SEQUIM — The man who can build relationships and bridge wide budget gaps is to be Sequim’s new city manager, Mayor Laura Dubois said tonight after the City Council spent nearly three hours evaluating two finalists’ qualifications.
After emerging from its long closed session, the council voted 6-1 to hire Vernon Stoner, former chief deputy to the Washington state Insurance Commissioner; former deputy operations director of the state Labor & Industries Department; former deputy CEO of Sound Transit and former manager of Lacey and Vancouver, Wash., and Saginaw, Mich.
The lone dissenter was Erik Erichsen, who left the council chambers without explaining his vote.
Dubois said Stoner impressed her in many ways, but most of all with his ability to bring people together and work through difficult situations.
“He’s going to build strong relationships. That is his overwhelming quality. And the city needs that,” she said, adding that she believes the council, the city departments and the community at large will all benefit from Stoner’s leadership.
“It was an incredibly tough decision,” said Mayor Pro Tem Ken Hays, who with the rest of the council called back for second interviews Stoner and Steven Burkett, a candidate who managed cities including Tallahassee, Fla., and Fort Collins, Colo., before becoming a consultant.
Stoner “seemed ever so slightly more people-oriented,” Hays said, when the council reinterviewed him Tuesday evening.
Stoner, 61, and his wife, Sandi Swarthout, live in Olympia, where she is a lobbyist. Reached on his cellular phone while driving back Tuesday night, Stoner said his first order of business will be to “move [Sequim’s] budget forward,” as the city faces a revenue shortfall of as much as $850,000 going into 2010.
