December 8, 2005

By Robert Mihalek

Village Council, in a surprise decision on Monday, withdrew its invitation to one of the candidates being considered for the Village manager’s job, just days before interviews are scheduled.

As a result, Council members said they are extending offers to two other candidates to come to Yellow Springs for interviews, and that the public forum and interviews will still take place this weekend, Dec. 9–11.

Council will interview three candidates for the opening: Eric C. Swansen, a former city manager of Farmersville, Calif.; Thomas Carroll, the acting city manager of Loveland, and Eric A. Strahl, a former town manager of Hopkinton, R.I.

At the same time, Council member Judith Hempfling suggested that Council postpone the search based on its decision not to interview one of the candidates. She expressed concern that Council was “rushing” its hiring decision.

After discussing the search in executive session during their meeting Dec. 5, Council members said they decided not to invite Teddy C. Ryan Jr. of Columbia, Pa., to Yellow Springs this weekend for a public forum and an interview with Council and the Village Manager Search Committee. Council did not vote on the decision.

Ryan was one of three candidates initially offered an opportunity to interview with Council for the manager’s job. Another candidate, James C. Smith of Newport, R.I., withdrew his application for the position last week after he accepted a job in another community.

The third candidate, Swansen, who now lives in Jackson Hole, Wyo., is still coming to Yellow Springs this weekend to interview for the job. The interview process includes a public forum on Friday night, Dec. 9, and an interview the following morning.

Council president Jocelyn Hardman said Council decided to withdraw its interview offer to Ryan based on the results of a background check of the candidate that the Village conducted. She said she could not discuss what was found in Ryan’s background check that influenced Council’s decision.

However, on Tuesday, she did say that there was a “gestalt of sources that we had that led us to that decision.”

Members of the search committee recently conducted reference checks on the candidates for the manager’s job. Police Chief John Grote, who is a member of the committee, was charged with conducting a background check on the candidates. The Village also conducted credit checks for the candidates. The reference and background checks were conducted after the candidates were offered interviews.

According to Al Schlueter, the chairman of the search committee, it was the Yellow Springs Police Department’s background check of Ryan that raised an issue about his candidacy.

However, Schlueter said on Tuesday that all the reference checks, which included interviews with some people who were not provided by the candidates, were “extremely favorable.”

“Nothing raised any eyebrows,” he said.

Grote said he could not discuss the background search “because of where the information comes from.”

During a phone interview Tuesday afternoon, Ryan said he was saddened and “befuddled” by Council’s decision. “It’s a shame the Council did not allow the process to go forward,” he said.

He said he would have loved to have spent the rest of his career in Yellow Springs.

Ryan had not been informed yet of Council’s decision when the News contacted him, so he could not comment on Council’s reasons for rescinding his interview offer. He did call Council’s action a “surface decision.”

During Monday’s meeting, Hardman announced that Council was extending interview offers to two other candidates, Thomas Carroll, of Loveland, and Eric Strahl, who lives in Ashaway, R.I. Hardman said the Village has already started checking on the backgrounds of Carroll and Strahl.

On Tuesday, Hardman said that Carroll and Strahl had confirmed that they will come to Yellow Springs this weekend for the public forum and to interview with Council. “Hopefully, as of Sunday we’ll have rankings [of the candidates] if not our choice made,” she said.

Despite the change of candidates, Hardman said, “we are ending up with three viable candidates to review and interview and for the public to engage with.”

The three candidates initially offered job interviews were considered the top applicants by the search committee. Schlueter has said that the three applicants received the highest scores in the committee’s ranking system, and that they were “ranked considerably higher” than the other candidates.

Carroll and Strahl were ranked the next highest by the committee.

The committee ranked each candidate based on his or her response to a challenge statement and manager profile, both of which the committee prepared, as well as his or her qualifications, including experience and education. Committee members ranked the candidates by using 12 categories ranging from a candidate’s “compatibility with the village’s values” to his or her personal qualities.

The search committee originally had planned to conduct telephone interviews with a number of the candidates, then decide on a smaller number to invite to Yellow Springs for interviews.

Instead, however, the committee recommended to Council that the phone interviews not be conducted and that Swansen, Ryan and Smith be invited to town. Council agreed with that recommendation.

During Monday’s meeting, Council member Judith Hempfling suggested that Council postpone the search manager to give it an opportunity to reevaluate the process. “I feel there have been mistakes made in evaluating the candidates,” she said.

She pointed out that the Village’s background checks on the candidates were not completed before the applicants were invited to Yellow Springs.

“It’s rushing…this very important decision,” she said.

Hardman said lessons were learned from “perhaps an overly enthusiastic” effort to interview candidates as soon as possible. She also said that because Swansen is “such a highly valued candidate” that Council members did not want to postpone his visit.

Council member Karen Wintrow said Council members would not hire a manager they were not comfortable with. She expressed confidence that Council would hire “the best person for the job.”

Local resident Sue Abendroth urged Council not to delay the search process “unnecessarily.” She also said that the community has had “ample opportunity” to consider the manager candidates and participate in the process.

After the meeting Grote attributed the delay in his background checks to the fact that “I didn’t have the information necessary to do the checks.”

Contact: rmihalek@ysnews.com