How About A National Search, For Pete’S Sake?

This is a joke, right?

The proposal by the new Spokane City Council majority to consider hiring a fired dog catcher as Spokane’s next city manager is just a fun-loving attempt to kick the February blahs.

That must be it. A bit of humor. A ha-ha for the new year.

On Monday, the City Council has tentatively scheduled a vote on a new city manager to replace acting city manager Pete Fortin. That vote, if it occurs, will have come without any public hearings or public input on what people want in a city manager.

It will come without a national search for the best and the brightest. It will come without the City Council even making a good case that Fortin should be replaced right now, since the job of city manager will last only eight months until the arrival of a strong mayor, who will then name his own administrator.

This attempt at bettering local government on the fly is troubling because it is being brought to you by those passionate newcomers to City Hall, Steve Eugster, Steve Corker and John Talbott, who said they would do better than the people they replaced.

This is better?

Mayor Talbott’s lead nominee for city manager truly is the fired animal control director from Portland named Henry Miggins. He’s a guy who shares the mayor’s Air Force background but has never been a city manager.

Councilman Corker, the man who made the motion a couple of weeks ago to hire a new city manager, says he knows Miggins from 19 years ago. Corker and Miggins worked together in 1981 to shut down Fort Wright College.

“I checked with my union friends in Portland and a couple of guys I knew in college,” Corker said of his research on whether Miggins would be a good man to lead Spokane’s day-to-day city operations.

Maybe Miggins is great. But the process of plucking him out of the blue and pushing him forward because he was in the Air Force and got a recommendation from a councilman’s college friends isn’t a process that suggests much professionalism or due diligence at City Hall.

Not so long ago, Corker, a new councilman, and Talbott, a midterm mayor, made big deals out of the need to conduct an outside search for the best possible city manager candidates. Both disparaged insider politics.

Now, in a heartbeat, both men are putting forward a guy for city manager who they know, who feels comfy to them, and whose record of civic leadership hasn’t been checked out. And what’s the big rush?

Newly elected Councilman Steve Eugster offered one answer. He says he and Corker and Talbott want their own guy to boss around. Again, this is the wrong way to search and the wrong reason to hire a city manager.

The city manager’s job isn’t a political appointment.

Unfortunately, the city administrator’s job under the new strong-mayor model will be all politics, but right now, the city manager is an administrative position.

In the next few months isn’t it logical to make sure the city has a seasoned hand running the day-to-day operations rather than an outsider who knows little about the city?

Right now, the morale in Spokane City Hall is deadeningly low, and the place surely needs a solid, nonpartisan administrator to keep things running while we shift to the strong-mayor model.

Spokane’s acting city manager, Pete Fortin, is an excellent example of this kind of manager. He works well with city staff, and after 26 years in City Hall he knows city issues. He tries to stay out of political fights with council members while still making things happen.

Remember it was Fortin who, on Councilman Eugster’s impassioned directive, recently found a way to have Roger Bragdon become Spokane police chief, even though Bragdon doesn’t have a college education as required in the job description. Fortin suggested Bragdon get his college degree over the next two years studying at Eastern Washington University and become chief now.

And, Fortin is willing to stay for the next eight to 12 months. After that, he likely will retire.

Yet only days ago, Eugster, Corker and Talbott voted against a resolution to allow Fortin to continue.

The reasons?

According to Corker there were two: The city needs new leadership, and the job of running a city and planning a transition for the strong mayor is too big for one man.

Not everyone agrees.

“The whole issue of finding a new city manager right now is fraudulent,” said an exasperated Councilman Rob Higgins, who sits on the transition team to the strong-mayor form of government and voted to retain Fortin in his temporary position.

Higgins is concerned about growing evidence that the call for a new city manager actually is being orchestrated by the same outside forces that donated $100,000 to the Eugster and Corker campaigns. A politicized city manager could become just another tool in the upcoming strong-mayor election.

To his credit, Corker says bringing in Miggins isn’t a life or death issue to him. For that, Higgins is relieved.

“Anybody worth his salt wouldn’t even apply for this job because at best it will last for only eight months. I met Miggins. If we got 100 applications for city manager and narrowed down to the top 20, he wouldn’t even make the list,” Higgins said.

That doesn’t say much for the way personnel decisions are being made by the new guys at City Hall. The hastily conceived and disturbingly casual way the new council members have rushed to hire a new city manager should be a wake-up call to those who voted for change.

The changes people had in mind were better leadership, more openness, less cronyism. On the selection of an interim city manager, the new council shows troubling signs of moving in the opposite way.