The Holbrook City Council convened Sept. 28, during which they discussed the possible action of appointing Interim City Manager Randy Sullivan as City Manager.
“I want to make something clear from the start, that this agenda was placed around my request, Mr. Sullivan had no request in this,” said Mayor Kathleen Smith, “This was being brought to me as the mayor, and so I thought we will bring it, as the agenda says, as a discussion and possible action.”
Smith said she did research and found multiple cities have made their interim city managers permanent without going out for hires. She had also spoken to the city’s attorney, who stated the city has no legal obligation to open the position up. “If someone says they think it should be opened up, that’s fine as an opinion. And reasonable arguments can be made to do that. But when a municipality has a quality person internally already, it’s also very reasonable to directly appoint that person without opening it up,” Smith quoted from the attorney’s email.
Smith stated her approval for making Sullivan permanent manager, saying he fits all the city’s needs and saves the city time and money. “For me, I just want to start getting more things done. I believe we can do that with Mr. Sullivan.”
Councilmember Tim Dixon disagreed with Smith, “I was shocked that you got this put on the agenda, Mayor,” he said, adding that the city has history with Sullivan, some good and some that could be interpreted as otherwise. He countered that the city set precedent four years ago and has talked with people that are not okay with the idea of Sullivan as city manager. “I want to do our due diligence and select the very best candidate for Holbrook.”
Vice Mayor Mike Nilsson said that he’s seen it be done both ways in his work in the power industry, but agreed with Dixon that the council should do its due diligence. “I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Randy didn’t come to the top of the heap.” Councilmember Arcenia Pacheco also agreed with these sentiments, stating their duty is to provide the best.
Councilmember Robert Black stated he’s fought with this all week, and have had people come to him on both sides of the topic. Black suggested the council “not end this but table it and have an executive session where we can get this hammered out. Have everybody on the council give their input on this. And hopefully we’ll come up with a good decision.”
Councilwoman Karina Pack stated she liked the idea of saving money by not using a recruitment firm. She also added that working with Sullivan versus the previous manager, who was hired through a recruitment firm, was “night and day and in a good way.”
Councilmember Teri Tafoya said she was in favor of tabling the motion and having a further discussion in a work or executive session.
The council voted to table the motion and discuss it in either a work or executive session in the near future.
Smith’s decision to present the item was validated by three citizens who spoke during the call to the public, all in regards to selecting Interim City Manager Sullivan as City Manager. Mary Bradley shared her frustration for the city spending money on a recruitment firm. “We have a qualified candidate here who has been doing this job, twice,” she stated, “Mr. Sullivan lives here. He knows our financial obligations here.”
Dan Bradley echoed these sentiments, adding “I feel that he could do a good job. Better than somebody that’s brought in from outside that may or may not end up liking Holbrook and may only be here for a year or two.”
Another resident, Gerald Hancock, also voiced his approval for Sullivan. “I’ve seen more done in the last month than I’ve seen in the last few years.”
After deciding to table the discussion and possible appointment of Sullivan as city manager, the council decided to also table awarding a recruitment firm depending on the outcome of the previous discussion.
Sullivan then brought to the council a possible amendment to the previously approved budget for the city’s library staff. “In the last couple of months that I’ve been here, I tried to meet with all the department heads on their needs and make sure their budget was what they wanted.” After talking with the staff at the Hidden Cove Golf Course, they stated that they did not need golf carts, which were in their budget. Sullivan also talked with Librarian Wendy Skevington, who expressed the need for another full-time staff hire, which would require $32,218 be moved to the library budget.
Sullivan explained there are currently three full time employees at the library, one summer seasonal employee and two part time positions, one of which is not filled. This reorganizing would remove one of the part time positions and make it full-time. “She does a really amazing job, in my opinion, keeping that library open. Especially during the summer when the city itself doesn’t have a summer rec program, she puts on a summer rec program.” He hoped the council would make an amendment, pulling money from the golf course and giving it to the library to pay for a new full-time position. He did add it would be more costly due to the yearly salary.
Councilwoman Arcenia Pacheco questioned the full-time 40 hours, stating the library isn’t publicly open that amount of time. She explained that she went to the library at about 10 a.m. and it did not open till 11 a.m. that day. The library is open to the public from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday.
Skevington explained that there are prep hours, and days can frequently run to nine or 10-hour days on any given activity day. She stated the library had 30,647 visits this fiscal year and circulated 22,659 physical items. “As technology changed our world, what physically left the library changed, but the activity at the library went up a lot. We handle almost all of our own tech, we handle all of our own janitorial, a good chunk of our building maintenance, we are so grateful for Mike and Tim, to keep up with the things that I don’t have the skill set for,” she noted, referring to city employees Mike Young and Tim Kelley.
The library also had 3,929 computer log-ins, 7,225 pages printed and nearly 10,000 wireless sessions for people using their own devices. “Every single one of those people has to have an understanding of how to use those devices. And a huge portion of them do not. That falls upon the library staff to handle that. So anything that you and I imagine we ought to be able to get done in the regular workday gets subsumed under this wave of technology, and people’s needs to print their job applications to find the property they want to buy. You name it, we help them do it.”
Skevington also noted that being short staffed has affected the ability to take accrued vacation time by the library staff. “All of the library staff that are full time have been with the library more than 15 years. That means we all get the full range of vacation allocated to the City of Holbrook. If we don’t use it in a timely manner, we lose it. These last two weeks I had gotten up to 317 hours of accrued vacation and one more paycheck and I was not going to accrue any more so I took a long vacation to get that under control.” During her vacation, another staff member had a family emergency and another had a dental emergency and the third had a sinus infection. The two with the dental and sinus issues came to work. It was noted that the one part time employee has to be kept under 20 hours a week and 20 weeks, otherwise that employee would be entitled to benefits.
Despite Skevington’s explanation of the needs to be addressed at the library, Pacheco still questioned if the library could not be open full time if an additional full-time employee were added. “The hours will remain the same.” She explained that even when they had five full-timers and three part-timers they were not able to do so.
Councilmember Robert Black stated his concern for paying a yearly salary. “So if this $32,000 were taken from the golf course,” he said, “What do we do next year?” Black added he talked with Sullivan and they discussed budget constraints and not being able to keep hiring new employees because of a state mandate.
Sullivan responded with saying they had to grow smart, and just not go crazy with hiring multiple amounts of people. “Every four years, you’re supposed to take the budget to the vote of the people and we get what is called the alternative expenditure limitation, this last year, we did not do that. So when that happens, you are bound by the state limit, and that is considerably less.” Sullivan explained that until the budget gets back on the ballot, which will be next year, the city has to be cognizant of that. “So we’re going to be two years under the state imposed limitation. It’s not a huge concern, but we just be aware that that’s happening.” Sullivan said that the budget can always be readjusted as things happen.
The request to move $32,218 to the library budget for a full-time hire passed, with Mayor Smith, Vice Mayor Nilsson, and councilmembers Dixon, Pack and Tafoya voting in favor, and councilmembers Black and Pacheco (who was present telephonically) voting in opposition.
