By Jim Newell
Review Editor
LAKE ORION — The Lake Orion Village Council approved publishing criteria with the Michigan Municipal League (MML) seeking applications for a new village manager during its meeting on Monday.
The council also agreed on a tentative salary range, timeline and interview procedures.
The council is searching for a new manager after former village Manager Joe Young resigned June 24 citing health concerns.
Young had been village manager for more than five years. The council voted on March 13, 2017 to hire Young, who had been manager in the Village of Oxford since 2004.
During its June 27 meeting, the council accepted Young’s resignation and then agreed with a committee recommendation to enter contract negotiations with D. Wayne O’Neal to serve as interim village manager.
The committee had been searching for someone to assist the village while Young was out on sick leave.
Village attorney Nicholas Grochowski said the council needed to approve the proposed text to advertise for a new village manager. The ad will be posted with the Michigan Municipal League, a nonprofit association of municipalities and municipal leaders in the State of Michigan, to reach prospective candidates.
Grochowski also asked if the council wanted to list a compensation range and tentative timeline. In addition to the ad, a link provides prospective candidates with a six-page presentation about the village and what the village is looking for, he said.
Council President Pro-tem Jerry Narsh made a motion, which passed 6-0, to approve the MML advertisement, salary range, tentative timeline and evaluation procedure.
“In the past, we’ve always had the applicants come before the entire council, and the public. Anyone’s welcome to come and bear witness. (It’s) about as open and honest as you can get,” Narsh said. “Then for the council to submit for those applicants that they want to bring forward for additional review and consideration.”
The village manager position will be listed in the $75,000 to $85,000 range, with compensation to be determined based on education and experience, per Narsh’s motion.
The council hopes to have information about the applicants by the Aug. 22 meeting and schedule interviews after that time. Council members also discussed potentially selecting a new manager at the Sept. 12 meeting.
“You don’t want to rush yourselves. You want to be able to take a look at these (applicants),” O’Neal said. “The cream is going to come to the top. You’re going to see that. You should have four or five (candidates) that you want to interview. Sometimes you’ll only have three really good ones, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But the timeline, I wouldn’t rush it.”
In his motion, Narsh also said that all council members would review all of the candidates and, possibly through a scoring system, would select the top five applicants for interviews.
Council Member Michael Lamb said he felt it would be more prudent to have the interim manager search committee sort through applications and recommend the top five or so to the council for interviews.
“I still think letting the existing committee review the numerous candidates and providing the top applicants would be more efficient,” Lamb said. “I don’t see the prudence of each one of the council members reviewing the applications when we have three people who have already practiced and could come up with the top five candidates pretty easily. I can rely on those council members; I think they did a good job in the past and it would save a lot of time…not having to go through 20 applications.”
Councilmembers Teresa Rutt, Sarah Luchsinger and Doug Hobbs were previously appointed to the interim manager search committee and recommended O’Neal.
Narsh reiterated that he wants the entire council to review all of the applications and interview the top five candidates.
The Lake Orion Village Council meets regularly on the second and fourth Mondays of the month.
Meetings begin at 7:30 p.m. in council chambers at Village Hall, 21 E. Church St.
Agendas and board packets are availble online at lakeorion.org under the “Boards” tab.