came right before Where that bear ran into me last week. I didn't hit it. It hit me It was around this corner here and about was it a mile up Because when I doubled back to come and check on it, I turned around right here At this turn up and I think it was a mile up hit my Truck on the driver's side and bounced into the left into the median there I'm sure they've got it all cleaned up by now Well, this is where it happened. It was pitch black at the time, right now staring straight at the road And just about here like in my corner of vision right by my air cleaner here I saw a shadow just come bolting towards the truck almost like a ghost It's a shadow and all I heard was a little I knew right away. He's like, oh no something ran into me If he would have been A couple of seconds earlier He would have hit the front of my truck which would have caused a lot more damage But he came hit my hit his head on my driver's side wheel with dead instantly flipped around got himself caught up on my steps Uh He was definitely dead like ripped open kind of dead So, uh, I think it was it was in this in this mile this stretch No damage to my truck my wheel alignment is okay. My wheel balance is okay So that's good I was a little bit worried about that because you know if you hit something hits you hard on your on your steer axle Even if you hit a big pothole it can knock your alignment out or it could also, uh mess things up bend your tire Like mess up your tires that is not balanced anymore Here it is right here On the left here. That's where it was hit me right here. Boom And there's all the mess right there. They cleaned him up already Nothing I could do about it Too bad I was scared that it was a dog because I saw just a shadow run up to my truck, right? I was scared that it was a dog. That's why I doubled back right away. You know me and dogs I like them more than people Double back and I was sort of relieved that it wasn't a dog, but at the same time I'm like, oh man the poor guy One bad life decision and look at you now all over the highway man Not like we have a lack of bears in this area We're not endangered or anything and uh, they're actually quite a danger and a nuisance to the residents living here I have family that extended family live in the area here and uh A lot of campgrounds around here and they always have problems with these black bears So a lot of them get relocated out further on the crown land away from population They shouldn't be in this area anyway because stuff like this happens, you know stuff like that happens they Too many people here we have so much wilderness up north.  So very often they'll get relocated up there and you know live a happy life And sometimes they wander down here and uh, you know I'll get themselves messed up on the side of a w 900 I'm just glad it didn't damage my truck Very glad it could have been much worse And I'm glad it was fast, you know, he didn't suffer. It was definitely fast like instant Is what it is Oh, be careful their bike. Okay. That's all right. That's all right It's kind of worried if he would have like sputtered out or whatever in the lane here stalled or missed a gear Risky That's what life's all about right living life on the edge I'm gonna find it over there when I get to here falls. Hold that. I'm hauling. It's actually a double rainbow. I don't know you can see it It's not as bright right now It's fading away a little bit now But before there's a bright rainbow there and then a rainbow above it yet a double rainbow double whammy It's a good scale. All the other ones aren't nearly as good and a topa side and then we'll cross into Ontario And you immediately go to a two-lane highway And you'll be on a two-lane highway all to toronto Two days of driving To get to the next part of the big big part of civilization in canada This is western canada all the population west of here Northern ontario is kind of like the buffer And then you get the corridor, you know from Windsor, ontario all the way up to cobec city Where the majority of canadiens live we're here in vermilion bay ontario stopping for a quick coffee I don't have a lot of time I think I might never have a lot of time. I'm always in a rush It's the name of the game From here we got to go about two hours north yet maybe about two hours an hour and a half And the shippers there they actually load trucks 24 hours a day They only stop for shift change for about a half hour twice a day So 23 hours a day they load trucks That's a shipper that I like. So this is their little town Town what do you want to call it? I call it sculpture, but I don't think it's real rocks Looks like rocks, right? Here it says vermilion bay established 1909 I think it used to be a little trading post Gas is kind of expensive here. So is diesel fuel I don't understand why diesel fuel is so much more expensive than gasoline Nice little store Get live bait in there Tackle all kinds of fishing supplies makes sense because fishing is a huge thing around here So many little lakes It's a great place to be a fisherman Inspection station is the best inspection station That is how they should be I know one got time for that Okay, how far up here 100 kilometers or 60 miles this way so not quite two hours like I said before limited services I fueled up in uh deacon's corner on the east side of winnipeg Just like last week That way I don't got to worry about fueling up here or tomorrow Then I want to get all the way down to fort francis That's right at the border. I have to wait till the morning to