Convoluted process for 2 SLT city manager candidates
By Kathryn Reed
It could be a matter of days before the next city manager of South Lake Tahoe is named. The City Council is interviewing two candidates today and a quasi-public panel will interview the men Monday.
Councilman Bill Crawford is declining to be part of today’s process.
“I’m not participating in the selection because I don’t feel I have anything to contribute because I’m leaving office at the end of November,” Crawford told Lake Tahoe News.
He is in favor of the council that will be seated at the end of the year hiring the next city manager and having an interim after Dave Jinkens’ last day on Aug. 7. At least one new member will be on the council – the person taking Crawford’s seat. Mayor Kathay Lovell is seeking a third term and Councilman Jerry Birdwell is on the fence regarding re-election.
Crawford does not intend to vote for any city manager his colleagues deem suitable.
Who are the candidates?
The candidates before the council today are Mike Segrest and Tony O’Rourke.
Although the council has been presented with Segrest being the current town manager of Moraga, a small town in the East Bay of San Francisco, he has given the town his resignation letter. A May 28 article in the Contra Costa Times says Segrest is resigning after being on the job since February 2009 because of his wife’s health issues.
Segrest was manager of the town of Snowmass Village, Colo., for five years before moving to California. Last month he was one of three finalists for the town manager job in Telluride, but didn’t make the final cut.
O’Rourke has been the executive director of Beaver Creek Resort Company in Colorado since 1996. This is not the ski resort owned by Vail Resorts.
According to the company’s website, it is “a very special hybrid, combining a homeowners’ association, a resort association, with some municipal services added. The Resort Company, a Colorado nonprofit corporation incorporated on April 30, 1979, was designed to help Beaver Creek become and remain a unique resort community.”
O’Rourke was in city government mostly in Florida and Texas before taking the job in the Rockies.
The council had wanted to interview four candidates, but two backed out.
Lovell said it’s possible the council could choose other candidates to interview if Segrest and O’Rourke don’t pass muster with them or Monday’s interviewers.
Some recognizable names applied for the position but were not chosen to be interviewed – the current redevelopment director, a former assistant city manager now with Reno, a former housing employee, and the manager of Heidi’s restaurant.
Where is the public input?
On Monday, each candidate will have a 90-minute interview before a panel made up of representatives from the five city commissions (Planning, Parks and Recreation, Airport, Latino Affairs, Sustainability), both chambers of commerce, a disabled advocate and senior citizen representative.
No one from tourism, the city’s major sector, is involved; the minimum wage worker isn’t represented; the largest landowner – the U.S. Forest Service wasn’t invited; the largest employer – Barton Healthcare, is not involved. John Q. Public is also not part of the process.
People have told Lake Tahoe News it seems like special interest groups are making the decision about the city manager job, which is the highest position in South Lake Tahoe city government.
When the Governing Board of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency hired now former Executive Director John Singlaub, a broader public panel was involved, which included this reporter. When now former Executive Director Patrick Kahler was hired on at the Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority, the board interviewed the finalists in public.
Birdwell had proposed having a social at his bed and breakfast for the public to mingle with the candidates, but Lovell didn’t like the idea. She also didn’t like the idea of having them stay at the Black Bear Inn, fearing the perception it would create. However, the council as a whole didn’t have a problem with now City Attorney Patrick Enright staying there when he interviewed. Both city manager candidates are at the Black Bear – staying for free. The city was not going to pay for their overnight accommodations no matter where they slept.
The public may attend the sessions that start at 8:30am Monday at Lake Tahoe Airport, but they will not be able to ask questions. Each panelist may ask two questions and the same questions must be asked of both candidates.
“Each panel will have a scorecard and we will be provided the total score from each group,” Lovell said of the process.
It is up to each councilmember as to what weight he or she gives that scorecard when it comes to making a hiring decision. The council will discuss the matter in closed session on Tuesday at the regular council meeting, but Lovell said it’s likely a final decision will require a special meeting.
The council would like to have someone on board before Jinkens leaves.
Lovell said it would be the incoming city manager who hires the next police chief even though Jinkens has started the process and applications are due by the end of the month.
The process
It has been the city attorney, Enright, who doesn’t have human resources experience, who the council asked to spearhead the hiring process once consultant Bob Murray culled together the list of names.
The council’s lack of confidence in the HR manager is why Enright was brought in.
Enright and Murray have provided the council with possible questions to ask the candidates.
But what the council wants in the next city manager has not been discussed. Nor has it been a collaborative process with staff.
