Today Redmond Mayor George Endicott is shedding more light on why the city's top choice for the City Manager position said "no" to the job.
David Mickaelian is an assistant city manger in California. Endicott says he applied for the job in the last few days the position was open and then was surprised to quickly get an interview, a tour of the area, and a job offer.
"SO IT WAS A WHIRLWIND- HE BROUGHT HIS WIFE UP HERE AND WE COURTED THEM - AND THEN THEY WENT HOME AND DISCUSSED FAMILY ISSUES- THEY HAVE A SON GOING INTO JUNIOR HIGH AND THAT SORT OF A THING- AND I THINK IN THE FINAL ANALYSIS THEY DECIDED THAT BECAUSE OF FAMILY REASONS THEY KIND OF WANTED TO STAY."
One issue that surfaced during the "courting" phase of the process had to do with an expectation by city leaders that the City Manager would live in or near Redmond.
"as everyone's aware a bone of contention was where are they going to live-he was asked the question and he was non-committal... so we did some research and we found that about half of the the cities in oregon require the city manager live in town - half do not- so we passed a resolution that says the next candidate has to live in the 97756 zip code.
That means the person could live in town, just outside of town, or even in Eagle Crest, several miles away.
On Tuesday the council voted 4-3 to make that a requirement of the position, so the next candidate would not be caught off guard. Endicott says about half of the cities in Oregon require the city manager live in or near the city that they manage. So what happens next?
"we did have a consultant helping us- a former bend city manager - and we're going to look over some of the old applications - see if we might've overlooked a few that we shouldn't have- and he maybe did get some late- while we'd dismissed those up front- we'll take another look and do another scrub."
He says they'll also consider dropping some of the qualifications that may overly limit the pool of applicants. For example, they are currently asking that the City Manager candidate have Golf Course management experience. Endicott was a guest on 1110 KBND's morning news on Wednesday, October 17th..
