The Crookston City Council met tonight in the Crookston City Council chambers in the lower level of Crookston City Hall for a Special Meeting.
REGULAR AGENDA
The meeting only held one item on the Regular Agenda, which was for the Council to select the finalists to be interviewed for the City Administrator position. The Council is keeping the identities confidential and addressed them as numbers. Council Member Erickson opened by believing that none of the current candidates are good choices to move forward with an interview yet, with Council Member Briggs and Mayor Stainbrok agreeing. “The Council members had different criteria they used and were not in complete agreement initially if any of these candidates were to be brought forth to interview.” Interim City Administrator Charles “Corky” Reynolds explained. Councilmember Klatt then recommended that candidate #4 was the best choice as of now to move forward with Council members Jerde, Erickson, and Kresl agreeing that their resume, cover letter, qualities, and references made them a great candidate. At first, the Council agreed that they could extend the advertising for the position again to recruit more candidates while keeping #4 in the pool.
But after a discussion on how the Council would address candidate #4 on how they were still looking for candidates while candidate #4 was still an option, rather than choose candidate #4 as the best option. They decided that candidate #4 could be brought in for a quick interview to begin a part of the process with candidate #4 without feeling like they are not qualified enough to get it now. Councilmember Klatt recommended that instead of a Meet and Greet style of interview and introduction that they have done in the past, the Council will invite the Candidate to come in and see each department and meet the department heads for a few days to see how they would act with each one. He then suggested that they try Candidate #4 in this strategy and potentially two to three others to this strategy before they aim to expand the applicant pool. The Council then gave their preferred rankings of the candidates to see which of the top ones would be included in this new process. But after going around the room, they chose to bring all four candidates due to each member having mixed placings for all of them, with the exception of #4 being the unanimous choice as the favorite. “By the process of discussing the relative merits of each Candidate. The Council concluded that it was best to bring all four candidates forward because the Council agreed that in the last interview process for the City Administrator, great benefits were received by seeing the candidates in person.” Interim Administrator Reynolds explained, “Candidates who may not have been attractive during the interview process with the community. The Council decided to bring all four candidates here, where we can interview them individually, have a community meet and greet, and they can meet with Department heads and get a full picture of each Candidate.” The Council then decided to inform the candidates of the upcoming process before releasing a press release to the public and media of the entire list of the candidates.
The Council then discussed the final process and drafts of their interview questions and that the Council should cover the travel milage and hotel payments for at least one day for the candidates coming to Crookston to allow them to see the City at their leisure. “We want to make it attractive for the candidates to come here.” Reynolds explained, “We want to provide them lodging for one night so that maybe the day prior to the interview process, they’ll explore the community, meet with the county, school, and industry officials in Crookston so they can have a better idea of what is here and express those ideas when they’re interviewed by the Council themselves.” With that decision, they chose to move the interviews for the position to Tuesday, May 3, for the candidates to see the City at an active time during the week rather than on a Sunday.
Council Member Erickson then quickly asked the Council what they should change or do in case none of the candidates would be chosen so they could quickly begin sending out offers again for another pool of candidates rather than drag out the search with a Council with no Administrator. “We hope one of these four is the right person for our community. But failing that, the process would be to select a time where we would go out and advertise again and seek new candidates.” Interim Administrator Reynolds explained, “But that’s a fallback position, not our first preference. We hope that one of these four stands out and Crookston selects that person to be our next City Administrator.”
The Council approved all these decisions unanimously.
CLOSED NEGOTIATIONS DISCUSSION
The Council met immediately after the meeting in a closed meeting for Negotiations Discussion, for a motion to Close Meeting Pursuant to Minnesota Government Data Practices Act. Interim City Administrator Charles “Corky” Reynolds reported that he would give the results of the negotiations at the City Council meeting next week.
The next City Council meeting will take place on Monday, April 11, at 7:00 p.m. inside the City Hall Council Chambers.