cross into the us Because We got to wait for paperwork to go through I don't know what I'm hauling. They want to know where I'm going. They want to know where I'm from Fair questions, I think The next morning And I'm here in Dryden, Ontario On my way down to Bemidji, Minnesota with this lumber Couldn't film at night because none of the footage ever turns out in the dark And I forgot some pretty good lighting and in the yard there pretty much the only lighting I had was my load lamps Didn't work out So what we're going to do is we're going to continue this vlog all the way down to Bemidji deliver this load We'll start tomorrow's there. I got to head down to adel, Iowa. I believe For a reload But until then this is what we're working with load of lumber Sitting at about 79,800 pounds. So max weights for the us Got about four hours of driving down to Bemidji And a little bit of a rush of course this truck needs a good polish again. Thanks It's always a little bit wild the first day back out on the road, especially if we get going in the afternoon We had stuff going on in the morning I had a whole bunch of stuff to get done.  I work the same amount of hours as everyone else If not maybe more I push myself pretty hard within the law, but I usually start later end later and I like to change that when I'm on the roads that I start earlier And end later just so that works out better with appointment times and stuff, right? But it is what it is today We're getting going from driving Glad to have you aboard It's day two of this trip already, but Still on vlog what 20601 yesterday's vlog. I said we were on vlog 2700. I'm getting ahead of myself a little bit I have over 3000 videos But uh, this is vlog number 2601 since I started counting I like to keep it confusing Made myself a gourmet breakfast peanut butter and jelly Got myself some gourmet coffee Oh, that's some high quality gourmet air going into my system right now releasing the brakes I'm gonna roll down that window for some gourmet air You say gourmet. I say gourmet Let's just make sure our trailer is gonna come with us. Let's keep an eye on our mirror there Oh Trailer is attached. This lumber is coming with us.  You should be down in your spot All right Look both ways up and down So we spent the night at petrol pass. It was a very nice night We're gonna have to book it now though. We don't have a lot of time to mess around Straight there going straight there And hopefully no delays at the border We've got to go around here and then through town again past that paper plant remember that from last week The smelly paper plant People around here say it smells like money That's how I feel about uh diesel fuel and diesel fumes in the morning Oh, everyone's all like oh, it smells like diesel fumes. It's so bad. No, it smells like money It's always so strange, you know people always stare at you like they've never seen a guy with a camera stuck on his head Is that not very common or what? It's very common in my area This truck just loves to pull Just feathering it up the hills Red light red light that means stop. It looked at me funny too. Doesn't even smell that bad today I guess the air is uh The air currents and the winds are taking the smell away Having a good smell day. They use deodorant. They took my advice Have you That's right where we stopped last time Beautiful day. The sun's not shining, but the air outside is just perfect Not too hot Pardon me. Not too hot. Not cold. Just a nice cool breeze The sun will probably come out later. Don't look that thick I never know. I'm not a weatherman. Sometimes I feel like I know it's what what the weather's doing more than the weatherman Welcome to america The united states I gotta go this way Gotta follow us 71 But I'm gonna have to wait for mr. Fancy Toyota Beautiful wonderful Minnesota How you doing? This is minnesota, right? Yes, minnesota International falls minnesota. It's where the falls are international Very nice very nice. Well done minnesota. Well done Nice town nice town Got a free pass today my friend. Looks like a friendly guy See even old blue likes it here. She went pshh I mean she likes your town Oh, they even got a big bear. Look at that over there Smoky, that's where smoky bears from smoky says prevent wildfires Well, you heard smoky guys you heard them Prevent those wildfires Notice how all the streets are automatically Twice as wide Right here. No, I want to go straight here. This is Bemidji Bemidji Bemidji Bemidji Minnesota We're just about there now pretty close very close They wanted me there before 4 30 and it's uh 10 after 3 right now I was hoping to be there at 3 o'clock. I am still well before 4 30 three minutes to go I see minnesota is getting pretty happy with these Roundabouts. Oh, no, never mind not around about take it back. There was just the one. Okay Just the one This is where I want to turn though. How sharp is this corner? I should be able to make it from this lane Stop here on red Nice clear directions. I like that. It's a good sign It's a good sign So we're getting unloaded here. It's on the other side there now. I got all my straps put away A couple more lifts another successful delivery From here like I said before I have to run down to Adele Adele, Iowa Which is a little bit of a ways away from here Let's see. Let's type in the address here See what it says One of those addresses that's pretty much like all numbers What do you have to say woman? 779 Kilometers, I don't know why she's not talking proceed to the highlighted route Okay, so it's almost a full point. It's quite a waste, but it's uh, it's a good load though It's a good load. I agreed to go pick it up. Give receiver 24 hours notice. It's going to Lang bank Saskatchewan Lang bank Where is that? Lang bank. Maybe if I say it enough times it'll sound normal. Lang bank Lang bank Lang bank Okay, here we go. Yeah, Lang bank It literally has about six houses And a grain storage facility and a church and a co-op and we'll continue this in tomorrow's video I hope you tune in subscribe so you don't miss it hit that bell So you don't miss it leave me a comment down below And I'll see you later


