News

After refusing to do so when asked by the Times-Standard last week, the city of Eureka today released the names of private citizens who will serve on a panel interviewing city manager candidates later this week.

The citizen’s panel is comprised of Kurt Kramer, Heidi Benzonelli, Dale Maples, J Warren Hockaday, Jack Crider and Lorene Dunaway, and will sit down with the three unnamed candidates — one local and two from out of state — on Feb. 26.

See the city’s full press release below. For more information on the city’s search, see past Journal coverage here. And, also, be sure to check out the Times-Standard story by Lorna Rodriguez that pushed the city to release the list of panelists.

The following is a press release from the city of Eureka:

The City of Eureka will be conducting a second round of interviews with 3 candidates for City Manager on Wednesday, February 26, 2014. Council has designed a process in consultation with the City’s recruiter Phil McKenney of Peckham and McKenney. The process is designed to obtain input from the community as well as other City Managers in the area.

That process is as follows:

• Six City Manager candidates were initially interviewed on February 3, 2014 by the Mayor and Council. The top three candidates have been invited back to interview before an oral board made up of community members and local City Managers.

• The Mayor and each councilmember recommended a citizen to serve on a community panel oral board to interview the City Manager candidates. (Panel A)

• Local City Managers, a prior City of Eureka Manager and the County Administrative Officer will act as another oral board to interview candidates. (Panel B)

• Both oral boards will provide input to Phil McKenney of Peckham and McKenney. Mr. McKenney will then meet with the Mayor and Council to review the panel comments.

• Candidates will meet with the Mayor and City Council in a 90 minute interview.

• The Mayor and Council will then either select a candidate or consider additional recruitment steps.

Oral boards are routinely kept private to safeguard the recruitment process to ensure that each applicant receives a fair assessment and to protect the candidate’s privacy. In addition, the City has a legal duty to protect the deliberative process and ensure that the thought processes of the decision-makers, the Mayor and Council, are not impaired. The City of Eureka wants to make sure there is a level playing field for each applicant.

In the interest of transparency, the names of the individuals serving on the oral boards are:

Panel A:
Kurt Kramer
Heidi Benzonelli
Dale Maples
J Hockaday
Jack Crider
Lorene Dunaway

Panel B:
Philip Smith-Haynes
Karen Suiker
Randy Mendoza
Regan Candelario
Jay Parrish
Jim Test
David Tyson

The Mayor and Council do ask that the process be allowed to proceed as designed and that the privacy of the City Manager candidates be respected.