PORT ANGELES — Five unnamed finalists for the vacant Port of Port Angeles executive director position will be interviewed by commissioners privately and by residents in public session, port commissioners decided Tuesday.
At least one “strong” candidate among the 41 who applied withdrew from consideration over Port Angeles School District voters’ record of not passing school funding measures, executive recruiter Pat Jones of Jones Strategic of Seattle told commissioners.
“One of the strong candidates used that as an explanation,” he said.
According to the unanimous motion passed by commissioners Colleen McAleer, Connie Beauvais and Steven Burke, applicants will be ask for their “participation in the interview process to be used by the commission and to inform them that their names will be disclosed to the public prior to the interviews,” according to the unanimous motion.
None of the finalists will be publicly identified until they have been contacted, according to commissioners, who do not know which finalists will be contacted.
Commissioners discussed applicants in an executive session that began at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday.
During the executive session, commissioners checked off their top candidates on individual lists after going in depth on about 15 of them, said McAleer, board president.
They voted during a half-hour public session that began at 10 a.m. to have recruitment firm Jones Strategic of Seattle notify the top five applicants.
Top choices
McAleer said she did not know who the other commissioners selected or whose names will be presented by Jones after he contacts them.
“There presumably was significant overlap, and he said there are five candidates to interview,” McAleer said.
“Each of us have his input, and based on the input, he will be communicating with them to determine if they want to interview for the position.”
McAleer said the executive session and public interviews will take place over two days, possibly a Friday and Saturday or Saturday and Sunday.
Within two weeks
McAleer said she hopes the interviews take place within two weeks.
Jones said after the meeting that the applicants came from around the region and nation.
Commissioners will ask questions of the candidates in both sessions, McAleer added.
“There are some things that people, when it is in a public setting, will be less open about their beliefs,” she said.
“I want them to be very frank in a private setting.”
Jones Strategic is under a $39,600 contract, including $3,600 in expenses, to find a replacement for Ken O’Hollaren, who resigned Dec. 31.
Karen Goschen, the interim executive director and former deputy executive director-finance director, is among the applicants.
The annual salary could be $140,123 based on the average for executive director salaries for ports of Anacortes, Olympia, Kalama, Pasco, Edmonds and Skagit, according to Jones.
Goschen was one of McAleer’s final selections, McAleer said.
School concerns
Jones said two candidates talked to him about concerns over the Port Angeles School District.
“That’s one of the challenges about recruiting people to this community is that we had a number of candidates who come from areas with particularly strong school districts [who have] school-age children,” he told the commissioners.
Some candidates, he said, “looked at the ratings and the levy history here.”
Voters in the Port Angeles and Sequim school districts failed in February 2015 to pass school construction bonds that required 60 percent supermajority approval.
In that same election, Port Angeles School District voters approved a maintenance and operations levy that required a simple majority of 50 percent plus one vote.
Levy voters in the past have failed to pass levy measures when the threshold was a 60 percent supermajority.
McAleer said in a later interview that she was not surprised by the applicants’ reaction to the failure of school district funding measures.
“Our education is a critical component of our ability to grow our economy overall, and I am not shocked at that,” she said.
“We need to work harder on that, making the case.”
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