Good afternoon, and thanks for joining this talk. My name is Girish, I work for IBM. I'm a member of Node.js Technical Steering Committee, as well as a member of the Diagnostic Working Group. I've been working with quite many customer issues on production deployments in the Node.js, and this talk will contain some of the experience from the working with customers in the field. So as we know, diagnostic best practice is quite vast topic, and each of the scenarios, each of the best practice takes hours together to discuss to the bottom. So in the next 30 minutes or so, we are going to talk about the top three problem statements, top three problems as seen in the field, and then what are the tools that can be applied on these top problem symptoms for the better problems determination, and what are the best practices around that, what are the capabilities, and what is the support in terms of test coverage, long-term support, and things like that. Then from the diagnostic working group perspective, how we looked at these problem symptoms, what are the state of these tools a few years back, and then how did we approach the tooling gaps in terms of the capability, the coverage, and the support perspective, and how we came up with more comprehensive capability of these tools. Then that leads up to the discussion about user journey or use case-driven tooling development, which is basically an innovative initiative from the working group, and then we also talk about the working group itself, the diagnostic working group which is part of the Node.js core projects, and what are the items which people are working on, what are the challenges, what are the opportunities, and how do we get engaged. So that's pretty much the agenda. The most common problem symptoms that we observed in the Node.js production deployments. Number one, memory leak. As we know, memory leak is basically a mismatch in the expectation between the program and the garbage collector. The garbage collector's contract is basically, if you have an object that has a strong reference in the application, I'm not going to collect it. Whereas if the object is not in scope, or there is no strong reference, I'm going to collect it in the very next opportunity I get it. So that's the contract. If the application have a strong reference to the object by mistake, or through some incorrect programs, that leads up to memory leak. Out of memory is nothing but the culmination of memory leak. When a lot of such objects which the program thinks should be collected, but it doesn't come into the purview of garbage collector, over the time these kinds of memory gets accumulated and leads up to out of memory. Abnormal termination, again, it's a mismatch in the expectation between the programmer and the runtime. If the control flow of either the application or the virtual machine itself come to a particular state where it encounters an unexpected scenario from which the virtual machine cannot recover by itself, that leads up to a scenario of abnormal termination. The other side of abnormal termination is called exceptions which is a little bit lighter version of the abnormal termination, whereby the application encountered an unexpected scenario, whereas the virtual machine catches it and composes in the form of an exception and throws it into the column. But in either case, we can call it an abnormal condition where the program logically cannot continue. Hang, basically low CPU, the program thinks that it should be moving ahead, but because of the peculiar control flow or a bug in the program, it is just stuck at some point in time. It thinks it doesn't need to do anything, so waiting for some condition to occur which is never going to happen. The exact opposite of Hang is high CPU or burnout where through a bug in the program, it continuously loops between two code points, whereas the programmer expects it to continue for running with the transactions. Performance issues, I guess by far the most common symptoms in large scale productions. You have two types of performance issues. One is comparing with the baseline. The current version of the program is performing badly. The baseline could be an older version of your application or an older version of the Node.js runtime. Without a baseline, everything is fine, but you just want to look at the application and improve based on certain criteria or certain parameters which you have. For example, look at each aspect of your request-response cycle and then see where the CPU is spent more within the whole cycle, be it in the JavaScript space or in the Node.js runtime or any of the APIs or operating systems, C runtime, et cetera, and see in which areas the CPU is spent more and how can you go about it to improve the situation? So that's the second case of performance debugging. And the last one is incorrect result. This is mostly caused by a bug in the compiler, basically a just-in-time