Gilbert City Council Meeting

November 24, 2003

Making Choices about Restaffing City Hall:
The council met to discuss two candidates for positions at city hall. The consensus was that John Lloyd, the candidate for the administrator/clerk position, had good credentials; however, the council wanted to call him back for another interview on December 15. Part of the evening's discussion was about whether the city should hire a person who was beginning his career as a city administrator or raise the salary for the position and solicit new job applicants who are veterans in the field. If John sufficiently addresses the council's concerns on December 15, it would most likely make a decision that night to appoint him as administrator/clerk so that the hiring process would be completed before a new mayor and council begin work in January.

At the meeting, the council did appoint Carolyn Main to be the city's deputy clerk. Carolyn has been doing office work at city hall for several weeks as part of a contract that Gilbert has with USA Staffing, a temp agency in Ames. Apparently none of the other persons who responded to Gilbert's ads for city hall job openings were interested in the deputy clerk position. It sounds like the position is meant to be only 20 hours per week at a pay of $12 per hour.

Carolyn is in some ways like Dianna Schmidt, who was the city clerk until resigning last May. Carolyn does not have training in municipal work neither did Dianna when she hired on with Gilbert in April of 2000. Carolyn seems eager to learn about the profession just as Dianna did when she took courses through the Iowa League of Cities and earned her clerk's credentials. We have been impressed with Carolyn's work ethic, resourcefulness, and cordiality just as we appreciated similar traits in Dianna. Carolyn has said that she loves the small town atmosphere of Gilbert and that the people here are really friendly. We welcome Carolyn. We also wish Dianna well in whatever she may be pursuing these days.

It will be interesting to see how well the city does in filling the administrator/clerk position. Without that position filled, a lot of responsibility will fall on Carolyn, who does not have the training for the work and that could lead to problems that would not be Carolyn's fault.

The council's idea apparently is to have a full-time administrator/clerk with municipal training who will take the lead at city hall and supervise staff, including the deputy clerk whose responsibilities will not require a lot of training or experience in the field. So good luck to the mayor and council in filling the full-time position, and may things work out well in the interim.
    

This unofficial summary provided by Gilbert Gazette editor, Helen D. Gunderson. When the minutes of a  meeting become available (after they are approved at the next council meeting), we will post them. You may also wish to look for the minutes in the fine print of the legal notices in the Ames Tribune about 14 days after a council meeting. 

If someone has an eye for proof-reading and finds typos, mis-spelling, grammar, or other errors, please let us know so we can make corrections. It's difficult and time-consuming to prepare the summary, and although it would be wise to find a copy editor before posting the summaries, we feel it is important to make the essence of the material available to the public as soon as possible.

Also, the city council tape records each meeting, and the clerk maintains the cassettes for use in writing the minutes and clarifying future questions about meetings. As far as we know, those tapes are part of the public record (unless the a city uses the tapes only for preparing minutes then destroys the tapes). And as far as we know, citizens and other persons may arrange with the clerk to listen to the tapes at city hall.