By GARRET JAROS/YachatsNews
YACHATS – Riding a wave of public and city staff support along with some soul-searching by the city council, Bobbi Price has been named the next city manager of Yachats.
The decision to hire Price, the executive director of the Yachats Area Chamber of Commerce, was announced at a special meeting of the council Thursday afternoon.
“Following extensive discussion and reflection, the council has concluded that candidate Bobbi Price is the best candidate,” Mayor Craig Berdie read from a prepared statement. “The council is confident that with the support of the council and with access to the tools that the council will provide, candidate Price will be successful in the position of city manager.”
The vote was unanimous to offer Price the job and begin negotiations with her next week.
Price was one of three finalists chosen by the council after a national search by Portland-based recruiting firm Jensen Strategies. However, after days of interviews by city staff, outside city managers, community members and council – the council voted 4-1 on Oct. 12 to suspend its search for a new city manager until January.
After more thought and conversations, Berdie called an executive (closed) session of the council Thursday to discuss Price’s candidacy and then went into an open session to offer her the job.
The council hopes that Thursday’s decision can help end more than two years of municipal turmoil as it churned through three interim managers and a manager hired by the previous mayor and council who lasted 15 months.
Record of success
Councilor Mary Ellen O’Shaughnessey said the council’s decision to call off the search and go with Price rested in the fact that Price has a proven track record of success that the council believes she can parlay into becoming a “very successful” city manager.
“I think I needed more time to think about all three candidates to be honest with you, and to me she came out on top,” O’Shaughnessey said. “She’s got a learning curve. I think we know that but more importantly, Bobbi knows that. And that’s important to me. She knows what she knows and she knows what she doesn’t know and that’s a good person.”
Price is a good fit for the community, knows the community, and is well respected around town, said O’Shaughnessey, who added she only has one concern.
“My only concern would be that we don’t over manage her,” O’Shaughnessey said. “She certainly has to learn what government is all about, it’s a very different being. And sometimes I think, not just this council, but councils have a tendency to over manage, and I think we need to find that balance because she’s a smart woman. And we’ve got to trust that she can do the job.”
The council plans to make clear its expectations of the city manager, which has not been communicated fully with past city managers, council members said.
Councilor Catherine Whitten-Carey – who supported Price all along — said the council came around to Price because she is the best candidate. She has no qualms about Price’s lack of municipal experience.
“I feel she has all the strengths to be able to maneuver and decide what’s most important and what she needs to learn first,” Whitten-Carey said. “Yeah, it’s gonna be a learning curve, but she’s got the wherewithal to do it.”
Councilor Barry Collins said he always thought Price had the capability but was concerned about the time it would take her to get up to speed on municipal government. But after discussion among councilors, he now believes it will take less time than he thought and that Price is a better choice than searching for another candidate.
Berdie, who was initially reluctant to hire Price because of her lack of experience, said he came around after reflecting upon her people skills and the abilities she has demonstrated in previous work that were so similar in alignment with the city manager position.
“It really helped me overcome my initial reluctance,” he said. “When I found out about the emergency preparation required for the (Newport) Seafood and Wine Festival … that’s more than most city managers ever deal with. So that and other attributes.”
He also acknowledged that unlike what has happened in the past, it is incumbent on the council to help provide the tools for an incoming city manager to be successful. The council plans to meet with Price more often than it has with previous managers, at least to begin with. Price will also take classes in order to get up to speed in areas she lacks experience.
Sant stays extra month
She will also benefit from the mentorship of interim city manager Rick Sant, who has not only agreed to help Price, but has also chosen to stay on the job an extra month – Dec. 1 — until her start date. It’s a concession he is making solely based on his support of Price.
“I’m thrilled that Bobbi has been selected so I’ll do whatever I can to help her be successful,” Sant said.
Before council left its chamber Thursday, city bookkeeper Diane Gruver arrived and told council members city staff was “jubilant” about the decision to hire Price.
“Or at least I’m jubilant,” she added.
The mayor told her that council had heard that message from staff during the previous interview process and taken it to heart.
When reached at home in Waldport, Price said it has been “a wild ride to get here” and that she will accept the job. She had been in discussions with the mayor before Thursday’s meetings to determine whether she was still open to accepting the position.
“I feel full of gratitude to be given the honor and privilege to accept the position,” Price said. “What was really solidifying was knowing that I would have support of the staff to help me as I get my feet wet and really dive into learning about being city manager.”
Price feels the citizens of Yachats have given her “unwavering support and trust” that she can do the job and were a driving force in her decision to accept the job.
“And I am committed to serving each and every one of them to the best of my abilities,” she said.
- Garret Jaros is YachatsNews’ full-time reporter and can be reached at GJaros@YachatsNews.com
I am very happy that the Council, through further reflection upon Bobbi Price’s achievements and the unique skill set that she possesses, realized that she’s a good fit for the position and is very likely to a successful city manager for Yachats. Well done, Councilors. Kudos, too, to Rick Sant, who has been like a bridge over troubled waters for Yachats city government, and whose selfless dedication continues with his decision to stay on for an additional month.
Amen to what Dan says!!!!
Bobbi Price already knows Yachats and this learning would take an outsider at least her/his first year to learn.
Thank you city Council!!!
Max
Hiring Ms Price seems like a good idea. It’s time we allow some younger folks a chance to grow into a job that has, quite frankly, been filled with people that came to it with narrow expectations and beliefs about how it could and should be done.
