{"id":2444179,"date":"2019-05-14T22:32:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-15T04:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/recruiter-gets-an-earful-from-citizens-on-aspens-next-city-manager\/"},"modified":"2019-05-14T22:32:00","modified_gmt":"2019-05-15T04:32:00","slug":"recruiter-gets-an-earful-from-citizens-on-aspens-next-city-manager","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/recruiter-gets-an-earful-from-citizens-on-aspens-next-city-manager\/","title":{"rendered":"Recruiter gets an earful from citizens on Aspen\u2019s next city manager"},"content":{"rendered":"
Peckham & McKenney executive search western region vice president Drew Gorgey, right, listens intently to Phil Overeynder during an Aspen City Manager Recruitment community listening session on Tuesday in the Aspen Police Department community room.<\/strong>
Anna Stonehouse\/The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Aspen\u2019s new city manager should be big on public engagement and make between $180,000 and $214,000, based on a candidate profile that City Council agreed to on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Drew Gorgey<\/a>, a recruiter for headhunting firm Peckham & McKenney, is creating the profile for the right candidate based on feedback he\u2019s received in the past two days from residents, seated elected officials and council members-elect who will be sworn in June 10, as well as department heads.<\/p>\n

A total of about 20 people showed up to three listening sessions with Gorgey held Monday and Tuesday. And between 15 and 20 individuals emailed him either directly or through a city email address.<\/p>\n

He said during Tuesday\u2019s session held in the community room of the Aspen Police Department that those who took the time were fully engaged and prepared to discuss issues in depth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe citizens stressed civility as a community value,\u201d he said, adding that in his experience the local government is going above and beyond what\u2019s customary in the world of recruiting a city manager. \u201cAspen is the first community that has invested in three listening sessions. It\u2019s very atypical.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some in the room suggested that former City Manager Steve Barwick, who was asked to resign<\/a> in January after 19 years on the job, \u201cshut down\u201d a few years ago and wasn\u2019t as engaged with staff and the community as he once was.<\/p>\n

Resident Phil Overeynder said he hopes there is good chemistry between the individual who fills the newly created director of communications position and the new city manager.<\/p>\n

He explained that the first few years in the role, a city manager feels empowered enough to tell elected officials what the sentiment is among the staff or the community and will put his or her neck out on principles.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver time, they are less likely to put themselves out there,\u201d Overeynder said. \u201cThe city manager can get isolated and doesn\u2019t have that sense of community. It all goes back to what kind of communication they are getting internally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tracy Trulove, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Transportation, told Gorgey during Tuesday\u2019s listening session that the next city manager should be innovative, particularly when it comes to solving Aspen\u2019s traffic issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe city manager will have to be the cog in the wheel to make it go,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

After meeting with citizens and then a roomful of city department heads Tuesday afternoon, Gorgey met with council in a work session<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He told elected officials that it seems as though government<\/a> is no longer in step with its citizens, and there needs to be a realignment.<\/p>\n

Gorgey pointed to the process and lead-up to the city\u2019s new government office building that\u2019s being built, along with its botched mobility lab called SHIFT that could have cost upward of $3 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the city building and the mobility SHIFT is where the city has fallen down on communications,\u201d he said, adding that the municipal government has to establish what public engagement is. \u201cYou gotta define your terms before you know if you are failing at it.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, city manager candidates will need to have solid communication skills, be transparent and honest, empathetic, extroverted, brave, courageous and able to break down barriers within various departments, Gorgey said.<\/p>\n

The ideal candidate must also understand the uniqueness of Aspen and know how important the environment and sustainability is, as well as have the ability to challenge the status quo.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could go on \u2026 you get the flavor of what your own citizens are looking for,\u201d he told council. \u201cGovernment works for them, not the other way around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gorgey said he expects to develop a candidate profile by the end of the month, then create a recruitment brochure for a subcommittee and council to review.<\/p>\n

That brochure and other advertisements will be distributed nationally to potential candidates through connections the recruiting firm has, as well as other municipal government circles via digital platforms and traditional methods.<\/p>\n

The application deadline is July 8, with preliminary interviews in July and early August.<\/p>\n

Interviews with finalists are expected Aug. 8 and 9, with a potential hire in the fall.<\/p>\n

Housing within the city of Aspen\u2019s inventory may be available to the preferred candidate, if there is a unit available.<\/p>\n

The city is paying Peckham & McKenney $26,500 to assist in finding the next top administrator for the municipal government.<\/p>\n

The recruitment subcommittee, which includes Mayor Steve Skadron; Councilman Ward Hauenstein; Courtney DeVito, the interim deputy director of human resources; and Alissa Farrell, the director of human resources and an interim city manager, will finalize the candidate profile and hand it off to council for approval.<\/p>\n

Hauenstein said he\u2019s been impressed thus far with how the setup<\/a> for the recruitment has gone.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a good process because it causes us to look at ourselves closer,\u201d Hauenstein said.<\/p>\n

csackariason@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peckham & McKenney executive search western region vice president Drew Gorgey, right, listens intently to Phil Overeynder during an Aspen City Manager Recruitment community listening session on Tuesday in the Aspen Police Department community room.Anna Stonehouse\/The Aspen Times Aspen\u2019s new city manager should be big on public engagement and make between $180,000 and $214,000, based […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2444179","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-18 06:34:11","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2444179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444179\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2444179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2444179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2444179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}