Council moves forward on filling jobs
by Emmitt B. Feldner of the Review staff
PLYMOUTH — The City Council is moving closer to filling two open positions — one new, one soon to be vacant.
The council will meet next Tuesday to interview the three finalists for city attorney. Current City Attorney Ronald Damp, who has held the position for more than three decades, is retiring May 1.
Council members and city department heads will also be meeting Wednesday with Mark Morien of Voorhees Associates to begin the process of hiring a new director of city services.
The council was set to approve a contract with Voorhees Tuesday, but had to postpone that action until a special meeting set for today.
The council was unable to conduct its regular session Tuesday as they did not have a quorum. Alderman John Anderson was ill and unable to attend the meeting, Alderman Donn Davis was out of town and Alderman Douglas Dobratz is still recuperating from recent surgery. That left only five aldermen in attendance and six is required for a quorum.
In the Committee of the Whole meeting, aldermen Jack Fernsler and Ronald Lade explained the services that Morien and Voorhees will provide for the city.
“They handle everything,” Lade said of the Deerfield, Ill.-based consulting firm. “They handle the job description, do the advertising, they screen the applicants and do all the background checks on the applicants. It makes everything more efficient.”
Fernsler explained that Morien would like to meet with all of the aldermen and all of the department heads to get their input on the hiring and what the city is looking for, as part of the process. “They want to make sure whoever is hired fits our wants and needs,” Fernsler said.
The director of city services position was recommended by the Ad-hoc City Administrator Study Committee, which Fernsler chaired and on which Lade served.
The director of city services would oversee city operations and serve as an administrator for city government.
Lade said Voorhees has said that the hiring process should be completed in 90 days. The firm has provided similar services for other municipalities in Wisconsin and Illinois, including helping the village of Richfield hire a village administrator last fall.
The three city attorney candidates to be interviewed are Elizabeth Gamsky-Rich of Elizabeth Gamsky- Rich and Associates of Plymouth; Michael Herbrand of Houseman and Fiend of Grafton; and Crystal Fieber of Hopp Neumann Humke of Sheboygan. The Hopp firm has said it will lease office space in Plymouth if it is hired in order to be more readily available to city officials.
The council has scheduled half-hour interviews with each candidate, to be followed by discussion among the aldermen. A final decision on an appointment is tentatively scheduled for the council’s March 30 meeting.
