FeedsPay the fee, already
“We’ve gone to the well twice and we’ve come up dry. We need help.”
That was a telling comment at the Belleville City Council meeting on Monday night. The item on the agenda was the ongoing search for a new city manager—a search that has gone on for nearly a year now.
The council members agreed recently to use the Michigan Municipal League (MML) to search for the new manager after the last two candidates in previous searches were offered but declined the job. The city had posted the position on the web site before, but using the league is another matter entirely. The organization essentially has a team of consultants who specialize in that sort of thing; one of them serves as a sort of contracted human resources person to identify a number of people for the job.
The issue Monday was a relatively simple one—the approval of the contract with the league. One might expect a relatively quick discussion followed by a stamp of approval.
Not so. It almost didn’t happen.
Some members of the council initially balked at what they perceived as a change in the contract language. Essentially, it pointed out that the firm would be paid the $6,850 if they were able to present a viable candidate to the council, whereas previous conversations indicated that the MML would only be paid if the candidate were hired.
A motion to hire the firm died for a lack of support and council members were left wondering what to do next. They eventually decided to bring a representative of the MML to their next meeting to get further clarification on their definition of a ‘viable candidate.’
This is a bit silly.
Hiring the MML should be a no-brainer at this point given the difficulty the city has had in finding a successor to Steve Walters or Walter Mears—if you consider his short term of duty. These kinds of last minute obstructions to progress will probably serve to drive away many who might ponder taking on the job to begin with.
We hate to point out the obvious, but this has gone on entirely too long. City staffers have done an admirable job of carrying on the day-to-day business in Belleville, but the seams are beginning to show. The issue over the district library has yet to be solved, the streetscape improvement project is in jeopardy as are other important projects or potential developments.
It’s time for the council to suck it up, pay the fee and move forward.
