By Seth Schmidt
The City of Tracy’s search for a new city administrator could go into next year.
Monday, the Tracy City Council accepted a consultant’s recommendation, and extended the search for city administrator applicants. A new timeline of roughly 90 days has been established for the search, interview, and hiring process.
Wendell Sande, of the Southwest/West Central Service Cooperative, told council members Monday that he didn’t consider any of the 13 applications received by an Oct. 20 deadline to be viable candidates. None, he said, had any applicable municipal management experience.
Sande suggested that the application period be re-opened, and the vacancy be advertised over a wider area. The council agreed. Sande is to re-write the position’s job description and desired qualifications.
Sande told council members that he hoped that the vacancy could be filled “by the end of January.”
The Tracy administrative post has been vacant since the resignation of Madonna Peterson in mid-September. Shane Daniels, the city’s public works director, has been named interim city administrator.
The council agreed to contract with the service co-op in seeking and screening applicants at its Oct. 9 meeting, with Sande instructed to review the first wave of applicants. Sande is to rank the applicants’ qualifications, with the goal of identifying finalists to interview.
But Monday, Sande said that he didn’t see anyone who would be a good fit for the city’s needs. Several applicants were people seeking a career change, including a pastor and a social worker, he said.
Some applicants were from the private sector without any governmental management experience.
At their Oct. 9 meeting, the council discussed the possibility of setting up an interview committee made up of two council members and three members of the public.
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Sande was asked Monday whether he knows of a qualified individual who could serve in an interim capacity.
“It would be a little difficult right now” to find someone, Sande responded. But he promised to begin a search.