SEQUIM — The final four candidates for Sequim’s top city job — men chosen from an applicant pool of about 100 — are to be interviewed and interviewed again, taken on one-hour tours of the town and scrutinized by the public today.
The finalists for Sequim city manager are:
•SEnSSteven Burkett, the former manager of cities including Shoreline, north of Seattle, as well as Fort Collins, Colo., and Tallahassee, Fla., now a partner in a consulting firm that works with local governments.
•SEnSMark Gervasi, the city manager of Tillamook, Ore., the town of 4,430 famous for its cheese factory.
•SEnSSubir Mukerjee, who resigned last month after five years as deputy city manager of Olympia when he was told his job would be restructured as part of layoffs projected for next January.
•SEnSVernon Stoner, the former manager of Lacey and Vancouver, Wash., a former deputy CEO of Sound Transit, and most recently chief deputy to Washington state Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler.
“They all look good on paper; all have a lot of experience in city government,” Sequim City Council member Bill Huizinga said of the hopefuls.
The council picked five finalists from the pool of applicants recruited by Waldron & Co., the Seattle firm to which Sequim paid $20,000 for its search services.
One of them withdrew his name over the weekend, Mayor Laura Dubois said.
Council interviews
Huizinga, Dubois and the rest of the council will interview the four remaining finalists today.
Then they will face two other panels: one made up of city department heads and the other of “community members.”
Those invited to be on the latter interview panel include Olympic Medical Center CEO Eric Lewis, developer and Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce president Bill Littlejohn, retiree Mary Bell, Clallam County Fire District No. 3 Chief Steve Vogel, Sequim School District Superintendent Bill Bentley and Clallam County Economic Development Council Executive Director Linda Rotmark.
Following the three panel interviews, each candidate will take a spin around Sequim with a city staffer, and then the four candidates will appear together at an hourlong public reception at 5:30 p.m. in the Transit Center, 190 W. Cedar St.
All Sequim residents are encouraged to come and talk with the finalists.
The City Council is the ultimate decision-maker when it comes to selecting which applicant is best suited to Sequim, and the council members are eager to finish that job.
“It’s hard to make a mistake on this slate,” said Huizinga.
“That’s going to make our job fairly easy, but also difficult. We’re going to rely heavily on the citizens’ and city staff [panels].”
Both Huizinga and Mayor Laura Dubois said they hope to have a new manager chosen by late tonight.
At 6:30 p.m., right after the reception, the council will go into a closed executive session in the media room at The Lodge, 660 Evergreen Farm Way, to evaluate the finalists.
A decision on a candidate must be made in open session.
Once they’ve made their choice, the members want to make him an offer — to include a salary of $100,000 to $130,000 per year plus benefits and a severance package — tonight.
15-month ordeal
For more than 15 months, Sequim’s council has been divided over the city manager position.
During a study session May 5, 2008, Dubois and three other new council members voted to fire then-manager Bill Elliott.
Sequim Police Chief Robert Spinks was appointed interim manager, while Elliott, whose annual salary was $96,324, departed with a severance package totaling $152,318.
Last fall, independent consultant Lee Walton helped recruit applicants and bring three finalists to town for interviews in November.
But the council couldn’t come to a hiring agreement with their chosen candidate.
Then Spinks had to undergo surgery to remove a benign tumor alongside his brain in December, so former Mercer Island deputy manager Linda Herzog was brought in to serve for nine months as interim manager.
Her contract in Sequim expires Sept. 2.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
