Ashland City Attorney Selection Process
Southern Oregon Community Coalition, 18.07.2007 18:43
Southern Oregon Community Coalition worked with City of Ashland to increase transparency and public participation in choosing Ashland's Police Chief (last fall) and city attorney (this spring). After 3 community panels of attorney interviews of 4 'short list' candidates resulting in 2 recommended finalists, disagreement among councilors scuttled the entire process. City attorney selection will now start over, with a proposed higher attorney salary and executive search firm. Southern Oregon Community Coalition protested the action and recommended 4 positive steps to resolution in this open letter.
SOUTHERN OREGON COMMUNITY COALITION
150 Myer Creek Road
Ashland, OR 97520
(541) 482-9868
Re: City Attorney Selection Process
Dear Mayor Morrison and Members of the City Council:
We write to protest that, despite the selection on June 1st of two highly qualified finalists for the position of Ashland City Attorney, you
subsequently decided to reopen the search and perhaps hire a search firm.
The undersigned organizations and individuals are linked by a common interest in such good government issues as transparency, accountability, and public involvement.
We have worked successfully with the Mayor and City Administrator to increase the level of openness and community participation in selecting the City's Police Chief and City Attorney. We were grateful for the Mayor's recent public tribute to us for those efforts.
We were therefore surprised and dismayed when the process of selecting a new City Attorney was not carried to completion.
Approximately 25 City officials and community members spent an entire day interviewing candidates, debriefing the results and identifying two well-qualified finalists. The two finalists were to return for follow-up interviews with the Mayor and Council plus a televised public interview after which viewers could contribute their opinions to the final decision.
The decision to abort this process thus rendered the effort of a large number of people a waste of time, and thwarted a promising step forward in community participation in City government. Making this decision in executive session, without any explanation to the public, exacerbated matters. These missteps require corrective actions.
Accordingly, we call upon the Mayor and City Council to:
1. Provide the public an explanation of why the agreed upon procedure
was not carried out to completion.
2. Ensure that there will be full community participation in the renewed search and selection process.
3. Formalize the process of search, selection, and community participation into a set of basic procedures that will be consistently followed in both this instance, and in the future for all positions that must be confirmed by the City Council.
4. As part of those procedures, provide that:
(a) All candidates who advance to the interview stage of the selection process agree to allow their identity and qualifications to be known by the public.
(b) The selection process includes a two to three hour televised interview of the finalists that is open to the public, incorporates questions submitted by the public and allows for feedback from the public to be submitted to the Mayor and Council.
(c) At least half of every interview panel consists of citizens who are not elected or appointed officials nor employees of the City, with the exception of panel(s) composed of the Mayor and Council if desired.
We believe that following the above recommendations is the best path to restoring public confidence regarding the current hiring process as well as those that come up in the future, and we offer our support and assistance to your efforts.
Sincerely,
Ralph Temple
ACLU, Southern Oregon Chapter
John Stromberg
Ashland Committee on Policing and Safety
Art Bullock
AshlandConstitution.org
Paul Moss
Ashland Elders
Allen Hallmark
Citizens for Peace and Justice
Venita Varga
Social Action Committee
Rogue Valley Universal Unitarian Fellowship
Steve Ryan
SOU Media Collective
Tom Dimitre
Pam Vavra