compiler. So the program thinks that this is the computation and here is the expected output. But because of a wrong way in which the JIT compiler has compiled it, you get into a situation where you get an incorrect result. This is very hard problem to crack because you don't have a visible symptom. You don't have an exception, you don't have a crash, things like that. Over the time, maybe when you do an audit after a couple of weeks or so, you see that the data that is stored by the application is not correct. Then you debug backwards and figure out certain functions are not performing properly. So that's the wide range of common problems that is encountered in production deployments. Now let's look at one of the key problem which is performance. I already explained about performance debugging. Here are the most common activities that we perform. Collect the profile data and analyze the profile data and render it in a meaningful manner which is consumable and easily readable. Now, how do you collect the performance data? By far most of the performance analysis tool use a technique called CPU profiling. So CPU profiling is nothing but sample the application at regular intervals through another thread possibly because if you profile in the same thread which is the main application thread, the profiling itself incurs some penalty. So usually you spawn a new thread and this new thread is responsible for collecting the CPU data without incurring any penalty to the application. And there are very sophisticated CPU profiling tools ranging from the V8 itself which is the runtime engine to the operating system. Basically some kernel threads which will be examining your application at regular intervals so that there is no penalty that is incurred to the app. Analyzing profile data. Again, here the task is involved is basically to translate the CPU samples that is collected to some meaningful mapping to either the JavaScript objects that is responsible for accessing the CPU or the symbols. Basically the functions belonging to JS app or the Node.js API, the C++ wrapper or the C runtime or the operating system. Anything that comes in the transaction. Rendering the bottlenecks, visualizing the bottlenecks by far the most common tool is Flame Graphs.  Number one is a called up. The height of the graph is basically a sequence of calls. If A calls B, B calls C, then that A, B, C comes in one single vertical pillar. And second parameter is the color coding. Basically a very simple color coding that ranges from light amber to dark red. So light amber meaning a very less amount of CPU is spent on that method and dark red meaning the opposite. That's where most of the CPU is spent. So you can expand on each of these pillars or columns and then zoom in to see what is the signature of the method and get the finest level of details. Now looking back from the user experience angle, how did we reach there? The state of the art was not that sophisticated. We had a lot of problems a few years back when we looked at the performance. So the first one is a lot of tools which were producing different types of formatted data. So the format of the profile data were not compliant to each other or compatible to each other. So we had to come up to a standardization model where these tools come to a common ground so that the flame graphs or the rendition tools can work in a seamless manner. Second one is lack of support for native frames by which I mean from a JavaScript application programmers perspective, everything is a JS app. But if you're profiling the CPU, there are many other players in the stack. As I said, the C++ frames, the Jellip C which supports the NodeJS EXE and then the operating system routines. So when you're profiling your application, the time could be spent anywhere in the stack. For example, if you're doing a highly CPU intensive reading from a buffer, the actual time spent in the CPU would be seen in the kernel as opposed to the JavaScript stack. So the profiling tool should be intelligent enough to show where the time is actually spent. That was not the case earlier. So we had to implement something called a stack walker which will precisely tell which part of the application stack where the CPU is spent. And when we switched the just-in-time compiler from crankshaft to turbofan a couple of years back, one of the most funny thing happened is the initial part of the application bootstrap or warmup, most of the methods would be interpreted and it would take some time to figure out which are the hot methods which gets candidate for just-in-time compilation. All these times the method will be interpreted and if you profile such an application, what you're going to get is the interpreter's symbol as opposed to the actual JavaScript method which is a very poor user experience because for example, if you're profiling for five minutes and most of these five minutes, the app was running in thousands of JS methods, the whole five minute will be shown against one single C++ method which is the NodeJS interpreter or V8s interpreter which is of no use to the end user. So we had to implement something called a code listener API, code event listener API, which will translate the actual JavaScript method that is being executed from the interpreter stack and pass it back as the actual profile data so that the flame graph can work properly. Then some of the other problems included performance overhead in the production because of the way this translation happens on the fly, you had to give