bought a fruitless search result
for City Administrator.
MASON CITY — You get what you pay for, so the saying goes, and the Mason City council and mayor flubbed another project, wasting thousands of dollars on a fruitless search for a new city administrator.
After Brent Trout left Mason City for greener pastures in Kansas, the city council here hired Mark A. Jackson Consulting and Hinson Consulting, LLC, to conduct a City Administrator search. That project ended up costing $6,600.00. NIT is told a typical search of this kind costs much more, upwards of $50,000 or more, if conducted in a serious manner. Once the search got underway, the Globe Gazette declared, “Their recruitment and vetting process produced an impressive field of candidates with the City receiving 30 applications from candidates in 12 states.” That so-called “impressive field” was then whittled down to 5 candidates.
However, some in town were less-than-impressed with the finalists. One former elected official told NIT, “these guys want to move up from JV to varsity … they ain’t ready.”
who he wants as
City Administrator.
After a number of closed-session meetings on the matter and weeks later, the Mason City council finally threw in the towel and declared that the search was fruitless and none of the candidates brought forth by Jackson and Hinson fit the bill.
In a statement released Thursday, Mayor Bill Schickel said, “the Mason City City Council is not further pursuing any of the five finalists for City Administrator. We thank the finalists for their interest and believe they have outstanding qualifications, but are not a right fit for Mason City at this time.
“Fortunately we have an outstanding Interim City Administrator and staff so we are in a good position,” Schickel said. Kevin Jacobson is the city’s Interim City Administrator and remains Finance Director, as well.
“I have asked our Human Resources Department to recommend to the City Council additional options for City Administrator candidate recruitment,” Schickel claims.
in the search for the next
City Administrator?
However, the word in the NIT newsroom is that Schickel and the council pretty much know who they intend to pursue for the job and Robin Anderson of the Mason City Chamber of Commerce has played a role in the process. This candidate wants the job, but is not outwardly campaigning for it. He is qualified, appears to have done a good job in his role nearby to Mason City, and will likely pick up where Trout left off.
Ominously, NIT is told that if hired, this person might be pressured to eliminate certain city employees who “ask too many questions” and “don’t play ball” with the mayor, council and those who continue to doggedly pursue the beleaguered Renaissance Project.
“You could see dominos fall if this hiring goes through, which seems now to be inevitable,” NIT is told by an insider. “One job is taken, another opens elsewhere. The open job is then filled, perhaps, by someone with no experience as a City Administrator, but real good at ordering them around, maybe with a background of dividing a community and attacking folks, bullying. Then that town will need a watchdog, cameras at meetings, if you take my meaning.”
NIT will continue to follow developments in the continuing saga of city hall business in Mason City.
I love the way many of you go crazy over the city wasting $6600. If they would have picked one of the 5, you’d go crazy with that choice. They decided their 5 picks weren’t the best for the town. Isn’t that better than hiring a person nobody wanted? Besides, most of you think President Trump is the greatest thing since sliced bread and he wastes millions every weekend playing golf at one of his courses and you are just fine with that.
Schickel, Anderson, Lee, three corrupt cronies and their loyal entourage will continue to blow smoke up taxpayers a$$’s and steal, lie and cheat the honest working people of Mason City out of their hard earned money. The nightmare continues! Wake up Mason City taxpayers, your town will NEVER be the booming town it use to be under the white collar criminals that some call “leaders of the community”!
All the candidates gave good “honest” answers in their interviews therefore they were “not” chosen as they are not a “good fit”! Our leadership want’s to pay out more taxpayer’s money for a “do-over” because they have now found a “good ole boy” who will “play well” with others! When will this corrupt and criminal activity end?
Send in Max! He’ll help expose all the corruption in Mason City’s leadership! Trust him!
