Ontario city manager search gains steam
Firm hired to assist with employment quest recorded 20 responses
By Katie Pizza
Argus Observer
Wednesday, March 26, 2008 10:57 AM PDT
Ontario — Ontario’s search for a city manager is proceeding as planned with 20 responses so far for the position vacated by last fall by Scott Trainor.
The City Council will meet with Prothman Associates, a consulting group hired to help in the search for a new city manager, this week to determine semi-finalists.
“Of those 20, some didn’t complete (the applications) properly or weren’t qualified enough,” Ontario Mayor Joe Dominick said. “The council will decide if they want to look at those or not.”
The applicants themselves hail from areas as varied as the topics a city manager is asked to preside over.
From Oregon to Idaho to Florida and Illinois, the 20 candidates also possess a varied amount of experience.
“Two/thirds of them have experience at the city manager level, including senior department managers,” Prothman Associates owner Greg Prothman said.
While some of the candidates have been city managers for years, others are just now dipping their toes into city government waters.
“Greg (Prothman) and I would characterize (them) as potential ‘rising stars,’ possessing less experience but the Ontario job would be their next logical step on the career ladder,” Prothman Associates consultant Lynn Stokesbary said in an e-mail to Dominick.
Candidates applying for the city’s top job with little experience is not unusual, Prothman said.
“I estimate that we normally get three or four people who have never worked for cities,” he said.
No matter their experience, Prothman said he does not feel that he knows what the future holds for the candidates at this point.
“I’m hesitant to say that we got a great group of candidates, yada, yada, yada,” he said. “Because you never know until we start to really look at the candidates. You never know until the rubber meets the road, so to speak.”
The semi-finalists selected by the City Council will have their interviews in two weeks, with the finalists selected the last week in April.
The finalists will have their last interviews the week of May 5.
However, Prothman said that new candidates can be added to the process at any time.
“If someone is a rock star candidate and we hear about them in the final week of interviews, we want to get them in there,” he said.
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