By GARRET JAROS/YachatsNews
YACHATS – The race to find someone to fill the shoes of the soon-to-be vacant Yachats’ city manager position is in its final stretch, but with less than two weeks to go to fulfill the mandate in the city charter requiring a manager – there is not a candidate in sight.
“Our very generous and talented interim city manager informed us that he is leaving on the first of November per his agreement with us,” Mayor Craig Berdie said during Wednesday’s city council meeting. “We need to figure out what to do next. Any thoughts?”
The sound of a pin dropping would have been loud in the silence that followed.
It was no doubt a hangover from the months-long search by recruiting firm Jensen Strategies of Portland that ended unsuccessfully last week when the council declined to make a job offer to any of three finalists. That occurred after Benjamin Bergener, the only finalist with city manager experience, withdrew his name from consideration and left the council to choose between Bobbi Price, the executive director of the Yachats Chamber of Commerce, and Jeanne Colvin, the regional coordinator/liaison for the Washington State Department of Health.
On Wednesday, Berdie stepped into the silence to inform councilors that Jensen was putting out feelers to find an interim and that he had checked the League of Oregon Cities website.
“They were the same people that were listed the last time we looked for an interim city manager,” Berdie said. “We went forward (with them) until they said they got a better offer. There is one new name. I will follow up with that person.”
The mayor then again asked councilors for their thoughts.
Councilor Mary Ellen O’Shaughnessey was the first to speak, noting that every council member has a different process for considering candidates.
“It seems to me we have looked outside of here both for interims and for (full time), and it just seems to not work,” O’Shaughnessey said. “I think we need to grow our own. I think we need to identify people in this community that know our community — and they have a house, which would be a big thing because there’s no housing available – that we might be able to bring along.”
She went on to say the interview process for a manager was too quick and left the council scrambling to find another interim.
“But I do think, interim or permanent, we need to grow our own,” O’Shaughnessey said. “And I went back and looked through all the searches we’ve done and it seems we get a lot of people that don’t have experience, which is fine. So if we are going to go that way, let’s get one of our own people that haven’t had experience and let’s grow them up. I hate to seem hopeless because I’m generally a positive person but we continue to do the same thing and it continues to not work.”
“Grow your own from somebody internally implies that there’s somebody present to do the mentoring,” councilor Greg Scott replied. “And in this case…(Sant) is probably the closest thing we have to a qualified mentor.”
Councilor Catherine Whitten-Carey asked if they might find someone through the League of Oregon Cities who would sign on to mentor a local person.
“I will add to that and then try to get us back on track,” Berdie said before suggesting they might under “a very structured development plan” employ a consulting or assistant city manager.
“It would not be learn on the job,” Berdie said. “It would be ‘Here are the requirements for you to participate in X number of hours of time with your mentor to take these courses to develop these competencies during a one-year period where we have this consulting city manager.’ ”
The last time the city was in this situation staff temporarily filled the position and “we limped along,” but we could do it again, Berdie added.
“During the last process there were people that we identified, I believe, that had great potential but not the experience of a city manager like we wanted,” Whitten-Carey said. “Can we not go back and revisit those people and talk to them?”
Berdie replied by saying the council has two weeks to fill the position and that it did not seem feasible to ask one of the recent finalists to quit their jobs and get immediately on board. He suggested the city continue with the plan laid out by Jensen to get an interim and began again searching for full-time manager after the New Year.
Ideally, the search would go from January to March followed by another 30 to 45 days where the city will need an interim manager, Berdie explained.
“I guess I am frustrated,” O’Shaughnessey said. “Because we have done these searches and it’s just not working. So we are going to pay what, $20,000 more – ”
“That’s not the question,” Berdie cut in.
“I know it’s not,” O’Shaughnessey replied. “But it’s – ”
“Can we focus on what do we do in two weeks?” the mayor asked.
“I think we do what you said, we focus on someone who’s willing to be a consulting interim manager and we look for someone here that might be a potential to be our city manager because we keep spending a lot of money and bringing people in that … don’t know who we are, don’t have housing, so if we could do your plan that you just talked about,” O’Shaughnessey said.
Berdie said he understood but questioned who to “identify as this interim city manager, that’s the question.”
Councilor Barry Collins clarified there were two questions for the council – filling the position in two weeks and whether the council wanted to “revoke in effect our decision to authorize Jensen to go out and bid again to start that process that you (O’Shaughnessey) are suggesting has been unproductive in the past?”
