Columbus mayor updates city manager search. Position has been vacant for 9 months
Steps have been taken to begin advertising the city manager position again after it was paused in November. Columbus Mayor Skip Henderson said Tuesday during the State of the City event.
Formatted as a fireside chat with Henderson answering questions in the Cunningham Center at Columbus State University, the mayor said the brochures advertising the job would be approved that day. The search was scheduled to begin again in earnest Wednesday, he said.
“What we’ve asked the search firm that we’re using to do is to be a little bit more proactive,” Henderson said in an interview after the event. “We put it in brochures, put it on YouTube. We put it on all the different average places where you advertise job availabilities.”
Henderson said the firm was asked to meet with city managers employed elsewhere to let them know about the job opportunity.
“We’re looking for somebody who’s already had experience,” he said. “That’s the optimum candidate, and we’ll accept no experience as a city manager if it’s offset by some significant experience in other organizations.”
The city is not going to “sacrifice quality for speed,” Henderson said.
“I could throw a name out there and let council vote on it,” he said. “But it’s got to be somebody who can step into that position and do a very, very good job.”
Henderson defended pausing the search in November after he faced backlash for the decision.
“Our charter is pretty clear,” he said during the State of the City. “It just says that the mayor submits a name, and the council votes it up or down. It doesn’t say how.”
The process being used to search for a new city manager is the same one that was used to hire the fire chief, police chief and warden, Henderson said.
There have been instances where they were negotiating with an individual about the position, but the negotiation fell through, he said.
“It kind of happened again this time,” Henderson said. “We got into a situation where we just were unable to negotiate a final agreement with anybody, and we felt like we needed to go back out to talk to the search firm that we’re using.”
The firm recommended they pause the search during the holidays, then pick it back up in February, he said.
“We’re going to have a city manager that is approved by Council,” Henderson said. “So we’re going to get that done just over the next few months.
The position has been vacant for nine months since the council fired Isaiah Hugley in May with a 7-3 vote. Hugley announced in July he is running for mayor. Columbus Councilor Joanne Cogle of District 7, one of the councilors who voted yes on the motion to fire Hugley, also is running for mayor.
Hugley and Cogle have raised the most money for their campaigns among the five announced candidates. No candidates are official for the May 19 nonpartisan election until qualifying during the first week of March.
Due to term limits, Henderson isn’t allowed to seek re-election. He will complete his second four-year term at the end of this year.
