By Phyllis A. Muzeroll e-TIcker News
CLAREMONT, NH–City Councilor Allen Damren has been mulling what the search for the new city manager should look like and recently complied his thoughts about the issue; it’s important to note that the process has not yet been discussed by the council. Damren’s thoughts were included in a recent City Council packet to be shared with the other eight members of the council. Damren said he hoped that by including his notes in the council packet, it would help “to prompt some discussion and to get the city manager search process placed as an agenda item for our first meeting in April at the latest.”
Damren asked if the council wants the new manager to work with City Manager Guy Santagate for a period of time to get introduced to Claremont issues and projects in-process or pending. Damren said he thought the answer to that was “yes” but that for planning purposes, they needed to estimate the length of time and then budget for that time period.
Assuming the time for working with Santagate is 30 days, Damren wrote, “that means our new city manager starts working on Dec. 1. Again assuming Dec. 1 as the start date, I believe that he/she would need to give a 30 day notice to their present employer. That means a contract is worked out and signed by October 31.” Damren continued, “A search process is estimated to take between 90 and 120 days. If it’s 90 days, that means starting our efforts with a search consultant no later than August 1. If 120 days, that means July 1. Our council process for advertising and soliciting for RFPs will probably take a month from start to selection. So that means at the outside date range, starting in earnest on June 1 for advertising and mailing.
“The month of May will be taken up with budgets and so I believe we need to start our discussions regarding the process during an April meeting.” Damren added, “There are certainly a number of things that will go ‘bump in the night’ during this process. So for our purposes, I think it prudent for us to set time aside in April to discuss our process and timeline.” Santagate recently announced that he would be retiring as city manager and would leave his post at the end of the year.
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