House Management

A Under C1, the approval of Gina Lockwood as the chief of staff for the Arkansas House of Representatives. Uh, this is an opportunity for us to discuss as needed both of these items on the agenda for approval from the House Management Committee. If there are any questions, we can address those. If not, we just would like a motion. We've got a movement. I've got a movement. I have a motion. Got a motion on the floor, all in favor say aye. Any opposed? All right. C2, the consideration of the house composite photographer. Uh, same thing. If there are any questions, we can address those. Representative Richardson, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So my question is to actually, um, I saw two bids. Why don't we get 3 and then the second one is, don't we already have a photographer that could do the same work? Yeah, I, I tell you what, yeah, one was both of you, yeah, OK. We will answer those questions at the end of the table. Please identify yourselves and push the button. Robin Voss, House of Representatives. Tory Freeman, House of Representatives. And just let's address the question, the process of how this came to be, please. OK, um, we'd, the, the photographer that handled it the last couple of years, Sean Blakeney has decided to retire. And the two individuals that submitted bids reached out to us about submitting those bids, um, Meredith, Melody had heard about it through John Blakeney, and then Crystal Malloy had handled the Senate last year and reached out again asking to submit a bid. So that's how we ended up with those two. So so our current house photographer can't do the same work. Well, I, I don't think we have used our house photographer in the past for that. I think there's a lot of intricacies to it as far as keeping with, um, the product they use and how it's done and preparing it for archives and that sort of thing, the materials, I think, um, we kind of relied on John Blakeney's institutional knowledge there and so we're starting fresh, but that's not something that we had discussed. Using our house photographer. Representative Allen, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm going to try to address your concerns about house photography. Uh, this is entirely different than just taking pictures. You have to have um. Uh, Lightroom, Photoshop or something like that to make sure the pictures are crystal clear and it's a long drawn out tedious process one if our house photographer did it, it would probably take them 3 to 4 weeks just to get it to the point where we would be where it would be acceptable to us. So if you have never done this before, it's it's a tunning task and it's real challenging to do with it and I just don't think that. They have the skill set to do it right now, but in the future, yes, but right now it's, it's tough. It would be a challenge for him. Sa portrait photography is different than many other forms of photography. Any other questions? Thank you. All right, uh, do we have a motion? a motion do pass? All in favor say aye. Oh, this is the, the motion to approve the House composite photographer. Oh, I'm sorry, I thought we had, yeah, OK. Please, uh give us those. Gives that name So our recommendation after meeting with both and they both were very impressive, but our recommendation would be to enlist Meredith Melody. For this to provide this service. OK. Now we've got a motion to approve. All in favor say aye. Any opposed? All right, thank you. Thank you committee seeing no further business, we are adjourned.