this overhead of running the profiler into the production workload itself. That means if your application is highly time sensitive, you have a high traffic which is sensitive to the time, this is not going to be a sustainable model. So we have to implement fine grain control of the profiling, don't profile the application from end to end, rather figure out certain workload patterns or high volume or peak load situations and then switch on the profiling only at that point in time and then switch off once that workload pattern is seized. So those kinds of optimizations. And then finally, the profilers used to make use of V8 APIs and what happens when the V8 API introduce breaking changes or non-backward compatible changes. So basically the expectation is that when V8 changes their APIs, these tools also should migrate and adapt to the new APIs. But tool is developed by somebody else, V8 is developed by somebody else. So this break in terms of expectation happened. So that's where the test coverage and long-term support of the tools comes into the picture. So the summary of profiling use case is basically look at from the user journey perspective, what is the actual experience which the user is getting and what are the problems faced while using the tool in an effective manner and walk backwards, address each of them in the core itself so that you get a best in class problem determination experience. Next one is crash. So here, crash would mean abnormal termination, which essentially means either a hard crash in the JavaScript execution or a hard crash in the Node.js land, C++ crash versus JS crash. So the scenarios are debug a crash from Quorum which is a post-mortem debugging or attach a Node.js application in a live manner whereby you know that you can debug in a live debugging manner. You know the problem is recreating every time when you launch. So it is much easy to live debug a problem. And then the third case is you are exhausted with all of the tools like memory debugging, profiling and any other thing is not able to capture the information which you're looking at. The information or the debugging scenario is quite deep into the runtime. You want to inspect the objects live, you want to inspect the JavaScript heap, the stack, the instruction pointers, the registers and the values and things like that. So that's when the live debugging comes into the picture and live debugging or Quorum debugging is the most advanced way of debugging an application. That is kind of a dead end of problem determination but it's the most powerful thing as well. Now, as you can see in the right-hand side, it's a composite stack which basically is supposed to show both JavaScript stack and the C++ stack in conjunction. So again, looking from the user experience perspective, the very first problem we had is if you look at native debuggers such as GDB, WinGDB or DBX, these are very powerful tools. They are good for debugging C++ applications and as we know Node.js is a C++ app but the problem is they don't recognize JS frames. They don't understand anything that happens in the JS world. So if you dump the stack, if you dump the registers or if you dump any of the context of the application, you will only see data pertinent to the C++. Basically, it looks from Node.js executable perspective, not from the JS app. So that's again a poor user experience. You want to see the JavaScript objects and JavaScript entities in black and white. You want to see clear differentiation between the APIs and the user app and the runtime elements. In certain scenarios, you don't want to get into the Node.js or the V8 space. You want to confine your problem definition or PD activity within the app which you developed. So in that case, all what you are looking at is what are the objects? How the objects are related? What is the dominator tree? Which object is lying in the heap? Which is eligible for garbage collection and things like that. So basically the answer to that is MDB which is a debugger that understands both JavaScript and C++. And then MDB had certain limitations. It was not able to correlate the JavaScript stack or JavaScript entities with the native entities. And then the second limitation was MDB was not necessarily a cross-platform supported tool. So Node.js currently supports around 15 plus platform combinations, always hardware combinations. And we wanted the best in class support for both JavaScript and C++ contextual problem determination across the board, irrespective of the platform. So these two problems were addressed by LLNode. LLNode in simple terms is a plugin on top of LLDB which is a low-level debugger from LLVM project. And the basic functionality of debugging, the live debugging attaching to a process, looking at the instructions and contacts and call stack, et cetera, was supplied by the native debugger. And then the additional context, the JavaScript insights, the heap and the stack and the object hierarchy, relationship, et cetera, that's coming from the application is supplied by the LLNode plugin. So basically working in conjunction with the LLDB plus the plugin gives you the best user experience. And the last one, again, breaking changes between V8 version boundaries. The same theory applies. When V8 changes version to version, we had to maintain the same seamless experience by porting the LLNode to match the new API. The last one is diagnostic report. So diagnostic report is basically an instance of FFDC, first failure data capture. While this does not help in diagnosing