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City to include public in City Manager search


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Before Murfreesboro replaces City Manager Roger Haley, the city council has to figure out exactly what the city manager does.

The city doesn’t currently have a working job description for the post because Haley has held the office for almost 20 years and it changes on a yearly basis based on city services offered and employees hired, City Mayor Tommy Bragg said.

Murfreesboro City Council seemed to settle on conducting a national search Thursday night to replace Haley when the city manger retires in August.

“We do need to conduct a national search. I think that’s for the benefit of the city, the council and all,” Councilman Toby Gilley said.

“We have the leading contender in the audience tonight,” he continued referencing Deputy City Manger Rob Lyons, “but I think it would be good for the city to do a full search.”

The rest of the council agreed and tasked the city’s personnel director to research consulting firms who specialize in national searches.

“We owe it to our citizens. We owe it to our employees. We owe it to whoever gets that position to do a nationwide search to make sure we do get the best and the most qualified individual for this position,” Vice Mayor Chris Bratcher said. “It very well may be that we have that person already.”

Consulting firms generally take resumes and narrow down a field of prospective employees for the council to take a closer look at.

Bragg suggested involving the public in the process by setting up an advisory committee to help vet candidates.

“We’ll try to figure out how to have a very transparent, public and open process,” he said.

The council set a two-week deadline for developing a job description, setting a starting salary and taking proposals from consulting firms to begin the process of replacing Haley. A report should be presented at its Thursday, April 9 meeting.

Michelle Willard can be contacted at 615-869-0816 or mwillard@murfreesboropost.com.
 
 
 
Tagged under  City


Member Opinions:
By: peri_winkle on 3/27/09
A nationwide search for Rob Lyons? Hope they find him. ;-)

By: SGTATARMS on 3/27/09
Why do we have to have a city manager? why cant the mayor just do the job and save the city some more $$$.

By: MyVoice on 3/27/09
SGTATARMS we need the city manager and he needs an assistant and the assistant needs an assitant and he will need two secretaries that will do all the work of all of the above. Thats how we work here. Geesh

By: Tuffgirl on 3/27/09
No one in the county/city should be able to apply to eliminate any perception that the non-existent job description is written for any one presently with the county/city. Otherwise just save us the money and let the city council appoint one.

By: sking on 3/27/09
I hope Mr. Lyons is awarded the position. In my opinion, he would have to be the most qualified to succeed Haley. He is a man of hiqh character and extensive experience in serving this community. To overlook him for any reason, simply to appease skeptics, would not be in the best interest of this community.

By: bota on 3/27/09
I would use the job evaluation sheet that the Council fills out every year as a framework and just flesh it out. I cant' believe they hired Rob Lyons without a job description. Rob could easily write one and it would probably be better that anyone else could come up with.

By: prorutherford321 on 3/30/09
I find it hard to imagine someone from somewhere else in the country rising above our current deputy city manager. The learning curve alone will take months if not years to get even with him with regard to how this city operates, the competency levels of department heads, the multitude of issues facing our community every day, particularly in this difficult economic time. Time to leave politics out of this selection process and get on with common sense.

By: SocEtTuem on 3/30/09
The city needs a complete house cleaning, from the city manager and mayor on down, including a new representative city council elected by ward.

Anybody want to be the local pols are NOT in favor of that idea?

By: LilAudrey on 3/30/09
From living in Illinois, I learned about ward healers and all of the corruption that goes with wards. We don't need that kind of political bosses here.


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