By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews
YACHATS – Rick Sant moved to Yachats three years ago after a career helping run large newspaper operations in Orange County, Calif. and Spokane.
Now he’s offering to help the city of Yachats until it can find a new city manager.
After a special meeting and executive session Tuesday, the city council voted unanimously to negotiate a contract with Sant to be its interim city manager. Sant would be replacing Heide Lambert, who is leaving May 31 after 15 months on the job.
He’ll help hold down the fort while the council works with a professional recruitment firm to find a permanent manager – a process that could take 3-5 months.
During an hour-long interview with the council Tuesday, Sant, 68, said he just wants to help – but also that “the city is on the verge of a crises” and he believes he has the management and people skills to keep city hall functioning.
“I don’t need this job,” he told the council. “I’m just trying to be of service.”
Sant said he spent most of his professional career at the 1,200 employee Orange County Register, at one time considered one of the best regional newspapers in the country. As vice president of operations, he oversaw everything outside of the newsroom and advertising departments.
“We were very successful,” he told the council. “I’m proud of what we accomplished.”
He said his management style is to talk to people, find out what they need to be successful, get people “dialed in” and working together – and then get the job done.
“Most people want to do a good job, to be engaged and to be involved,” Sant said. “A lot of that is just asking ‘What’s going on? What happened? What can we do better? How can I help?’ ”
He said there will be regular, quick staff meetings – something that current and former employees say has not happened in years under both permanent and interim managers.
Sant, who joined the city’s Budget Committee this year, said it will also be important to keep projects moving after years of pent-up demand for them. He wants a list of council priorities and to meet with city commissions and volunteers, who he said are the lifeblood of the community and “need to know they have our support.”
“Yachats is super engaged,” Sand said. “Yet we have this weird tension. So you have to be out there talking.”
In answer to a question from mayor Craig Berdie, Sant said his weak point will be lack of knowledge of many past issues, state rules and regulations and Yachats’ ordinances.
“It’s a blind spot,” he said. “That’s probably my biggest concern about this. I have to be open to the fact that I don’t know what I don’t know.”
“It may take me awhile,” he said. “I may make some mistakes … you can count on that.
Councilor Greg Scott said the council wants the basic functions of city hall operating well – something that is threatening to once again not happen if there is not enough staff to open the doors, answer the phones and pay the bills.
“We need to make sure we can function at a very basic level,” he said, adding that the public needs to understand the council’s urgency of moving quickly to hire someone.
The council has already missed opportunities to interview two experienced former city managers for the interim position who had been suggested by the League of Oregon Cities and Lane Council of Governments.
The council voted 5-0 to have Berdie and councilor Mary Ellen O’Shaughnessey negotiate a contract with Sant and then 4-1 to offer a pay range equivalent to $90,000 to $95,000 a year. Councilor Ann Stott voted no, saying the upper figure was too high for someone without city manager experience.