It didn’t have to be this way. An entity that wants to discuss the vision for its next leader is Lake Tahoe Community College. That board has agreed to work with faculty and classified staff to outline what it is everyone wants in the next president.
That approach has not been taken by this City Council.
Instead, at the last-minute the council decided to have the candidates interview with eight members of the labor groups and the eight department heads – separately. This means a time consuming, inefficient four sets of interviews for the candidates.
Gene Palazzo is one of the directors on the panel even though he applied for the job of city manager.
There has been no coordinated effort to ensure the candidates won’t keep being asked the same questions. Nor is there a format to share the answers with each panel.
So they already know Segrest is a liar if he supposedly resigned because of his wife’s health after only a year on the job and is now applying for a job here. That doesn’t bode well for him toughing it out and staying in this town if things get tough. So much for contracts.
Ending up with only two finalists to interview is not enough.
Crawford. Get off your butt and do something about this mess. Your still on the job today man. Don’t give up before your job is done. Throwing in the towel is for losers.
Its time to re-open the search. One of the candidates seems wrong already. Question: why did the two others withdraw their names? The lack of transparency and public involvement is so typical of a Lovell led council. Now she is running again because she says there is more work to be done. God help us if we have to have her Cole and Grego running this town for two more years. Someone please step up and run who has not been on council before. We need change and we can’t wait another 2-4 years.
A resort director? with previous “some gov’t” experience? seriously? he wouldn’t qualify to get an interview as the assistant in any other city, how did he make it to the top to be interviewed? The council’s looking for someone who doesn’t know much obviously. And a Town Manager who if you read the story didn’t tell his council he was looking to leave. That’s the best we can do? No City managers, or assistant city managers applied? Our own city manager didn’t apply? (What does that say?). they didn’t interview a current city employee?
Doesn’t make sense to bring in outsiders with no experience, unless they figure they’ll know more than he does and can control them completely.
Hey panelists, ask the resort director to describe just a few government financing methods, that ought to do it.
Way to go council, at a time when you could have brought us the experienced leadership you bring us a resort director and guy who misled his current council , where he made about 200,000 a year (including housing) and had retired from his position before that.
he won’t be long in the next assignment, he’s just looking to work another year or two , already retired ?
http://www.lamorindaweekly.com/archive/issue0406/Chronicles-of-a-Resignation-Foretold-Town-Manager-likely-to-leave-Moraga.html
In segrest’s previous job in snowmass colorado he fired an employee for speaking out about how the city was handling a redevelopment project , that’s exactly the kind of leadership we need here, shut ’em down
http://www.rcfp.org/newsitems/index.php?i=3695
here segrest says he wants to return to drier climate and that his salary is 300,000. well, we’re not dry and salary is about 1/2 that
http://www.eastbaydaze.com/2010/05/moraga-town-manager-looking-for-greener.html
kae, since you seem to have the inside track, did any experienced california senior level city government people apply? if so, how could they have been ranked lower than these two?
doesn’t anyone google these people?
warning to all city employees if Segrest is hired, he’s obviously not into transparency, which fits right in here
http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20031023/NEWS/31023003
Mr. Crawford has not served our city. If he chooses not to participate “…because I’m leaving office at the end of November”, why does he bother to fill the seat. He can join the Sarah Palin club of elected officials who have no intention of fulfilling their duties.
Mr. Crawford, please resign.
Gets worse. In this article, Segrest doesn’t want to disclose some information the report says GOT DISCLOSURE: Moraga Town Manager Mike Segrest may need a refresher course from the good folks at the California Fair Political Practices Commission.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/lisa-vorderbrueggen/ci_15042472
he doesn’t like giving out information or others giving out information, perfect fit
crawford jump in we need you
i’d say go down the list council, try getting more than 2 to interview and try a local. the manager of Heidi’s sounds ideal
Julie @ dogwoman do you live and vote in the city?
That’s the best two they could find?! Why was the person who used to work for the City rejected? It’s all a secret, as usual!
And what a shocker, Kathay Lovell wanted public access closed! The two left clearly aren’t the most qualified, but the most likely to do what’s told, and to hide info. from the public when told!!
Julie Threewit; Bill Crawford over the years has been Swifted Boated by the good old boys. This goes way back before Karl Rove’s book “The Roverian for Republican Dummies” advised Corsie to Palinize John Kerry.
I recall at the end Kerry Miller Time! OMG, there was cause clebre.That cause turned into a thank you for all your great work on behalf of the CITY COUNCIL and their special interest groups.
