Bainbridge City Manager Doug Schulze introduced a bill at Monday night’s (March 3) City Council meeting asking the Council to authorize the Seattle-based firm of Houser Martin Morris to find the City a full-time attorney. The City would hire recruiter Victoria Harris, the head of the Legal Search Division at the firm, at 30 percent of the hiring salary, which will run somewhere between $118,000 and $148,000. That means her fee would be between $35,400 and $44,400.
Since 2011, the City has been served by two interim attorneys—first Will Patton until his resignation in 2012 and then Jim Haney. Schulze told the Council that when Patton resigned, they pursued an internal search process that yielded only a small number of applicants. They interviewed five people but, as Schulze said, they “weren’t able to bring someone on board through that process.”
Schulze argued that using a search firm, as the City did to find Schulze himself and new Police Chief Matt Hamner, is unlikely to work because the position of city attorney is “specialized” and search firms “don’t have the legal expertise” needed to screen applicants. The search firm process consists of advertising, waiting for people to apply, and then screening applicants. A recruiter, on the other hand, as Schulze explained, would go out and look for people, people who might not even be seeking a new job.
He said a recruiter spends more time on the process. That is why the City would have to pay Harris more than what a search firm would charge.
Schulze said, “We feel it’s really important for the city attorney to have a certain amount of experience and expertise.” He added, “We can’t necessarily take someone and groom them.”
Councilmember and attorney Val Tollefson agreed with Schulze’s assessment of the need for a different process for the position of city attorney. He said that using a recruiter is the the usual way employed in the legal community to seek talent.
Councilmember Steven Bonkowski moved that the bill be authorized. The motion carried unanimously. Then, before Tollefson could even finish his sentence that the motion had carried, Bonkowski interrupted to say that the decision to hire the recruitment firm “I don’t think in any way suggests that our current city attorney is doing anything other than an incredibly good job.” He said that the decision to recruit an attorney is instead about “having one that’s full-time and dedicated just to Bainbridge Island.”
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Photo by The Digitel Myrtle Beach.
