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Published on 01/05/1998 All articles from this issue

Search under way for new city manager

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By Joanne Griffith Domingue / Town Crier Staff Writer

The search is on. Los Altos City Council members and the executive recruitment firm handling the city's hunt for a new manager have mapped out a search process and a timeline that has a new manager in place about mid-June.

Rich Perry, of the Sea Ranch-based firm of Perry & Associates, will start the process by interviewing council members and department heads to identify criteria of what people want in the next city manager.

At the Jan. 5 study session, when the process was outlined, council also decided to invite residents to submit their suggestions.

"We are very interested in any comments you might have regarding the desirable characteristics of our new city manager," said Mayor Kris Casto in a letter that went out to members of the community.

She invites comments by letter or phone by Jan. 20. Once the data is gathered, Perry will prepare a recruitment brochure to send to interested candidates.

The closing date for resumés will be March 3. Perry said he expects 65 to 70 people to apply and will then screen the applicants, based upon the criteria OK'd by council, down to 20 or 30.

At this point applicants will be given questions specific to Los Altos.

"You can tell if an applicant is technically good," Perry said, from their application documents. "But you can't tell if they're good for Los Altos."

At each stage council will be given progress reports. The council will have application information on the top 20 to 30 applicants.

By April, Perry will have the field narrowed to 10 to 12 candidates.

Council will then winnow further to five or six applicants and be interviewing the final three by the end of April.

At that point, the applicants may also be talking to department heads.

Candidates "want to know who they're going to inherit," Perry said.

Perry said the council would probably be ready to make an appointment mid-May at a regular council meeting, and that, depending upon the length of notice the candidate needs to give the new city manager, should be in place by mid-June.

For the final fix, "It will be the chemistry," said Councilman King Lear.

Once a finalist is selected, Perry advised council on the importance of a 5-0 vote.

Cities may not require a city manager to live within the city, "but there is the unwritten rule," he said, that cities like to have the manager living locally.

But with the high cost of local housing, Perry said he would need to talk to council "to see if the city is willing to assist" with housing.

Dianne Gershuny, the current city manager, will be leaving her $107,000 per year job March 13. Gershuny, who was first appointed in 1990, announced her resignation last Oct. 9, citing personal reasons.

Council has not yet decided if there will be an interim or an acting city manager during the few months when there is no city manager.

Gershuny said she was looking into the availability of an interim city manager.

If you will be sending in suggestions, the city hall address is 1 N. San Antonio Road, Los Altos.

The phone is 948-1491; the fax number is 941-7419.