The Crookston Ways & Means Committee met on Monday night to discuss the open positions of City Administrator, Ward 6 Council Member and Mayor. The committee took action to action to make a second attempt to fill the Ward 6 council seat and named City of Crookston Finance Director Angel Weasner as the Interim City Administrator.
The committee began initially reviewing three possibilities for an interim administrator provided by the League of Minnesota Cities. But after hearing that the average cost would be $75 an hour plus expenses, they quickly shifted their focus to Weasner. Councilman Steve Erickson said he believed it would be hard to find anyone who knew more about the city than Weasner to serve on an interim basis. “I think instead of spending taxpayer money on someone that’s not as in-depth as she is on the day to day basis as she is, it makes sense to let her run this until we get someone in place,” said Erickson. “We’re moving as fast as we can to get someone in place to try to get the workload off her. But she knows the ins and outs of the city. She’s been here a long time and I think she’ll do fine.”
Councilman Tom Vedbraaten asked Public Works Director Pat Kelly if he was interested at all in being the interim again as he was during the last vacancy and Kelly said he preferred not to be. The Ways & Means Committee voted unanimously to make Weasner the interim city administrator with the City’s standard 15 percent pay increase during that time. Acting Mayor Dale Stainbrook asked the council to be sure they give her enough rope because she’ll be taking on extra duties saying he hopes the council won’t leave her out to dry. “She has a lot on her plate and I’m happy Angel stepped up,” said Stainbrook. “She’ll probably come to me first being Acting Mayor if it’s more than she can handle. I kind of put out there that the council has to give her a lot of rope too, be patient. She has a lot on her plate again right now trying to fill Ward 6, a mayor position and then a city administrator looking six months out. It’s going to be a long haul.”
Weasner said she’ll continue to work with the council as the interim city administrator and to do the best she can for the City of Crookston. “We’ll see how it goes,” said Weasner. “I will work with the council like I always do and do the best I can for the city.”
Current City Administrator Shannon Stassen’s last day is Tuesday, December 10th. Weasner will assume her role as Interim City Administrator on Wednesday, December 11th.
CITY ADMINISTRATOR SEARCH
Weasner also presented David Drown Associates as a firm to contract with for filling the City Administrator position. Weasner said she had received some information already including an estimated six-month hiring timeline and a cost of about $22,000 for the search. “There is one firm in the State of Minnesota that does executive searches for administrators,” said Weasner. “I have been in contact with them and they sent me some information which I will forward to council for their review. On [December 23rd], we will have a special Ways & Means so they can discuss that information that they received. And if they want to move forward, we can work at getting the proposal at the regular Council meeting at 7:00 p.m.”
Councilman Steve Erickson said he felt that it was smarter to spend the money on a search for a city administrator than on an outside interim. “I think if you’re going to hire somebody interim at that $75 an hour or whatever it was, it’s a lot of money,” said Erickson. “In the long run I think she can do the job. This firm that we are looking at to hire, that’s all they do. They specialize in that. I think our hands are almost tied to go that route.”
The Ways & Means Committee directed Weasner to get any necessary additional information they need to review from the firm and plan to have a special Ways & Means Committee meeting on Monday, December 23 at 6:30 p.m. to decide whether or not to include a resolution for an agreement with the firm on that night’s City Council Agenda.
WARD 6 & MAYORAL VACANCIES
The committee also discussed the Charter Commission meeting that took place last week and how to proceed with the two current vacancies for elected positions. Despite the opinion of current City Attorney Corky Reynolds that the City of Crookston could hold a special election for the vacancies, the committee didn’t express interest in going that route due to the conflicting opinion of former City Attorney Chuck Fitzgerald that the council didn’t have the authority to call a special election during a previous vacancy.
Stainbrook provided a proposal to start with Ward 6 and include only the residents on the interview committee and have them make a recommendation to City Council. Kelly said the best bet to get more people involved would be to do a direct mailing to all the residents in Ward 6. Stainbrook said the key was to have the council stay out of the interviews and make a decision on the recommendation provided by residents of the ward. “I had a recommendation to open it back up like we did last time,” said Stainbrook. “Council will have the final say, but let’s see who the residents of Ward 6 would like to have represent them. There is some legal stuff in there and I can’t remember it all, but I think in a roundabout way it was a good compromise. The council was open to whomever is interested in running in Ward 6 to put their hat in the ring. We hopefully get a large group of people from Ward 6 to do the interviewing. [Weasner] will be sending a letter out to all the registered voters in Ward 6, saying – if you’re interested in being a candidate or sitting on the committee. So, we’ll go through that process and hopefully not discouraging the people that ran before. I hope they and maybe a few more run again. Have a bigger turnout with the committee of people and see what happens.”
Erickson said he thought there needed to be at least ten residents involved in the interviews and the committee agreed, although they expressed, they’d like to see an even higher turnout. Stainbrook said having the residents make a recommendation was a compromise for the council because they don’t want to see the seat vacant. “I think that would be the best route to go,” said Stainbrook. “I applaud the Council. They took the compromise. They can leave the seat vacant until the next election. They stepped up. They don’t want to see the seat vacant and I think it’s a good compromise.”
Vedbraaten said the council should decide that they are going to accept the recommendation of the residents, but Reynolds stopped him saying that the council can’t delegate its authority to appoint to the committee if they are using the interpretation that they can’t hold a special election. Reynolds explained that committee could only make a recommendation, but it would still be the Council’s vote to use that recommendation or not.
Vedbraaten also said he didn’t want the same situation to happen again, saying it was unfair that Chris Plante was reported as being appointed to council, having people congratulate him, and then the council didn’t vote him in, which isn’t true as both KROX and the Crookston Times reported Plante as a recommendation following the interviews as is each entity’s responsibility. Councilman Clayton Briggs, who changed his vote between the interview process and the Council vote, said it should never have been in the paper. “As far as approval it shouldn’t have been brought to the paper that he was approved,” said Briggs. He wasn’t approved at the council meeting. That’s all I have to say.”
The committee’s motion to have Ward 6 at least ten Ward 6 residents conduct interviews of potential Council Members and make a recommendation before proceeding to the Mayoral Vacancy was passed unanimously. The goal is to have a recommendation to be voted on by City Council at the first meeting in February explained Vedbraaten. “We’re going to try to get Ward 6 filled first and then we’ll go with the Mayor’s to see what we can do with that,” said Vedbraaten. “So, I think it was hopefully the first week in February or something like that to get the Ward 6 [position] filled. After that, we’ll go for the Mayor. Vice-Mayor Stainbrook has been doing a good job. He’s willing to stay there, so that’s what we’ll do.”
Stainbrook also asked the Council Members if they were okay with him remaining Acting Mayor during the process and they were. Erickson also asked Stainbrook if he was willing to stay on. Stainbrook said, “I’m okay with it and I had support from the Council to continue my Acting Mayor duties. They asked me if I was okay doing it and I am. So, we’ll move forward and get one seat done at a time.”
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