Clarification on City Manager versus Council's Internal Auditor Searches

Vincent David Jericho of KSGF had Tom Martz and Fred Ellison of the Missouri Liberty Coalition on the program this morning. The gentlemen did a fine job covering the high points of the City Council meeting scheduled for this evening, and it's easy to make a mistake, when sorting through information from past City Council meetings. There was a slight misunderstanding about information given by Interim City Manager Evelyn Honea's comments at the last meeting, on June 2.

Having one "coalition," with limited members who, in many cases, have their own jobs and responsibilities but are tasking themselves with watching and holding our city government accountable is a good thing, but, in some ways, they find themselves in the same position as our City Council, they are unpaid volunteers.

I appreciate the efforts they are making on behalf of other citizens who are not taking the time to pay attention to city issues. In fact, I appreciate them so much that I attend many of their meetings and cover them for the Community Free Press, and, so others don't think I'm looking for a chink here, I once mistakenly said that attendance of a MoLiCo meeting by Representatives Shane Schoeller and Bob Dixon was a surprise. In fact, I found out later, it wasn't a surprise visit, maybe a surprise to me, but not to the MoLiCo. MoLiCo does a lot of good work and I like that they are watching our local government, it gives me good material to report.

In the case of their suggestion that the City Manager Search firm, Arcus Public, has not been receiving adequate applicants for the position and that the advertisement for the position has been expanded, there was a bit of confusion. Honea, when she spoke of advertising expansion, was speaking of the internal auditor search, not the City Manager search.

"The internal auditor, we made a few changes to the job description and expanded the advertisement that we had earlier put out and when we advertised a couple of months ago, we had very few candidates who qualified for the position and we really wanted to bring a larger slate of candidates back to the Finance Committee...." Interim City Manager Evelyn Honea said on June 2. Honea then suggested Gary Deaver, Chairman of the City Manager Search Committee would be better to answer questions regarding the City Manager search.

Deaver did update the City Manager search process:

"I've had conversations with the search firm principals the last two weeks. Actually, in 6 days time they had doubled the number of candidates that qued up for our consideration...."

"One thing that they (Arcus Public) pointed out to me, they said, "Gary, you know, this is going to be an easy search for us," and I was silent because easy wasn't what I'm looking for but they went, "When we say easy, it's because your community has so much to offer. We feel so positively about your community that it's easy to sell the attributes that you have to candidates who have the skills that we feel your community deserves." - Gary Deaver, June 2 City Council meeting.

You can listen to the podcast, here.

Vince, who did mention that "JackeHammer" was challenging that information, in the meantime, is checking with Public Information Director, Louise Whall.