Bill, over the years had to put up with the original local Party of No.
I am quite sure the man that was hated by every one but the voters, has a BIRTH CERTIFICATE.
@tahoe: Nope. County. I just pay sales taxes and deal with traffic and such. My opinions don’t matter a bit.
Neither does J nor I do. Most of the posters that actually have something decent to say and offer somewhat of an alternitive to the way things are happening live in the county. As I have always said, the real movers and shakers and get involved folks live in the county. City folk just roll over and play dead when anything needs to be said and done. When the Trib did that town meeting for the hiring of a cm only 6 people showed up and 3 were from the county. I feel bad for the city folks, at least when I don’t get things my way I know I at least tried to make a difference as other county folks have. Funny you should say that dg about your opinions don’t matter, I have been told that for a long time and also have said it publicly about these blogs and their anonymity lol.
We need a public process that involves the whole town, not the same elite that has screwed things up so far.
For all of the writers that use first names and or a pseudonym. Have no fear use your first and last name, oops unless you fear retaliation.
I live for retaliation lol. Pretty much everyone knows whe The Skibum is but for those of you who don’t-Ken Curtzwiler.
Dissolve the City-they are run by JA’s.
Oh Skibum. Thanks for always writing with passion and not just ranting with insanity!!
Don’t I wish I could run and/or vote for city positions. I shop and eat in SLT. I attend LTCC and volunteer for a city organization yet some of you think I don’t get a voice because I’m a county resident.
City business is my business. And I still call on Mr. Crawford to resign.
I wonder why the previous City Manager who is now working in Reno was not considered??? If it is who I think it is, that’s the best person for the job, IMHO.
Julie, there is a way to get somewhat of a voice in the city and that’s by serving on one of the commisions. There are two folks who live in the county who serve on a commision and they are able to attend and get to ask two questions of the candidates for the new CM of the city at the Airport today. I have been pushing, in front of and behind the scenes, for a rep from the Meyers community to attend and sit on the council as a liaison but they want to wait until Nov before doing anything. Thanks for your kind words.
It’s very easy to write an article to criticize the process and to perpetuate the negativity that pervades this community and this blog. What’s not so easy is to write factual information that allows the reader to draw his or her own conclusions. Why would anyone want to be involved in city government, elected or otherwise, when anything they do is subject to personal attack by this blog and anyone who reads it?
As for Mr. Crawford, I would assume it would be easier for him to abstain from the process to allow him to continue his forum for criticism later. To participate in the process now and then criticize the outcome later is the epitome of hypocrisy.
It’s true we need better leadership. We need people at all levels of government and in the community with vision, who can withstand the personal attacks, who are committed to work together for a solution instead of dragging others down, who have solutions other than simply “no”, and who don’t duck and run when the going gets tough.
Until we can unite, we are doomed to continue this downward spiral we are on.
superb reporting, thanks much.
The process needs to be OPEN!! That this concept is so lacking with the City Leadership is the reason people get so negative! And if there’s factual information being left out, blame the City Government!! They’re the ones holding out on info.
Kudos to Lake Tahoe News for doing what it can to keep the public informed!! The way our City runs, you sometimes wonder what country we’re in?
dogwomanJune 20, 2010 at 4:33 pm@tahoe: Nope. County. I just pay sales taxes and deal with traffic and such. My opinions don’t matter a bit.
DOGWOMAN the rest are with you and we live in the city limits,funny we got go to the county to a city council meeting.
All we need a city manager for is to have someone to blame, when the inbreeds blow it badly on their imagination running wild, dollars signs on all their good ideas that don’t pan out like the hole.
Ski, 6 people show up while the rest are out enjoying the Tahoe lifestyle or did they leave town for supply?
H, lol, supply for what?
Why did we all know this process might have a bad smell. How much did this company get paid to find 2 candidates?
If Crawford doesn’t want to be involved he should bail now.
Anything that’s cheaper than here ski,Like a mining town out of a old cowboy film,they had to go to Virginia city to get Pal some feel good herbs,beef jerky,and a good looking bar maid with plenty of experience.
No one cares about what happens in red neck Tahoe,like hang-town says(county seat) ,only bunch of rich freaks live up there.
Don’t need to send money up there ,they waste it like the water.
I think we should consider Sue Schlerf, former Assistant City Manager of South Lake Tahoe, and current Assistant City Manager of Reno, NV. Sue Schlerf is a strong leader and has the kind of experience we need. I believe she would do a good and honest job for our city.