Ohtaki should be disqualified from serving on the selection because he helped to select McIntyre last time. We don’t need him making another bad choice!! At least wait till a new council is seated.

There is no need to attack Councilmembers on this thread. The Council is working together to solve a problem.
Just let them do their work and leave the election out of it. There is no need to be insulting McIntyre if you weren't a fan of his. He is already moving on. Let's try to keep it civil,

The process needs to include a way to obtain community and staff input into what qualities they would like to see in a new city manager. As Mickie Winkler pointed out in a prior email to council, the opening is also an opportunity to more broadly consider new possibilities for Menlo Park's staffing and organizational model.

There was a large contingent of community members that helped pick the last city manager, and Alex M. came out on TOP of all of their rankings.

The council wisely chose to follow the committees recommendations.

I know, because I was a member of that committee. what ever problems YOU have with his performance should be taken into context with the overall attitude and behavior of the citizens of Menlo Park in conjunction with the council members who interact with the City Manager and Citizens.

Under those circumstances he did yeoman's job.

Roy Thiele-Sardina

Sorry Roy, but the employees working for the City Manager also have a voice. And they've spoken by fleeing the city. It's pretty clear our manager fled before the council was forced to fire him. I don't know how many employees are involved in the committee to select a new manager, but it sounds like it's important.

There is no need to be insulting McIntyre if you weren't a fan of his. He is already moving on. Let's try to keep it civil.

In announcements employees have been citing the high cost of housing and living, and commute time consistently, or been leaving for career advancement.

Nobody is insulting our departing city manager. Obviously he was unsuitable for the challenges facing MP. Staff should clearly have a strong voice in his replacement as should residents. The defensive posts trying to restrict valid criticism are inappropriate. Staff are clearly voting qith their feet despite the spin the city is putting on their depsrtures.

Alex set up something like a Roman Empire Bath House group. All the current Managers, including the police chief. They need to be phased out. Alex made so many bad decisions, too numerous to mention.

His selection committee did their best considering the pool of candidates. The pool for this choice will not get better, since many cities in our area are also looking for managers. Who would want to work for Menlo Park considering the pension and total benefits package is far less than other surrounding cities.

Good luck city council and selection committee.

Shame all this development has been for benefit of self sustaining city government autonomy, rather than resident interests.

Citizen--What is a Roman Empire bathhouse group? Can you constructively detail what you consider the problem, and how you know this, along with your recommendations?

Regarding the city manager openings, I recently read that Half Moon Bay had 50 qualified openings for their city manager position. Related to this, Mountain View fairly recently replaced their library director and a newspaper article said they had lots of well qualified applicants. I have seen the Mountain View library req and it seemed quite comporable to ones in Menlo Park.

Your unsupported generalization about Menlo Park's pay and benefits being sub par compared with other cities needs evidence to convince. If you think the evidence is there, please email council, using the public email, with a comparative chart on this topic so they and management staff have objective data for rational decision making.

Meanwhile, the city manager search process offers a rare opportunity to examine ways our local governmental structure could function more democratically and more effectively -- to better retain employees and to better represent the residents' interests.

Residents and staff want to be involved in this process and to contribute to solving key public problems. Both groups have less patience for processes where they feel shut out by public officials and a decide and defend top-down management decision-making style.