The Sequim City Council is scheduled to meet in executive session today (Wednesday) at the Sequim Transit Center, 190 W. Cedar St., to continue discussing city manager candidates and the process for interviewing them.
The meeting is a continuation of the council’s regular study session, which is held on the first and third Mondays of the month at 9 a.m. at the Transit Center.
The council also met in executive session on Saturday, Oct. 4. Mayor Laura Dubois said the council had a "general conversation" regarding issues facing the next city manager and candidate attributes that hadn’t been thought of before.
Then after emerging from executive session, the council discussed the process for interviewing city manager candidates, she said.
Whether those interviews will be held on Oct. 24-25 or Nov. 7-8 has yet to be determined, Dubois said, adding that interviewing on Halloween wasn’t an option.
The dates remain tentative because the council still needs to develop a "short list" of candidates for recruiter Lee Walton to begin contacting to arrange interviews, Dubois said.
"It’s more of a medium list at this point," she said.
When the candidates are
selected and the dates determined, candidates will face a Friday public reception and then Saturday interviews in closed session before three panels.
The Friday reception will be held at the Sequim Transit Center. It will allow the public to meet the candidates on the short list and provide their feedback afterward on some kind of comment card, Dubois said.
Then on Saturday the candidates will be interviewed in private by three panels, she said.
One will be comprised of the seven city councilors. Another will be five city staff members, probably senior management. The third probably will be comprised of four community members from groups such as the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe,
Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce, schools and nonprofit organizations.
City human resources manager Kathy Brown will ask various groups to nominate people for the community panel who then will be selected by the council, Dubois said.
Each of the candidates will be given a tour of the city although the details of when and how remain to be worked out, she said.
Then the council will ask the other interview panels for the candidates’ strengths and weaknesses and the council will rank them, Dubois said.
Walton and Brown have weeded out the incomplete applications and unqualified candidates to a list of 14 which the council discussed on Saturday.
"We talked about them and we’ll look at them again," Dubois said.
Today’s meeting will begin at 6 p.m. at the Transit Center and probably will be an executive session, Dubois said.
Candidate names on the council’s short list will be released at some point, probably close to the interview time, she said, although that decision probably will be deferred to Walton and Brown.
The city began advertising for its city manager position last month. The city manager position’s salary range, as set by council at its Aug. 11 meeting, is $95,000 to $115,000 "plus excellent benefits."
Requirements include a bachelor’s degree in public administration or a related field with a master’s degree desirable. They also include seven years of experience, preferably as a city manager, city administrator, assistant manager or major department head.
