ADRIAN — It’s unclear as to how much time the Adrian City Commission might devote Monday, March 17 to discussing the ongoing city administrator search but one thing is for sure: commissioners want to make certain they take as much time as necessary to “pick the right (search) firm and in the end, the right administrator candidate,” that sentiment coming from City Commissioner Gordon Gauss.
Former Adrian City Administrator Greg Elliott, who retired from his administrative duties Jan. 28, has been separated from the city for at least a month-and-a-half at this point. Since his rather sudden departure in late-January, the commission — along with acting administrator Police Chief Vince Emrick — have laid out a semi-detailed plan on how to move forward with Emrick as the city’s acting administrator, and how to take those initial steps in finding Elliott’s full-time successor.
City administrators are generally responsible for overseeing the daily operations of a municipality, ensuring those operations run smoothly and citizens needs are met. Administrators are often responsible for creating plans, managing budgets and overseeing personnel.
Retired and former Adrian City Administrator Greg Elliott.
Adrian’s government functions are carried out by the city administrator and 10 department heads including assessing, attorney, city clerk, finance, fire, human resources, parks and forestry, police, public works/engineering, and utilities.
Feedback and input from those city departments and staff are a critical part of the process in finding Adrian’s next administrator, several of the commissioners stated during their most recent city commission meeting.
City staff has been asked to share its wants, desires and needs when it comes to city administration and what staff deems as important in administration/guidance/leadership. Those responses will be taken into consideration when locating potential candidates.
“I’d love to hear some strengths from our city staff, but I also want to hear what they think our weaknesses are, and then we pick the agency that best serves us,” City Commissioner Kelly Castleberry said March 3.
More: City of Adrian OK’s retirement agreement with Greg Elliott; Emrick tabbed as acting administrator
Adrian is now in the process of its administrative search where it is exploring costs and proposals for search firms that can aid the city in executing a search process for a new administrator.
The city commission has put together a short list of tasks it wants to see a firm complete during the search process including holding stakeholder meetings with community members, developing a job description of a city administrator with input from stakeholders (city employees, department heads, downtown development authority members, business owners, citizens and residents), and utilization of databases for locating candidates.
Heather Lasky, Adrian’s human resources director, has been heavily involved thus far in the process of locating Adrian’s next administrator.
“There seems to be a consensus that some of the smaller (search firm) groups would be better suited to our community,” Lasky said, when paraphrasing what she learned from communicating with select Michigan communities and her human resource colleagues. “To me, it’s really valuable feedback to learn that some smaller firms can get such a positive response especially with having a lower price tag.”
The rear entrance to Adrian City Hall in downtown Adrian, 135 E. Maumee St., is seen in this file photo.
There appears to be two standout firms the city of Adrian is eager to work with during the process: Double Haul Solutions and Yeo & Yeo. Both organizations specialize in numerous services such as organizational development, project and program support, community engagement, economic development, government management consulting and more.
City commissioners spoke favorably of both firms earlier this month after reviewing proposals and costs from at least six firms. Double Haul Solutions is familiar with the Lenawee County area, having worked previously in the city of Tecumseh.
Commissioners also spoke highly of each of the firm’s “middle size,” responsive staff, wealth of experience in addition to team building, personalized expertise, workplace culture training and outreach.
Commission expects to call a March 24 special meeting
Representatives associated with Double Haul Solutions and Yeo & Yeo have expressed their openness to working with the city of Adrian and pitching their services to the city commission.
Information about those services more than likely will be shared during a Monday, March 24 special meeting inside Adrian City Chambers starting at 6 p.m. The meeting will be open to the public.
A special meeting should be in order, Castleberry said, so the city commission can “candidly ask questions without other worries on the agenda.”
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“I think that if we are hiring a (search) firm, we want to know what they’re going to do no matter if it takes them 20 minutes, 40 minutes or an hour. And then we can ask questions,” Commissioner Matt Schwartz said. “This is an important decision. It’s more than minutes. This is a valuable, valuable process.”
According to Mayor Angie Sword Heath, the commission is working together on narrowing down its list of potential search firms while also honing its list of questions and collecting city staff feedback so it can “make an informed decision on which firm we want to pursue in the administrator search.”
“We really want it to be personalized,” Heath said of the administrator search. “We want it to be smaller and geared to our community. It felt like the two we went with are very familiar with small towns.”
Per a timeline of best practices from the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) when recruiting and selecting a local government administrator, Adrian has almost cleared the “initial recruitment process” and soon will be entering “actual recruitment” of a search firm. From there, additional stages will need to be hurdled before Adrian transitions into a period of selecting and negotiating with its new city administrator.
— Contact reporter Brad Heineman at bheineman@lenconnect.com or follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @LenaweeHeineman.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Adrian City Commission plans special meeting for city administrator search
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