Belgrade City Council

BELGRADE CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Special Meeting Council Chambers, Belgrade MT April 12, 2021 7: 00 PM This meeting was open to the public an attended both in-person and via Zoom video platform. Mayor Russell Nelson called the special meeting to order. Other Council Members in attendance were: Brad Cooper, Mike Meis, Jim Simon, Kristine Menicucci, Jim Doyle and Ken Smith. City staff in attendance were: City Manager Ted Barkley, City Clerk Sue Caldwell, Human Resources Manager Sherry Brown and Planning/ Public Works Tech Molly Johnson. City Staff in attendance via Zoom were: Library Director Gale Bacon, Planning/ Building Tech Kristin Spadafore, City Engineer Tom Eastwood, Accounting Tech Kris Norby and Finance Director Diane Eagleson. Others in attendance were: Kristi Gee. Others in attendance via Zoom were: Greg Prothman, Jeanine Mains, Judy Doyle and Tiffany Maierle. PUBLIC FORUM Mayor Nelson called 3 times for public comment, there was none and the public forum was closed. DISCUSSION AGENDA Discuss Draft Recruitment Plan for position of City Manager to include desired Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, Experience and Management Traits City Manager Barkley noted that this meeting was the first of several that would take place as part of the recruitment process in order to gain input from the Council and the community as to what they would like to see in our next City Manager. Barkley noted that there would be a meeting with City department heads, a meeting with City employees, one for citizens generally and one for the business community over the next couple of weeks to solicit input from a variety of those groups. Barkley clarified that the Council was the hiring authority. After the input was collected, the Council would then actually go through the process of selection with the assistance of Prothman' s recruiting firm. This meeting was being held to determine additional information that Prothman needed to put together the position profile. Greg Prothman, Director of Prothman recruiting firm, reviewed the process plan and noted the expected time frame was planned to take about 3 months. He noted that they typically work through the candidates to bring 3 to 5 finalists forward for consideration. This was very similar to the process they followed with the last recruitment for the City of Belgrade. It would include a broad aggressive advertising effort, with the top 14 candidates being interviewed by Prothman. This would be followed by an executive session with Council to pare this number down again, then background checks would be done to provide more fine tuning. Prothman asked the Council members for their comments on the unique skills they would like to see, in addition to the basic skills that a City Manager needs. Page 1 of 3  Council Member Menicucci spoke about the need for a candidate who would be very engaged and involved in our community, and the need for creativity in finding available fund assistance, grants and such programs. She hoped to see female applicants and more diversity. Council Member Simon noted the importance of being able to jump into legislative issues and working on " big picture" concerns along with Montana Municipal Interlocal Authority ( MMIA) and Montana League of Cities and Towns ( MLCT). Mayor Nelson said he appreciated Ted Barkley' s skill set. He felt it was important to look for a self-starter who would not simply wait to hear what the Council brought up but would be proactive and take initiative where needs presented themselves. Council Member Smith felt the need for someone with experience dealing with our explosive growth rate and the foresight to deal with it while balancing other immediate needs. Council Member Meis agreed with Smith on the growth factor. He also wanted to see skills on maintaining a fiscally sound plan, provide innovative ideas to handle the boom, and then the downturn that would most likely follow. Council Member Doyle agreed with the need for engagement with the community and promotion of local businesses. Council Member Cooper agreed that engagement with businesses was important which should include involvement and promotion of the Revolving Loan Fund Program. Cooper noted his preference to have the City Manager live in Belgrade. Discussion followed about the high cost of housing in the area and the challenge that this would present. Discussion followed about a current market survey on pay for the City Manager' s position. Barkley noted that there had been some adjustments made to bring the pay up, but a recent survey had not been done to compare for the market. Prothman asked staff to send him a list of cities that they would like to use as a comparison and Prothman' s group would provide the results. Council agreed they would like to see the comparison information related to pay and housing costs. City Manager Barkley suggested that the new person should also be skilled in organizational development and employee development and engagement. He also discussed the possible need for adding a future Assistant City Manager, or a position combined with the City' s Economic Development program to better cover both inside organizational duties and outside organizational duties that were a challenge to Barkley because there were just not enough hours in the day for one person to accomplish it all. Prothman asked for City staff and Council to think about and provide a list of 4 to 5 challenges and/ or projects that they were expecting to come up over the first 6 months to 1 year for the new manager. He noted that he could join a future meeting to review the pay survey results as well. Page 2 of 3  Prothman noted that, if for some reason no one out of the finalists appealed to the Council, he encouraged them not to make a hire. He stressed the need to go back out and look again, do things right, because it would worth the effort to find the right fit. It would be better to take the extra time at the beginning of the process. He also noted there was a one- year guarantee on the recruitment services. City Manager Barkley said he was looking to continue working in his regular capacity until the end of August or September of 2021 and that there was some flexibility as to when he would transition to a part time schedule. He realized that it could change a bit, but he wanted to hold to his goal to retire. Prothman noted that he would provide regular updates on the recruiting efforts and expected the ads to go out soon. ADJOURN Council Member Smith moved to adjourn the meeting at 7: 35pm. i/y.- , // x Russell C. Nelson, Mayor Attest: 4 Susan Caldwell, City Clerk Page 3 of 3