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Applications for the job are set to close in early November and final interviews are planned for January.
The recruitment firm leading Eugene’s search for its next city manager outlined a hiring timeline and early progress during a city council work session Monday, Sept. 8.
Over the last month, staff with Bob Murray & Associates solicited input from 14 internal stakeholders and nine external ones, including councilors and city division managers, recruiter Valerie Phillips said.
Those meetings marked the beginning of the process to replace City Manager Sarah Medary, who announced in March that she will retire at the end of 2025. She has held the job for six years. The council selected Bob Murray & Associates from an initial pool of 15 recruitment firms. The company is quoting the city $37,000 for its services.
Based on the conversations, the recruitment firm drafted a list of qualities and skills candidates should have, including leadership, vision, emotional intelligence, integrity, communication and collaboration, innovation, and problem-solving.
On Monday, councilors approved a brochure to advertise the city manager position, which Phillips said will go out to more than 6,000 people nationwide. The firm expects to place ads, conduct an email blast and mail the brochure at the end of the month.
In October, the firm plans to host a public listening session to gather community input on the search and the ideal candidate. In past searches, Phillips said, that has included Zoom drop-in meetings for stakeholders to share feedback.
“If that’s something that’s important to you, to me, the more outreach, the better, the more opportunity you give the community to voice their thoughts, then you get less complaints on the back end when you make that decision,” Phillips said.
The firm expects to close applications by Nov. 3. She said city manager searches usually result in about 30 applicants.
Then the firm will review resumes, run background checks and interview 10 to 12 applicants. The firm will compile that information and present it to councilors in an executive session in mid-November, when the firm also will recommend five or six of the candidates.
Maintaining confidentiality
Phillips urged councilors to keep applicant identities confidential during the early stages, warning that public disclosure could jeopardize the candidates’ current jobs.
“If it’s public up front, their council will find out, and they can lose their job,” Phillips said. “I’ve seen it happen over and over. It’s unfortunate, and I want to bring you the best.”
She added that councilors indicated during conversations that they prefer someone who has held the city manager title, as opposed to assistant or deputy positions, making confidentiality even more vital.
During comments after the presentation, Councilors Jennifer Yeh, Randy Groves, Alan Zelenka and Mike Clark supported initial confidentiality in the hiring process to prevent limiting the pool of applications.
Councilors will hold first-round Zoom interviews in early December, followed by in-person second-round interviews in January. Before final interviews, stakeholders will have a chance to meet the top two or three candidates and review their materials.
“[Stakeholders] don’t rank the candidates because it’s your hire, but they offer us kind of those pros and cons,” Phillips said. “And then we provide that information and feedback to you before you conduct your final interview.”
Clark said stakeholder input was a deciding factor toward the end of the hiring process for former city manager Jon Ruiz, when the search was between him and another finalist.
“It was after the community stakeholders had a chance to meet with these guys one-on-one that it became really clear to me, listening to a lot of people in the community whose opinions I trust, who were like, ‘No, Jon’s the guy,’” Clark said.
The final interviews themselves will likely be public, which Phillips recommended, and may include an informal meet-and-greet between final candidates and community members.
After that, the council will hold a work session to discuss finalists and review references. The recruitment firm estimated that the city would make an offer to the final candidate at the end of January.
Phillips said two people have already applied for the job, before the city has even initiated any formal outreach.
“There’s definitely some interest in your city, and I want to be able to really take advantage of that, especially if we can do the process a little more confidential on the front end,” she said.
Clark asked if Eugene has any comparative disadvantages that would make the job less attractive to applicants. In response, Phillips said a lot of the city’s issues are similar to those in Washington, Oregon, California and even Texas.
She hinted that compensation may be a factor to keep an eye on, as she plans to ask candidates what their pay expectations are. Phillips said city manager salaries in the San Francisco Bay Area, where her firm has placed many candidates, typically start at $400,000.
The council hasn’t yet set the salary for the next city manager, which will be negotiated with the candidate. As of July 2024, Sarah Medary’s salary was $293,217. The city’s listed range for the position is $231,816 to $310,835, according to city records.
Eugene has a council-manager form of government, meaning the council decides the policies and the council-hired manager oversees the city’s operations, provides administrative direction and follows the council’s directions, according to the city’s employee handbook.
Other developments from the meeting
A couple of hours later, the council held its first regular meeting after a summer recess. There, Medary announced that city staff have started to form a committee tasked with examining Eugene’s long-term financial stability, as was planned when the city passed its two-year budget in June.
A dozen people with technical expertise in finance, operations and economic development accepted invitations to join. They will begin meeting in late September and plan to meet “pretty frequently,” working toward producing a draft set of recommendations by the end of the year.
“We’re inviting them in to look at some of our expenses and operations, look at economic development as a strategy,” Medary said. “We’ve said if they want to talk about revenue, they can, but that is the last thing they’ll talk about, because we just had a pretty robust revenue committee that went through a lot of work.”
The meeting also drew significant public comment in opposition to Flock, the company behind the city’s license plate readers. In advance of the comments, Yeh said that the council will hold a work session to discuss the technology.
