The Crookston City Council had a special meeting Tuesday night in the Crookston City Council Chambers in the lower level of Crookston City Hall to select the finalists for the City Administrator position.
The meeting started with a resolution to select no more than six candidates and Liza Donabauer (pictured right) of David
Drown Associates said they had 38 applicants for the job and forwarded 13 candidates to the council. Three candidates dropped out for personal reasons leaving Crookston with 10 quality candidates. “We had a great start in the process and got to know the community and what they are interested in. We started advertising in March and COVID started and that affected, not just our hiring processes but cities across the state,” said Donabauer. “The council did a good job of putting the process on hold and advertised in the spring and we got a really great number of quality and quantity of candidates.”
Seven city council members (Don Cavalier was absent) and Mayor Dale Stainbrook were asked to vote for their top three candidates. After the first vote, they had five votes apiece for candidates 4 and 8. Candidate 3 had three votes and there was a six-way tie for fourth place, so the council had another vote for the fourth and final candidate and candidate 10 had the most votes with three to become the fourth and final candidate. Candidate’s names were not used in the voting to protect the names in the process. The names and information will be provided to KROX later this week by David Drown Associates. “They selected their candidates, ultimately they selected four so those will be the ones we invite for August and see who will be a good fit here,” said Donabauer. “We have been doing this for a while so we have a well-oiled machine. Tonight went wonderful and we handed out ballots and allowing the council members to come to the meeting with their own individual thoughts on who they would like to see in that chair in the end. We handed out ballots allowing each councilmember to vote with their own thoughts and allowing them the opportunity to vote without affecting each other’s decisions really brings the best candidates to the end.”
The candidate interviews will take place on August 12 and 13. One candidate will be coming from over 1,000 miles away, two candidates will be coming from over 700 miles away and the final candidate will be coming from just over 200 miles away. The council voted to provide the cost of the flight and rental car for the three candidates that are coming from 700 miles or more and to pay mileage or a rental car for the candidate from over 200 miles away. The council will also pay $100 ($50 per day) in per diem and they will cover the cost of two nights in a hotel (2 candidates at Cobblestone and 2 candidates at AmericInn). They will have a meet and greet at the Crookston Inn. “We will have a city tour and city stakeholders will be a part of the process,” said Donabauer. “The evening of August 12 we will have a community meet and greet to have an informal setting and we will get feedback. The next morning the council will sit down with each candidate for 45 minutes and after the interviews, I will relay the feedback (from the meet and greet) and at the end of the day they will know who they want in that chair.”
The council gave the four finalists, travel and food reimbursement, and the schedule unanimous approval.
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