The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Waiting until full council is present in October
[ By Kendra Walker ]
The Mt. Crested Butte town council is still determining if and how to hire a future town manager. Currently, Greg Sund is the town manager, having stepped in after the council terminated Isa Reeb’s employment in March, and the council is still weighing the options for how to proceed. Due to two missing councilors during the September 6 meeting, the council agreed to continue the town manager conversation to October 18 when the full council is expected to be present.
This summer, the council spent time updating the town manager job position and expected competencies in order to better review performance for current and future town managers. However, the council has not made a decision on whether to continue with Sund or begin a search for new candidates.
“This is kind of dragging on,” said council member Roman Kolodziej. “We’re now looking at [six more weeks] of just deciding what we’re going to do, let alone take any action.”
“We hired Greg not to be here necessarily forever,” said council member Janet Farmer. “But I’m concerned for the stability of the town manager position for the staff if we just keep changing it, and I would like to see a longer time period of Greg being here so they can feel more stable. I would rather not go into a town manger search right now.”
“If I was talking to a member of the public, I would tell them it’s something we’re working on, we have the luxury of having someone who’s doing a good job in their current position and so we’re taking our time to make the decision,” said mayor Nicholas Kempin.
“My understanding was that we’d eventually go back and take a look at all applicable or possible candidates at some later time, and I think we still need to do that,” said council member Michael Bacani. “I don’t like the option of it being a full-on search. Maybe we just make it just an internal search.”
“If you’re going to have a search you open it up to all,” said town attorney Kathy Fogo. “Either you make someone you have permanent, or you have a search.”
She also recommended the council use a search firm if they plan to search for new candidates. “If you did want to pursue a search firm, they could help you guys with a lot of this work and staff could put together an RFP (Request for Proposals) for a search firm if you think that’s where you’re headed,” she said. “I think you will get better quality candidates if you use a search firm.”
“I’m 100% on board if that’s the decision to actually do a search,” said Kolodziej. “The question we’ll be discussing [in October] is how well we feel Greg is doing at the job. I think you’re doing great,” he directed to Sund. “That, combined with whether or not the town has capacity to transition to a different town manager at this time with what we’re currently going through.”
“Looking through that lens I’d say we don’t need to do a search,” said council member Dwayne Lehnertz. “The uncertainty or the turmoil of another personality introduced to the mix, I think we’d be better off not doing that.”
The council decided to continue the discussion and possible decision on next steps to the October 18 meeting when council members Steve Morris and Alec Lindeman are anticipated to be present along with the rest of the council.
