In its task of hiring a new county manager, the La Plata County Board of Commissioners has the good fortune of being able to take its time and conduct a thorough search to replace Shawn Nau, who resigned in July 2011 after three years in the position. That breathing room comes from the fact that with interim Manager Joanne Spina at its administrative helm, the county is in good hands. That does not mean that the commissioners should feel free to keep the hiring goings-on behind closed doors.
County managers have big jobs, largely unenviable, that involve implementing the agenda set by the county commissioners, overseeing the $74 million budget and the more than 20 departments it takes to carry out the county’s business. As the administrative leader for La Plata County, the manager is tasked daily with making decisions that affect the public’s interest. It is important, then, that the public have ample opportunity to participate meaningfully in the hiring process of this crucial position. As the commissioners prepare for their second attempt at hiring Nau’s replacement, though, it does not appear that such accommodations are being made.
The first search effort that began after Nau’s departure ended in January, when commissioners decided in an executive session not to hire any of the five finalists for the position.
The manner of that decision is being contested by The Durango Herald, which is seeking access to the audio tapes of those meetings to determine whether there was an open-meetings violation. With that as background in the county manager hiring process, it would seem to be in the county’s best interest to approach this search with renewed commitment to openness. Instead, it is likely to be a mostly closed-door undertaking.
The first round of candidates will be screened by a committee of county department heads, who will conduct preliminary interviews and recommend a slate of finalists for public introductions and interviews with the county commissioners. As with the first attempt, the public component of the process will consist of a two-hour meet-and-greet wherein residents will have an opportunity to kibbutz with candidates. That is all an acceptable approach, but it is not quite enough.
What would help the process immensely is if the public’s impressions of those candidates found its way back to the commissioners in a formal way. Facilitating that would take a formal invitation for that feedback – something commissioners should be sure to extend to their constituents, by way of a public hearing at a meeting before any hiring decision is made. Doing so would go a long way toward building the public’s trust – something the commissioners should always strive to do more of – but would also have the added benefit of gathering insights that could be helpful to commissioners as they make this crucial hiring decision. That is not to say that the public should feel as though it will dictate the outcome of the process, but it should nonetheless be meaningfully welcomed into it.
La Plata County is operating at a bit of a trust deficit in the wake of the comprehensive plan’s failure in December. Climbing out of that position will take work on the commissioners’ part, and inviting the public into the county manager hiring effort is an important first step. Everyone would benefit from their taking it.
