By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
There are 14 applicants for the Yachats city manager job, but not interim city manager Katherine Guenther who has held dual roles as manager and city planner the last three months.
The number of candidates was revealed Thursday by Mayor Leslie Vaaler as the City Council firmed up its homemade process to screen applications, to meet again next Thursday to compare notes, and begin deciding who to interview.
The hiring process – which the city’s first interim manager urged to get started four months ago – is being done without the aid of an executive search firm. The council said early on it wanted to save $20,000 and have more control over the process by conducting the search itself.
But that meant months of delays in getting a job description written, an advertisement posted, and then painfully detailed meetings in which the council has debated or discussed everything from the wording of sentences, how to screen applications, how executive sessions work, to when resumes or references are checked.
In most administrative searches, an outside contractor or someone with experience with hiring or personnel rules handles that work, sets out the process, and advises the governing body, which screens most candidates and makes the job offer.
The lack of that was evidenced again Thursday. A city manager applicant pointed out that the city’s official, generic – but required — job application form was not available online. Others inquired about – and the council discussed but did not decide — what the salary range might be, which was not listed in the job posting.
Cover letters and resumes were sent to Vaaler, who said Thursday that there were five people from Lincoln County or the Florence area, five others from Oregon and four from outside the state.
“I think we have good applicants … and some with particular interest in this area,” Vaaler said at the end of the four-hour meeting.
Guenther said during the last half-hour of the meeting that she did not apply.
The applications will now be compiled by deputy city recorder Kimmie Jackson and councilors will use a form developed on the fly Thursday to individually go over cover letters and resumes Tuesday and Wednesday to initially rank candidates. The council agreed to meet in executive (closed) session, at 1:30 p.m. Thursday to compare notes and try to winnow down semi-finalists to five or six.
Once it has chosen semi-finalists, it plans to interview them online via Zoom to come up with two or three finalists to bring to Yachats to interview in person and meet city employees and the public.
Councilor Ann Stott and former councilor Sandy Dunn urged the council to move quickly in the process so that it doesn’t lose good people who are likely applying for jobs elsewhere.
“We need to act quickly. We can’t let candidates get away from us,” said Stott, urging the first online interviews take place Sept. 13-14. “We need to start these interviews soon.”
Councilor calls council “inept”
Discussions – once at the beginning and the other at the end – twice grew testy.
The first involved a work session discussion on what to do about code enforcement, which has shrunk to one day a week under a contract with TCB Security of Newport. Everyone agreed it was important, but could not agree on a scope of what an employee or contractor should do.
“I know people are frustrated with us … if we could solve this we’d be heroes,” said Councilor Mary Ellen O’Shaughnessey, who urged the city find someone to do the job “who is from this community who knows this community.”
But another 45 minutes of discussion only served to bring out the lack of clarity in the philosophy of code enforcement, the practical aspects of the job, and whether to proceed incorporating it into a city job with that person possibly doing other work as well.
“What we have now is not even touching the problem,” said Guenther, who then suggested it should be up to the new city manager to tackle the problem.
That led to comments of frustration from Stott, who said the issue should have been resolved seven months ago, and Yachats resident Paul Thompson, who for years has been critical of the city’s code enforcement efforts.
“You need to do something about this instead of just talking about it,” Thompson said. “I’m incredibly disappointed that the council kicked this down the road.”
It grew worse at the end of the meeting when Guenther, under questioning from Councilor Anthony Muirhead, said she had been unable to negotiate an employment agreement with Anita Sites of Waldport to handle bookkeeping and other administrative chores at city hall.
Sites, who worked for more than a year under an employment contract for Yachats, turned down a council-mandated salary of $48,600 for the job after it was advertised for much higher than that. Last month the council gave Guenther authority to negotiate a higher salary and more clearly define salary steps and job duties.
Muirhead had to ask about the status of the hiring, which had been the subject of two contentious council meetings in August. Given the state of city hall – there is just Guenther and Jackson working there – and the previous council debates, Muirhead said, “We owe the public some sort of explanation.”
“Are we still trying to hire somebody?” he asked.
“I’m not actively recruiting anyone,” replied Guenther, finally saying she did not reach agreement with Sites.
On Friday, after listening to a recording of the meeting Sites sent an email to Guenther and council members, saying she had not heard anything back from the city after talking about the job with Guenther for three hours Aug. 21.
“I listened to the 9/2 meeting, and there was no mention of our discussion,” Sites said in her email. “I’m confused as I was waiting on a written offer. To be clear, you have not given me a verbal or written starting salary and timeline for achievement-based raises to help me get to my target figure. Therefore, I do not know where I stand and would like some acknowledgment and what exactly just transpired since our 8/21 conversation where you assured me you were going to come back with a written offer.”
Guenther, who as interim manager did not have hiring or firing authority, said it should now be left up to the new city manager to figure out staffing and be able to hire someone for the job without having to seek a council’s vote on it.
“It makes no sense for me to start the process all over again,” she said.
Muirhead agreed, but said the public needed to know what’s going on with hiring when city hall is so shorthanded.
“The only way I knew we didn’t hire someone was when I walked into city hall and didn’t see someone,” he said.
And that’s when Scott, who had not said a word during the council’s two-hour city manager discussion, finally stepped in.
“This isn’t a plan,” he said. “This is a failure to govern. When (city manager) candidates discover how completely inept we are, they will withdraw.”
Scott’s right. What a mess. How did they let it get so bad? A bit embarrassing if you ask me.