Berdie said he was comfortable with that discussion but that it was a different discussion. Scott agreed.
“And I would suggest that there’s a moving target that we’ve been wrestling with,” Scott said. “I think part of our failure in some of the previous searches when we were unwilling, unprepared to spend the money needed to attract qualified candidates.”
Scott said the council is now prepared to offer a larger salary.
“At least one mitigating factor is that we weren’t offering enough to attract serious candidates, and by the time we actually got ready to do serious interviews, everybody that was probably better qualified had already found better jobs because most organizations pay a lot more,” Scott said. “Hey, I’m part of the problem because I was reluctant to spend because I’m a tightwad.”
The mayor concluded it would be good to consult Jensen with a new salary survey, as well as how to proceed on whether to undertake another national recruitment search through Jensen or develop someone internally. He also said his own efforts to survey salaries of city managers in other cities revealed a lack of transparency and difficulty parsing out various incentive packages.
Tom Lauritzen, who is a member of Yachats’ finance and budget committees and has volunteered for years as a financial adviser for the city, spoke from the audience to say the salary information was all online and asked why the city would pay Jensen for it.
“I’m looking at the League of Oregon Cities salary survey, it’s on their website and I don’t know why you would have to pay for it,” Lauritzen said. “It’s got about 11 different geographic regions … it’s a wealth of data on here.”
Berdie said he had looked at it, found it insufficient but that the council would revisit the site.
According to the brochure Jensen distributed for the Yachats position, the salary was listed between $100,000 to $120,000 with “excellent benefits.”
The League of Oregon Cities website lists the average salary for a city manager in the state as of October 2022 as $127,373 a year. The current Waldport city manager is paid $142,000, but that manager, Dann Cutter, said that he was hired before the Covid pandemic and that if he were hired today the salary would be higher. He also noted fallacies about the average listed by the organization, one being the inclusion into the average of many cities with populations of less than 500 people.
The council then voted to consult with Jensen on a salary survey.
In other business the council:
- Considered how best to draft a camping policy for homeless people and particularly whether to stipulate where they are allowed to camp or only where they are not allowed to camp. Cities are required by law to have some place the homeless can camp if there are no shelters available. The mayor expressed concern that detailing where camping is allowed might lead to a tent city. Also of concern was who would enforce camping restrictions.
- Discussed the dwindling number of volunteers for the city’s emergency preparedness committee, and lack of community outreach in explaining its importance. Councilors stressed the importance of preparing for big and little emergencies as well as communicating to the committee how good of a job they have done. Issues around funding and communication have thus far hampered preparation efforts and led to a near dissolution of the committee.
- Sant said his last day on the job is Oct. 31 and thanked the council and city staff for their help. “Everyone is super nice, friendly and super intelligent. I met so many brilliant people … I want to thank everyone for helping me, because I didn’t know what I was doing. Staff – fabulous. I’ve loved it. I’m just to old to do it … I really appreciate everything, so thank you.” Berdie returned the thanks, saying Sant “stepped up and did a brilliant job. I deeply appreciate it.” Council members agreed and also threw in their thanks.
- Garret Jaros is YachatsNews’ full-time reporter and can be reached at GJaros@YachatsNews.com
I agree with Councilor O’Shaugnessey. Why not look for a local person with similar experience, the right attitude for learning and a knowledge of Yachats’ purpose and personality rather than an experienced City Manager from another city with very differing purpose and personality. Yachats is a unique small village with wise and caring residents. Don’t spend more money just to import the wrong kind of experience.
The population in Yachats has grown dramatically over the last few years. Yachats has functioned with volunteers without municipal experience filling important positions such as mayor, city council and on various commissions for years. But as a wise prescient previous mayor saw it, for this system to continue to work well into the future, as Yachats continues to grow, it needs to have a few professional staffers who have experience, are willing to continue their education, and can help the volunteers who do not have experience in municipal government or planning, to understand their roles and positions. If the community truly wants “homegrown” staffers, then we need professionals now who can work with volunteers and younger staffers to mentor them now and into the future. If Yachats wants to create an environment where people join city staff, enjoy their work, rise to the challenge of learning municipal management and planning then we need to start with professionally experienced people in place now, we need to show respect for that experience, and we need to be willing to pay people for that experience and knowledge. Once that cycle is begun it can become perpetually fulfilling by elevating from within as staff retires or moves on. But without the experience in place to start Yachats will continually find itself scrambling for people with the needed experience.