When are the taxpayers in Mason City going to wake up to the corrupt leadership and it’s fellow cronies in Mason City? It’s been that way for years! The mall project is the biggest clusterf##k to ever happen for the city and taxpayers since it’s birth! It’ only a cash cow for the white collar criminals and (so-called) leaders of Mason City! They only want “players” on their team and will see to it that people who really want to be honest and responsible to the taxpayers of Mason City will never be on their “team” of corrupt leadership! Again WAKE UP taxpayers! It’s your money and these so called leaders (white collar criminals) are supposed to work for you and alawys have your best interest in mind…….NOT THEIR’S!
Time to clean house taxpayers! You are being robbed and raped by your city leaders and wanna bees!
why does the city always have to go outside to find, look at the fire chief, FIRED, Jack Schlieper, FIRED, current police chief (whats his name) already looking for another job. Talk about wasting money. current employees work hard in hopes of moving up the ladder and when that time comes what do they get for it, kicked in the nuts
What a zoo!
If you need to know the average kickback rate contact the worth county supervisors office.
Politics as usual – as the liberl left says – If your not cheating your losing.
$175,000 per year is the pay being kicked around for the new hire that the council is badly keeping secret. That’s right, $175,000.
Knock it off Matt, you know that Robin Anderson is aggressively pushing the knights of the banana gang to hire Scott Flory from Clear Lake!! With him as city administrator, honey baby can have her way with the gang and keep the boondoggle Renaissance Project alive and well. If you don’t believe it just ask John Lee. He knows he wants Flory as Mason City Administrator.
Wow-Not much else to say. The other commenters said it all.
With the F-uped council/mayor, the mess of the renaissance project, and already poor reputation of the city would you want the job?
How many qualified candidate DID NOT apply for the job because they knew of the mess they were getting into? That leaves the “unqualified” candidates of whom the council did not pick.
Me thinks they want somebody right out of city administrator school or one with very little experience so the mayor, some council members, and Robin can mold his/her mind to promote their agenda.
Scott Flory from clear lake was interested in the job. He was even attending the Mason city council meetings but Schickel, Lee and Paul Adams dismissed him. Now from what I hear Flory wouldn’t touch the job after seeing these wing nuts in action. Now because they have wasted time and money because the heat is on them John lee wants to hire Jacobson. Jacobson thinks Schickel and Lee don’t have a clue and just wants out to go back to his finance job so he doesn’t have to put up with the mayor and councils incompetence.
Well, sorry to say this isn’t a varsity town. Also, are we talling about the cry baby from Clear Lake?
What happened to boycotting all the businesses and folks who are on the Mason City Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors? Where is that list? It needs to be published so we can clearly expose the group of folks who hired Robin Anderson. Get to the root of the problem.
It’s a case of majority idiots electing idiots running for office. Blame the constituent of folks that elected him. If the majority feel it’s ok to waste $6000 than so be it. No one has stood up and objected cause they are too stupid to do so or scared. If anyone had any common sense they would stand up and form together to impeach the major and the council and demand resignations. Blame the stupidity of the majority who gave these idiots the power in the first place. At this point the majority really doesn’t care. Seems like this town keeps electing idiot after idiot likeba bad virus and it’s a never ending story. But what can you do? – the majority just lack the intellect to demand serious change.
How did Schickel the sour pickle get elected? Schickel the sour pickle couldn’t even keep a straight face as he lied over and over again over property taxes not be raised over the mall project. Hey, and how is it that Southbridge Mall doesn’t need to pay property taxes? See how fast your home/business goes up for sale if you decide times are tough and refuse to pay them. The checks in the mail, right Mikey? -wink -wink
Schickel does not have a clue with what he is doing. The other problem he has is that he is a liar. He comes out a month ago and tells the community that we have great candidates to take over and then we find out they are not so great and says that they are not the right fit. Also don’t forget that Bill said publicly that the downtown project will not raise the taxpayers taxes. We now know that was a lie. How does he keep getting elected?
Then there is John Lee with all his faults but we won’t go there at this time.