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Session 1120, Minutes December 15, 1975 POST OF CITY HAWACER: Page 3 Councilman Weissenburger stated that in the process which went on for some- time in the search for a City Manager, there have been many questions as to how the Council went about this, etc., and he said he wants to put into the record some chronology on this so it will be there for the citizenry to realize the procedure that the Council had gone through. He said the Council first learned of Mr. Henry's resignation the latter part of May; as he understands it, the Council advertised twice in June in the Newsletter of the International City Ilanagement's Association at a top salary of $28,000. In response to this, Councilman Weissenburger continued, approx- imately 80 applications were received. Of these applications, the Council conducted its first interview on September 12, 1975; the second interview was conducted on September 13, 1975; two interviews on September 14, 1975 - the next interviews was on September 26th, 1975 - the next interview was on October 7, 1975 and the last interview was held on December 11, 1975. Councilman Weissenburger said what he is really pointing out is that perhaps the Council was a little derelict in its own duties in searching for a City Manager as diligently as it perhaps should. He said that the Council inter- viewed four of the original 80 applications that were received - there was a total of seven people interviewed in all in the process of this. He added that he thought those facts should be on record. Mayor Kaufman said there are two different procedures with which he is familiar and this is the second time he has participated in the choice of a City Manager - the first time was when Charles T. Henry was selected and that was in 1958. The Mayor said at that time the Council followed the same pro- cedure - ads were placed in the journal and approximately 50 or 55 responses were received. When the responses came in, he said he asked the members of the Council to review the qualifications of those who sent in their brochure and asked each member to pick five possible candidates. He pointed out that by multiplying five by seven there could conceivably be 35 choices. After each member of the Council submitted the five names, it then examined the choices and concluded that only 10 prospects were under consideration. The Council then reviewed the ten prospects and reduced the number to the three most qualified, in their opinion. At the time Mr. Henry was selected, the three most qualified candidates were considered. The Mayor said that in this particular case, the Council interviewed six candidates and there seemed to be a lapse of time, but as he recalls after the initial ad was placed in the paper, a number of Council members were out of town - Councilman Lieberman was out of the country until the end of August - so obviously the Council could not have scheduled any interview until some- time during the month of September. Payor Kaufman said there is another procedure which is used for the purpose of interviewing candidates and it is employed by a number of cities: they hire an agency and ask the agency to screen candidates and after the agency - screens the candidates, the agency will select, in its opinion, the three most qualified candidates. The Council then is only exposed to three candid- ates. He said that was the procedure followed most recently by the National League of Cities when it replaced its Executive Director. All of the appli- caats were not made available to the national League of Cities, but only the three highest. He pointed out that the agency was paid about $8,000 or $10,000 to do that screening -- in University City that $8,000 or $10,000 was saved. The Council itself had before it every name - it exercised its