any single problem, as we mentioned the first slide, this is a general purpose problem determination tool, which can be applied for any problems in the production as the first step in debugging. For example, for any sort of problems, you have certain kind of questions that you ask your customer. What is the Node.js version? What is the operating system? What is the heap size? And what is the characteristics of your application? What is the configuration and things like that? So if you take a snapshot of the report, which basically captures a lot of data from the running application, it contains all this information in a JSON format. So that gives you the very good starting point of problem determination. And in a very good amount of cases, this report itself gives you the ability to figure out what is the problem and provide a final solution itself. But in most common use cases, this will be a good starting step to provide what is the next recommendation for debugging. So that's why we call it FFDC, first failure data capture. So this is how you invoke it, experimental report, and then either provide a tunable to define when to produce a report or just leave it as it is and allow the app to run. And at some point in time, if you want to capture a snapshot, you send a signal to the running app and you get a report captured. Again, looking from the user experience perspective, one of the main problem we addressed is we did not have an FFDC in the first place and then came the node report which is a third-party NPM module. The problem with the third-party NPM module which is a native module is that you can't use it in production because in most common scenarios, the production will not have a native building capability. You don't have a built tool chain in production for security reasons. So you will either build it locally on a staging environment and then move it on to the production. You do so many workarounds, but it's not a sustainable model. And secondly, again, the version compatibility with V8 and then the report that is produced by the third-party module was not necessarily a machine readable format. It was a human readable format. And then it did not have enough coverage in the CI that essentially means its long-term support and test coverage was not necessarily of great quality. So we looked at them from the user experience perspective and so what are the things that can be improved and came up with these enhancements. The report that is produced in the core is a JSON format and we have a very good test coverage. Part of every release, we run these test cases. That means it's production usable at this point, though it's experimental. We'll have a discussion in the Collab Summit that's happening in a couple of days where we'll discuss more about transforming node report from experimental to stable. So those are the three main tools of diagnostic best practices which I want to talk about. As I said in the beginning, diagnostic best practice is a huge topic. It cannot be covered in half an hour. So I have a dedicated session that spans 60 minutes in the Collab Summit on 14th, 1.30 p.m., where I'll take each of the tools that is in use and developed by the diagnostic working group and we'll look at the capability, the functionality, the test coverage, long-term support and the quality and the selection criteria against each of the user journeys and things like that. Now let's look at the diagnostic working group itself. Here is a goal and should node provides a comprehensive documented extensible diagnostic protocols, formats and APIs enable vendors to provide reliable diagnostic tools for node. So it's not only about providing the tools for debugging problems, but also a comprehensive protocols and APIs which covers the specific user journey in question so that even if you are building a new tool, you can actually adhere to the protocol so that the bad user experience do not come near the picture. So that's the whole idea and these are the support tier model which essentially looking at the available tools and what is the existing state of these tools in the Node.js core? Are they having better CI coverage or are they used in production and what is the target tier which we are looking at for them to be settled? And this is the current set of activities in the diagnostic working group. We don't have enough people working on that most of these cases. So as I told, we just covered three tools but based on your particular deployment and your specific application scenario, you could be having different set of tools and different use cases in your mind. So the best way forward is look at the user journey and see what is the state of the art with the corresponding tool. If the tool is usable for this particular use case and if not, I mean, look at getting engaged with any of these initiatives. We have a bi-weekly meeting that happens in the working group every Wednesday, 11 p.m. my time in IST but it could change for each of you and then we discuss for one hour about the various status of various tools, the focus and challenges and opportunities and things like that. So please get engaged and let's make the Node.js diagnostic very good success story. So just to recap, evaluate each of the tools that is most appropriate for your application and provide candid feedback and get engaged with the working group and see in whichever ways you can engage either based on your skills or aspirations or based on the specific use case you have and that's it. Thank you very much.


