Cda Still Looking For A Few Good People Fire Chief Didn’T Stay Long; Other Openings Proving Tough To Fill

The city of Coeur d’Alene is finding it harder and harder to find good help.

Earlier this month, the city had hired a fire chief, offered a contract to a police chief finalist, had a finalist for finance director, and two finalists for city administrator.

However, new Fire Chief Kenny Gabriel resigned after a week; the finance director finalist dropped out and the city decided not to hire either of the two finalists for city administrator.

Now the search begins anew for three key jobs.

“I would love to have all these jobs filled,” Mayor Steve Judy said. “About a month ago we thought we were there.”

The city recently completed reference checks on two finalists for city administrator.

“But it ended up being a situation for us that we wanted to find the right fit,” Judy said. “We didn’t feel we had that right fit.”

Judy has now instructed Pam MacDonald, city human resources director, to start looking for a professional hiring agency to search for job candidates.

City Councilwoman Nancy Sue Wallace said she supports the mayor’s plan, even though it could take more time to fill the posts.

“I guess I’m willing to wait to find the right people,” Wallace said. “Eventually, we will fill those spots with good people.”

After having about 10 employees with the combined experience of about 135 years leave the city during the past 18 months, the City Council has had a spate of bad luck in filling the top posts.

A finance director finalist, who asked the city not to release his name, was working at a job that paid much better than what the city could offer, MacDonald said.

“He decided he was not interested,” she said.

That job candidate followed three other finance director finalists who pulled out of consideration to replace John Austin, who resigned in February.

“Right now we are letting the applicants know that we are accepting more applications,” MacDonald said.

The city will also start advertising in national trade publications to replace Gabriel, who for a week replaced Rick Lasky. Gabriel said he wasn’t ready to take on the chief’s duties at this time.

The popular Lasky accepted a job in Lewisville, Texas - at a much larger fire department that also got him closer to his son.

MacDonald said her best guess would be that the city would close the recruitment process for fire chief by mid-July.

About the only good news for city hiring is that Thomas Cronin is to start as police chief July 1.