The city of Yachats is a mess. No need to rehash all that, but I am optimistic that open positions will be filled with staff that want to be part of a small team doing good things for constituents in our lovely little town.
Fantastic news. Well done!
I have complete confidence that Bobbi will fill the city manager position beautifully.
Good to see that common sense has finally prevailed but what a shame it took so long. Hope this is a good learning experience for the mayor and council and there won’t be too much overreach
from them once Bobbi is up to speed. We need to keep her in this position for quite a while.
I have to say, I feel this is a shameful and frankly cowardly decision by the City Council to cave to public pressure rather than continue on the more difficult course of finding a truly qualified City Manager. Sadly, it seems once again that this community has failed to recognize that a City Manager is a professional position and requires specific skills and experience for success.
By all accounts Bobbi Price is a wonderful person with a fantastic personality who has been a great Chamber Director. However, that doesn’t mean that I would hire her to perform a root canal or open-heart surgery. Just as a dentist or a doctor requires very specific education and training to be qualified for their jobs, so too does a City Manager. A successful City Manager needs to have a strong understanding of municipal operations, including utility billing, municipal budgeting, personnel management (particularly labor laws), public works, and land use planning, among many others. It seems people in the community prioritized someone who would work well with the volunteers over all other qualities, I agree that’s important but what people fail to understand is this is like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, a successful City Manager needs to have a strong grasp of the basics before they can devote time and energy to work with and empower our volunteers. That is what all our previous City Managers have been missing and it is why they have failed, sadly that is a situation we seem doomed to repeat. What the City Council has done is deeply unfair above all to Bobbi Price, who has now been placed in a position where success is nearly impossible and the demands of the community coupled with the simultaneous demands of learning how to do the job will lead to a lot of stress I’m sure, several of our previous City Managers have been driven to leave the job for their own mental health.
The only type of person who could even come close to meeting the demands and expectations of our community is someone who has such an intimate knowledge of local governance that they could practically run the city in their sleep. Only someone such as that would have the capacity and bandwidth to adequately devote the time needed to our volunteers to keep everyone sufficiently happy. And please don’t misunderstand, I think that the volunteers in our community our wonderful and they are a valuable asset with the right leader in place. But make no mistake, this community expects and demands quite a lot.
Many will say that it’s impossible to find such a candidate who would be willing to come to Yachats and that this is our only option. I would argue that we can’t say definitively that is true because we’ve never made an honest effort to find such a candidate. The posted salary range for this position was $100k-$120k, no qualified City Manager would be interested in such a paltry salary offering, particularly in an expensive, remote community like Yachats where housing is difficult to come by. A previous Yachats News article indicated that the Waldport City Manager was making around $145k a year, and he indicated that it would be even higher had he been hired post-Covid. Waldport may be a larger city than Yachats, but does anyone truly think that Waldport demands/expects more of their City Manager than Yachats? The salary offered needed to reflect the expectations of our community, not the size of our community. If the Council had been serious in attracting a highly qualified City Manager candidate they should have had a posted salary range with an upper limit of at least $150-160k.
If what you are saying is true, there would be no successful city managers anywhere. Every first-time city manager has had to learn the ropes, regardless of their educational credentials. Hiring someone who can learn, who wants to learn, and who has proven herself able to navigate through legal and practical complexities is a stronger suit than simply throwing the dice again with a larger wager on the table, in hopes of bringing in a big winner ‘this time.’ We’ve limped along with some ill-taken bets for the past few years (internal interims excepted). It’s time to get behind a proven winner and provide the supports she’ll need initially to learn those aspects that are not yet familiar. Time will tell, but I think our Council made a wise, mature decision in hiring Bobbi Price.
I would argue that most first time City Manager’s still have extensive local government experience or advanced education. City Manager is a position that many people work their entire careers to attain, it is not an entry level position. Many professionals who become City Manager’s may have previously been a Public Works Director, a Finance Director or a Planning Director in another local community, and they likely had already spent years in local government working up to those positions. By the time they become City Managers, they already have a strong understanding of local government operations and they have had the opportunity to directly manage personnel. There are some that may come from the private sector but they would likely have at least a Master’s in Public Administration to be considered qualified to take on a City Manager level position.
I don’t doubt that Bobbi is a winner, but again I ask, would you hire her to perform a root canal? You may think that a City Manager doesn’t require specific skills and training like a dentist would but that may be where we disagree.
Richard- Enough with these ridiculous overstated analogies. Preparing utility bills is not comparable to performing open heart surgery or a root canal. Running a very successful chamber of commerce does require many of the same skills required for managing a small city of 1,000 people.
Also, you seem to be inferring that she got this job because people here like her. Wrong. People here do like her. But the city hired an excellent search firm for a lot of money. They went through an extensive process and Ms. Price was put forward as one of the three most qualified candidates. Now you want to succumb to the old “you’re never a hero in your own home town” syndrome? This is a well considered and excellent hire.
Respectfully, this is Yachats, not Los Angeles. Bobbi has a huge amount of support and she is very capable of learning. She has experience in many areas needed for the position. Just take a look at Rick Sant. He has done a fantastic job as interim – with no City Manager experience. It’s time for Yachatians to support Bobbi as she grows into the best City Manager we’ve ever had. We’re very fortunate to have her.