Commissioner's Blog Post Puts County Administrator in Tough Spot

This week’s episode on the City Manager Unfiltered podcast features funnyman Tim Rundel who recounts some of the amusing and crazy situations he’s encountered over his career.

In this edition of the newsletter, we have a kerfuffle over dais seating assignments, a debate about whether a city manager needs a degree at all, and how a blog post by a commissioner revealing why the finance director was suspended by the county administrator has angered colleagues.

All that and more after the job listings.

It is free to post all of your senior and executive level recruitments over at the AAME job board. If you would like to include them in this newsletter, select the $199 option.

It looks like Stuart is only going to advertise their city manager vacancy for three weeks — but you had a head’s up months ago because you read the November 4th edition of my newsletter or listened to my podcast episode which talked about the termination of Mike Mortell back in October.

Commissioner Clark proposed education requirements stating: “To get quality leadership, you need a master’s degree plus experience.”

Commissioner Collins said: “Bachelor’s should be the minimum, with a master’s desirable. You might block out somebody with a lot of municipal experience.”

Vice Mayor Reed questioned the need for any degree: “I don’t have a bachelor’s or a master’s degree, and I think I do a damn good job. I don’t think higher education automatically equates to intelligence or common sense.”

Loose lips (or keyboards) sink ships! A blog post by a Leelanau County commissioner revealing some of the reasons behind the county administrator’s suspension of the finance director has roiled the waters and angered colleagues.

“In all my years of supervising personnel, during a disciplinary process, I’ve never released the details that I’ve seen released this last two weeks,” Commissioner Wessell said. “I think they put us at potential legal risk, I think they were inappropriate, and…I think we need some discussion as a board about how we handle information about ongoing potentially legal issues, certainly on personnel issues.”

The post was made a couple weeks after the suspension was handed down and a few days before the next commission meeting which resulted in numerous members of the public, including the chairman of the local Republican Party, excoriating the county administrator.

The recent change in seating arrangements at Fullerton city council meetings is irritating some residents. The mayor’s decision to place the city attorney and interim city manager on the dais and positioned between council members rather than at the outer edges, is a marked departure from past practices.

Since the pandemic, city council members have been seated at a distance from each other on the dais. However, before that, both the city manager and attorney flanked the council.

In my opinion, it does seem a little odd to put them in the middle and I am sure that could confuse some viewers trying to follow along. I can’t recall seeing such a seating arrangement like this before.