By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews
YACHATS – The city of Yachats has struck out on interviewing two potential interim city manager candidates but has scheduled time next week to possibly talk to a Yachats man about the job.
Mayor Craig Berdie told councilors Thursday that an experienced former city manager who they had hoped to talk to about coming to Yachats was named interim manager for Canby earlier this month. Another potential candidate also took an interim job elsewhere.
“I’m embarrassed and sad to say that we do not have any candidates …” he said.
City manager Heide Lambert has resigned effective May 31, has been working mostly from home, has not attended the last two council meetings and just one of two budget committee meetings.
The council had hoped to find an interim manager to spend a little time with Lambert before she leaves and then stay for 3-4 months while a headhunting firm helps it search for a permanent replacement.
Berdie said the League of Oregon Cities and the Lane Council of Governments have no other interim candidates to suggest.
However, the mayor told the council that a local man – who he did not name – approached him to express interest in talking about the interim position. Berdie also indicated there may be other locals who are interested.
“We need to keep the wheels on the bus,” councilor May Ellen O’Shaughnessey said about the need to find someone – even a local — soon.
On Friday, the city announced a special council meeting for 10 a.m. Tuesday to interview an interim manager candidate and potentially make a hiring decision.
“We have someone who’s interested and we need to pursue that,” said councilor Greg Scott. “Let’s focus on solving the immediate problem … and we need to do that in the next six days.”
Hires headhunter
The council also voted 5-1 to contract with Jensen Strategies of Portland to help it search for a permanent manager. That’s a departure from the council’s low-cost, homegrown effort that ended up selecting Lambert 15 months ago after several misfires. Lambert was a Waldport city councilor who had managed CASA of Lincoln and Tillamook Counties.
The proposed agreement calls for fee of $25,250 with additional expenses of no more than $6,000.
Jensen specializes in municipal government recruitment in Oregon and plans to start its work no later than June 12.
O’Shaughnessey said a potential bonus in the Jensen proposal was a community, staff and council interview process that could help the city “clarify and create something workable so someone can succeed.”
But Scott argued that the council should not get its hopes up of luring someone experienced or exceptional to Yachats. Potentially bumping the salary to $120,000 a year and the very tight housing issues on the coast will not make the Yachats job attractive to top candidate, he argued.
“We seem to be incapable of learning from our past,” he said before voting against the contract. “We’re going to essentially be drawing from the bottom of the pool” of candidates.
Berdie said while Yachats may not attract an experienced city manager, he’s been told that now that the pandemic is over the movement of municipal employees “has loosened.”
“I think it’s time for us to take action …” he said.
In other business Thursday, the council:
- Heard Berdie and councilor Catherine Whitten-Carey chide Lambert for refusing to authorize a $99 workshop travel reimbursement for trails group volunteers and a $100 reimbursement that Whitten-Carey spent for snacks during eight hours of Budget Committee meetings over two Friday afternoons. While councilor Ann Stott tried to cut off the comments as inappropriate, O’Shaughnessey called the denials “very frustrating, unfair and unwarranted” for a city that relies heavily on volunteers.
- Agreed to see if it can develop a process to advertise, review and award community grants to local organizations to replace disbursements that are now entirely decided by the city manager;
- Heard that the Oregon Department of Transportation has finally approved a $40,000 agreement to pay the city to install delineators to help define a walkway along the west side of U.S. Highway 101 from downtown to the Yachats River bridge;
- Scheduled a public hearing and initial vote on its proposed 2023-24 fiscal year budget for June 1;
- Approved giving a group of Yachats residents $5,000 toward their $13,000 budget to help stage a two-day conference on racial equality and understanding July 22-23 at Yachats Community Presbyterian Church and in the Commons.
There must be a more attractive and less pricey alternative to these ugly delineators, of which we already have too many. Only a parent (or engineers) could love these things.
Just a thought about commenting, many of us make suggestions on various subjects of which I read & what I usually read are concerns.
When I write a concern I try to do some research on what I would like the concern to look like. For instance 6 years ago we seem to be commenting on the amount of dog waste that was not being picked up. I researched on various dog waste containers. I took my research to a City Council meeting. In a few weeks we had dog waste containers around town.
So that made me think about the delineators comment, has anyone done any research online or possibly talked to other cities on what they use for barriers? Then we would know what might be more suitable for Yachats (if that’s is if you don’t like the delineators we now have.) You never know what might happen, your choice just might be a better choice.
Commenting is great, however doing a little homework might add a different view of the situation. Just a thought.
It’s amazing that one of our citizens worries more about how the delineators look and less about their purpose – to provide safety for pedestrians walking on the west side of Highway 101 between Second Street and Yachats Ocean Road.
It should be noted that vehicles often exceed the 25 mph posted limit on the curve between Second Street and Yachats Ocean Road and that the only “delineator” that currently exists on that bend is a white line painted on the pavement.
Perhaps people might be better informed if they were to spend some time on the shoulder of the highway between Second Street and Yachats Ocean Road to observe that a number of vehicles when rounding the bend cross the white line painted on the pavement. After all, from a driver’s point of view, they cannot see the right front tire and would not know if the vehicle he is driving crossed the white shoulder line. And please note, many of the vehicles driving on this stretch of road are quite large – RVs and some 18-wheelers as well as many large pickups and SUVs.
Don’t diss engineers — we don’t all love plastic for local roadways. Hard to argue with safety too bad they don’t just fix and widen that poorly designed corner. Bad enough with the cross water and mud but at least a heavy rain cleans some to the edge. Who is going to hand sweep? Rarely got cleaned with no barrier. And city maintain into perpetuity. This engineer likes steel rail and concrete — that’s real safety.