Kodiak council may hire interim manager Putney without interviews, attorney says

The Kodiak City Council may offer the permanent city manager job to interim manager Tim Putney without interviewing other applicants, city attorney Charles A. Cacciola said in a memo dated Thursday. The offer could come as soon as the council's Nov. 12 regular meeting.

Mayor Terry Haines asked whether the council could hire Putney outright. "The short answer is yes," Cacciola wrote. Putney has been interim manager since May 30 and has applied for the permanent job.

The memo follows the council's Oct. 22 meeting, where members split over whether to get the attorney's advice on hiring in a closed-door session. The city has 27 applications for the job, according to the council's work session agenda.

The council paused hiring until after the Oct. 6 election, the memo says, partly because a charter amendment on where the manager may live was on the ballot and partly so newly elected members could help choose. Voters loosened the residency rule.

The City Charter says the "manager shall be chosen solely on the basis of executive and administrative qualifications." Neither the charter nor city ordinances say how the council should judge that, Cacciola wrote. The council never adopted a formal process for evaluating candidates.

Under Cacciola's recommendation, each council member would review the applications before a Nov. 10 work session. At that session, the council would decide in public whether anyone else should be interviewed. Cacciola said applicants should be interviewed only if they are truly being considered. Interviews "to check the box" are not fair to the interviewee, he wrote.

An offer on Nov. 12 would need an agenda that says the council may offer the job. The packet would also include a draft employment agreement. It would be based on earlier manager contracts and on the job posting's terms, including a $200,000 annual salary. Because of public notice rules, Cacciola said, the council should tell the clerk at Thursday's 6:30 pm work session if it wants to be ready for that.

The memo also recommends putting a closed-door executive session on the Nov. 12 agenda. It would happen only if the council first votes in public to offer Putney the job and he wants to negotiate the terms. Cacciola cited the Alaska Open Meetings Act, which allows private talks on matters that would clearly hurt city finances if known right away. "Put simply, poker can’t be played effectively if one player is always showing the cards," he wrote.