Community Pulling for Brachvogel?
The city council received a letter from the city’s police chief and finance manager supporting Paul Brachvogel, interim city manager and city attorney, as a candidate for the permanent city manager position. These department heads said they appreciate the work Paul (right) has done and preferred him over an unknown candidate who wouldn’t be as familiar with the city’s issues.
Spurred by this suggestion, quite a few community members attended the council meeting tonight to lend their support to Brachvogel’s continuing in his present role. The council had planned to consider a proposal to hire Prothman, a placement firm, to help locate candidates for the position and to evaluate Paul’s fitness as a candidate. The proposal contained an $8,500 option for the first phase, which would involve developing a list of desired characteristics for the manager, coordinating community input on the position profile, and advertising the position. However, taking the process to its completion by interviewing the top candidates, bringing them to town to meet the council, etc., would cost the city $24,000 plus travel and other expenses.
The council deferred action on the proposal until the first meeting of September. We would love to hear from the community in that time. There’s a clear upside to keeping Paul, in that we would save the search fees and probably save quite a bit by combining at least some of the city attorney and manager responsibilities into one position. By all accounts, he’s done a great job as the interim manager. On the other hand, with an opportunity to hand pick Kelso’s leader in a period that can provide significant growth in the city, some council members believe we owe it to the citizens to at least explore all manager options available to us.
Have a thought on the subject? Be sure to weigh in!