In this video, I am going to show you how you can conduct a high quality hybrid meeting using affordable tools. Let's get started. A hybrid meeting is where some attendees meet in person while others attend the meeting online. A hybrid meeting can be a challenge to execute as both the physical and online attendees should get a consistent and seamless experience. Online attendees must be able to view the physical location and hear everything happening at the physical location, while the physical attendees should be able to see and hear the online attendees. There are six components required to conduct an effective hybrid meeting. Let's go over them one by one. A high quality laptop is essential for the hybrid meeting. It will be the crucial component that glues the physical attendees to the online attendees. The laptop needs to have zoom plus other software installed as I will explain in this video. The next crucial component is a Wi-Fi router. The router should have strong and stable connectivity to the internet. A breakdown of either the laptop or the router will result in breakdown of the entire meeting. Keep backup devices for both. The third component is cameras. In my earlier video I have explained how to connect multiple smartphone cameras as webcams using the Irian app. Link to the video is in the description. I highly recommend you check that video. I recommend minimum two cameras connected wirelessly to the laptop. The third optional camera can be placed at the back of the room to give a wide angle view of the meeting to the online attendees. The moderator controls the view that the online attendees see by changing the camera in the zoom application. Now we come to the hard part. Audio. Audio can make or break your meeting. When attending an online meeting we are willing to forgive bad video but bad audio can easily turn you off and result in a bad experience of the meeting. This is one component that you need to consider investing in a good audio device that your physical attendees can use during the meeting. I highly recommend the Rode Wireless Go. It is small and can be easily clipped on by the speaker and hand over to the next speaker once done. Your laptop should have a dedicated microphone input for such devices to work or you may have to look for an adapter. Now that we have our audio and video sorted out the next component you need to consider is how to view the online attendees. A TV connected to the laptop is ideal. Other options may include a projector or simply to view the attendees on the laptop screen. The final component is a decent speaker to listen to the online attendees. If you have a TV with a good sound system that may be enough. If you want more sound consider connecting a portable speaker to the laptop to ensure the online attendees are audible. So that covers all the components that are required to conduct an effective online meeting. A good laptop, a Wi-Fi router with a strong and stable connection to the internet. Two or three smartphones running the Irian app to connect to the laptop as web cameras, a good microphone, a TV or a projector to watch the online attendees and finally if you need more sound then what is available on your TV or on your laptop a speaker connected to the laptop. I hope you give hybrid meetings a try especially during these times when people are hesitant to meet in person. You can have the best of both worlds. Those who want to meet in person can do so and those who wish to join online can also get the same club experience. I wish you all the best.


So, you can't sleep? Me too. So, you're not alone. Did you know that roughly 1 in 3 adults worldwide have insomnia symptoms? And about 10% of adults meet the criteria for insomnia disorder? That's a lot of people. But why? What is keeping you wide awake at night? Let's talk about this. Unresolved emotional issues. Think back to the last time you had trouble sleeping. Was there a heavy feeling in your chest that had you tossing and turning all night? Unresolved emotional issues can leave your mind feeling too hung up to go to sleep. So it's important to seek support and talk to someone about the emotional baggage you may be carrying, especially if it's seriously interfering with your sleep. Stress, anxiety and overthinking. The hustle and bustle of daily life can take a toll on our mental well-being. And bedtime seems to be the perfect moment for our brains to replay all the worries and stresses of the day. And when our thoughts begin to race and the stress starts to get to us, it can be difficult to wind down. Calm your mind before bedtime with relaxation techniques like deep breathing. Keep a bedside journal to jot down thoughts, unloading your mind and easing into restful sleep. Screen time before bed. We're all guilty of looking at our phones too much before we go to bed, right? It's all too easy to fall into a digital rabbit hole of endless scrolling or late night binge watching. But did you know that doing this disrupts our body's natural circadian rhythm? It overstimulates our brains and the artificial blue light emitted by those screens interferes with the production of melatonin, the hormone responsible for regulating sleep. That's why experts advise that you stop looking at your phones at least an hour before bed, or at the very least, turn down your screen's brightness and make it black and white to make it less stimulating. Poor bedroom rituals. What do you do to get ready for bed? For most people, the answer is usually something like washing their face or brushing their teeth. But because our bodies love routine, it's important to create bedtime rituals to signal to ourselves that it's time to wind down and help us fall asleep faster. So find something soothing to do like gentle yoga, reading a book or listening to a podcast and make a bedtime ritual that works best for you. Lack of exposure to natural light. Another reason why you struggle to sleep may be because of a lack of exposure to natural light. Do you spend most of your day indoors or in dimly lit places? Experts recommend getting at least 30 minutes of natural sunlight daily to regulate your body's internal clock and promote a healthy sleep-wake cycle. Avoid sleeping in too much during the day too, as this can make it harder for your body to distinguish between night and day. Too much caffeine. American filmmaker David Lynch once said, even a bad cup of coffee is better than no coffee. And while most of us would probably agree, did you know that it may be doing more harm than good to our sleep? Coffee is a fantastic pick-me-up in the morning. But it stays in our system for 6-10 hours, hindering our ability to fall asleep. So as you savor that morning brew, avoid drinking another cup 6 hours before bedtime to ensure a better night's sleep or opt out for decaf instead to satisfy your late night cravings without any sleep-disrupting side effects. Understanding the reasons behind your sleepless nights is the first step towards banishing them. So which of these reasons is keeping you awake at night? Got any other insightful tips you'd like to share in the comments down below? If you found this video insightful, don't forget to like and subscribe for more engaging content. Thanks for watching and sweet dreams.