This evening I attended the workshop conducted by the Brooksville City Council to discuss the applicants for the new city manager position. The agenda only included two items. One item was to review of the top ten qualified candidates, with the other to set procedures and process for the interview of applicants.
No discussion of the individual applicants took place by the city council. Nothing firm was resolved in reference to the type of procedure to interview the applicants was decided either. The council did narrow down their search to six individuals, mostly by attrition or withdrawal by the applicants. The individuals left in the running are Lester B. Baird, Mitchell Bobowski, Susan Roper, Jennene Norman-Vacha, Patricia Quigley and John Zakian. The only firm decision by council tonight was to narrow the search to three for the final interview process.
The entire workshop centered around the method the council would use for interview of the final applicants. Ms. Bradburn is insisting on personal time with each applicant to drive them around town for chat-time. This chat-time suggested by Ms. Bradburn could be perceived as a touchy-feely and not very professional in nature. Mayor Pugh had a more business like approach suggesting that the council follow the procedures in place to interview professionals, like consultants and engineers, so it would treat each applicant in a fair manner.
Mr. Lewis made a very profound statement by saying that the council members should reframe from meeting one on one with the candidates to eliminate any appearance of impropriety. Mr. Lewis stated that since this was a Human Resource matter, all applicants should receive equal treatment in the interview process. Mr. Bernardini had nothing to add to the throughout the entire conversation. Mr. Burnett was quite insistent that clear guidelines be established for a fair interview process.
Even though the council batted ideas around for more than an hour on the interview process, no one asked the Interim Human Resource director her opinion even though she had presentation listed on the agenda to assist city council. Instead of speaking with the human resource director, the council took direction from the interim police chief. The council directed the interim city manager, interim police chief and the city clerk to come back with a plan on Monday for another workshop.
One idea that this interim police chief suggested still has me scratching my head. His suggestion was to have the entire city council take all three applicants out to dinner for a relaxed chat. It was not discussed how they plan to accomplish this dinner and still comply with the Sunshine Laws of the state of Florida. Even if this dinner is noticed to the public, what restaurant has a sound system and seating to accommodate this type of chat session and still be open to the public?
At the end of the meeting Mr. Burnett stated that the public needed to be involved in the process even though he thoroughly rejected the self-appointed citizens review committee on Monday night, saying it was irrelevant to the process. Funny thing is though, if the council really wanted the public to be a part of process in this city manager choice why didn't they ask for public comment at the end of the workshop tonight?
***It was brought to my attention late yesterday afternoon that Councilman Burnett approached Ernie Weaver, member of the self-appointed citizens review committee, to voice his overwhelming approval of our efforts to assist the city council in the selection of the next city manager.
***Councilman Richard Lewis telephone all the members of the committee to personally thank them for participating in the public process of reviewing the choices for a new city manager.
3 comments:
They saw you and were afraid not only the General Public but they too would have to listen to you.Again
Being that most people on your make shift committee have done nothing but criticize the way business is being conducted, why would they listen to your opinion? Do you think it matters much to them? I seriously doubt it.
They are our elected officials who will have to work with whomever our new City Manager is. I’m sure they are capable of going through the applicants, interviewing them, and ultimately making a good decision for our City of Brooksville. I have a lot of faith in their ability, as does most of the City.
It is really amusing to be called an idiot by someone with such poor grammar ability...
I will spell this out again, in plain language, so even you have the ability to comprehend:
Councilman Burnett telephoned Mr. Weaver to express his overwhelmening approval of our volunteer efforts. During their conversation, Mr. Burnett asked our committee to narrow down the final three applicants for his review before the April 9th special meeting of the city council.
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