Saturday, November 1, 2008

New Manager Contract, Visioning/Strategic Planning


Dear People: I'll be in my office hour today, 12-1, Emporium. It's been a tremendously busy month, but I'm pleased to say that we have now reached a tentative contract with our new village manager, Mark Cundiff, which we'll vote on Monday evening. (7 pm, second floor of the Bryan Ctr.)

I feel very solid about this decision, particularly after having heard evaluations of his work--the responses were uniformly extremely strong in all areas: from his integrity, skills at managing people, budgets, employees to his ability to work with the public, to his dedication to public service, and his willingness and ability to learn new skills. Mark has worked in a variety of areas in municipal government and has an excellent support network from other municipal managers.

I know that Mark is excited to do the work, and I hope everyone will give him a warm welcome.

I want to thank those of you who attended the three fora and provided feedback on the candidates, and to those who did lunch interviews with the candidates and provided feedback to us on our request. I also would be happy to hear feedback on our process; I know that we did things differently this time, and that can feel confusing or frustrating. Please feel free to speak to me about any of your thoughts.

Agenda items for Monday: Legislation:

  • 2 ORDINANCES: 1)  emergency supplemental funding for storm damage/declare an emergency (Ohio has been declared a disaster area by the President from the September 14th wind storm. This declaration makes local governments eligible for 75% federal reimbursement for storm related expenses); and  2) another ordinance, also as an emergency, for the submittal of loan request from the Ohio Water Development Authority for the Wastewater Treatment Plant upgrade
  • 1 RESOLUTION: Employment agreement for the Village Manager.

Old Business: A Status Report on the Revolving Loan Fund and the RFP from the Visioning Group:

The Visioning Task Force has asked us to approve a request for proposals that their group has created. We will be discussing this RFP at our next meeting. I have some concerns about it, related especially to its having become a joint village and township process, to the budget, and also to the goals and ownership of the process and final products. My goal is to make sure that our money is well spent on a process that has the greatest chance of providing a useful product for us as a village--something that won't get left on a shelf but that helps us directly address our most real and pressing concerns.

I hope that those of you with an interest in this process will attend this meeting.

See you downtown,
Lori

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