Polson city manager field narrowed to 6 candidates

A committee tasked with finding a new city manager for Polson has narrowed the field to a handful of candidates.

The City Manager Search Committee met May 11 to discuss five prospective candidates: Brian Bender, chief administrative officer of Deer Lodge; J.D. Cox, most recently the city manager of Longwood, Florida; Alan Lanning, most recently the city manager of Cordova, Alaska and previously the city manager for Steamboat Springs, Colorado; Darcy Long, former city manager of Gladstone, Michigan; and Ed Meece, the former city manager of Livingston, Montana.

A sixth candidate asked that their name be withheld from public discussion as they did not want their current employers to know that they are seeking employment elsewhere. The search committee reviewed that candidate in a closed session.

Among the resumes discussed in the public session, Bender seemed to garner the most positive feedback among the group. Bender was hired for the Deer Lodge job in July of 2016. He previously was a county planner and city council member in Deer Lodge.

“He’s familiar with small town culture,” noted committee member and Polson City Planner Kyle Roberts. “I also appreciate that he was a former planner.”

Committee member Gayle Siemers commented that he was impressed with Deer Lodge on a recent trip to the town in Southwest Montana.

“There’s stuff going on here. You can see there are progressive thoughts,” Siemers said.

Long was another candidate that the committee seemed interested with learning more about. Positive comments were about his 18 years of experience and his familiarity with small towns. He also has family in Montana.

There was some concern about Long being fired from his most recent job in Gladstone, Michigan. According to a report in the Daily Press newspaper, Long was terminated for “misfeasance, malfeasance and nonfeasance.” Specifically, Long was removed from office for violation of the city’s purchasing policy, negotiating directly with a union member leading to a pay increase, failure to communicate with the public and the city commission, failure to follow the commission rules of procedure, among other reasons, according to the news report in the Daily Press.

The search committee agreed that Long was upfront about the reasons he was terminated, and that it is difficult to know all sides of a conflict.

Another candidate under consideration, Meece, resigned from his post in Livingston as the city was considering whether to terminate his contact.

“[Conflict] comes with the territory,” Roberts told the search committee. “It could be as simple as personality differences or agenda differences.”

Along those same lines, Siemers said the city should do what it can to find the right personality for the city manager job.

“This [search] process gets expensive and time consuming,” he said. “Polson needs to focus on that and how can we prevent this. We need to get personalty conflicts out of the way.”

The Polson City Commission ultimately selects the next city manager, following recommendations by the search committee.

Polson Police Chief Wade Nash has been leading the city as interim city manager since former city manager Mark Shrives stepped down in October 2018.

The city posted the job opening earlier this year and advertised the vacancy on various job boards, including with the International City/County Management Association. Applications were accepted through Feb. 28.

According to the city’s recruitment brochure, the city manager is responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operations of the city, working under the policy guidance the city commission. The city has 43 full-time non-unionized employees who ultimately report to the city manager.

Applicants are required to have a degree in Public Administration, Political Science, Business Management or a closely related field. In addition, the successful candidate should have at least five years of experience in public administration. Starting salary for the new city manager will be “market competitive depending upon the experience and qualifications,” the job posting states. The salary was set at $90,353 in 2018, according to a survey of city manager salaries conducted by the city.