SEQUIM — Port Angeles will now join Sequim in a search for a new city manager.
After seven years of performance accolades, Sequim City Manager Bill Elliott found himself walking a public policy tightrope between three veteran members of the City Council and four reform-minded newcomers elected last fall who expressed dissatisfaction with the job he was doing.
Elliott was fired by the newcomers May 5 on a 4-1 vote with two veteran City Council members absent.
Police Chief Robert Spinks was appointed interim city manager.
Elliott’s severance package amounted to $152,318.
Unlike other careers where a firing is a serious blot on one’s resume, in public administration “it’s just the nature of the game,” Elliott told Peninsula Daily News columnist Martha Ireland.
“The new council is saying, ‘We want to pick our own guy,’ and I respect that,” he said.
Elliott was a finalist this month for city manager of Edgewood, a Pierce County town of 10,000.
The Edgewood City Council chose Kim Wilde, city manager of Waunakee, Wis., over Elliott and four other candidates.
In Sequim, an ad hoc committee holds a “city manager recruitment process” meeting tonight.
The committee has just three members: Ken Hays and Erik Erichsen, two of the four Sequim City Council members who voted to fire Elliott, and John Beitzel, who was on the council when Elliott was hired eight years ago.
The meeting is open to the public, and slated to start at 7 p.m. in the Sequim Transit Center, 190 W. Cedar St.
The session will be the first of five open meetings to be held at the same time and place through Aug. 7.
“I’d like to explore options beyond a headhunter right off the bat,” Beitzel said on Tuesday.
A headhunter, or executive search firm, “is a good option, but it’s not the only one,” and he hopes the search will employ “a little more creativity.”
With resources such as the Internet at its fingertips, the City Council may be able to identify outstanding candidates, Beitzel said.
