Maplewood council member, Matt Coriell, Tuesday evening, Dec. 5, posted on his Facebook page, Councilperson Matt Coriell, the “details and timeline” of the hiring process for a new city manager. Also on that day, at 4 p.m., there was a “closed session to discuss confidential or privileged communications between the council and its attorneys.”
His Facebook post follows below:
With regards to the recent inquiries as to the hiring process for the City Manager, I would like to share the details and timeline to this process to provide clarity and transparency.
September 30, 2023: The last day of the City Manager.
September 12, 2023: A closed session is held to discuss the process of hiring a new City Manager. Five candidates are discussed based on merit. After lengthy discussions, the Council agrees to extend interview offers to three candidates. The Council also reviews the Maplewood Charter regarding the hiring process and discusses the previous procedure, involving hiring a firm and conducting a national search, which took around 20 months, strained city staff, and incurred substantial costs. The consensus is that if a local candidate isn’t found within six weeks, a national search will commence.
The Council unanimously agrees to add a resolution to appoint Matt Nighbor as Interim City Manager to the agenda.
September 26, 2023: The Council unanimously passes a resolution appointing Matt Nighbor the interim City Manager.
October 17, 2023: The Council interviews two candidates; the third candidate declines. Candidates are asked to make presentations as part of the interview process. After the interviews, the Council deliberates, with the Mayor abstaining from the discussion. The Council votes 5 yay, 1 nay, and the mayor abstains. Deputy Mayor Shawn Faulkingham agrees to lead the remaining interview process.
November 1, 2023: A candidate meets with department heads and selected staff, gives a presentation, and answers questions.
November 8, 2023: A candidate meets with MRH school superintendent and a few students, gives a presentation, and answers questions.
November 9, 2023: A candidate meets with Council-selected constituents and business owners. Council suggests participants based on availability. The candidate gives a presentation and answers questions. All participants sign non-disclosure agreements to safeguard the candidate’s presentation.
November 14, 2023: A candidate undergoes a second interview with the Council.
As of today, no final decision has been made. The topic will be on the December 12 City Council agenda.
Sachi, you are correct! This mayor is poison and power hungry. Recall would be too time consuming. Much better to get behind a strong write in candidate. Next thing she’s going to want to do is hire Kim Gardner to be Maplewood’s prosecutor. Present council members have been brainwashed. Talk to the ones who have left office since her election for a truer picture. Michael Reece could not make a move without her breathing down his neck and second guessing his every decision.
The mayor’s timeline of the hiring schedule (as posted on South 40) disagrees with the timeline posted on Facebook by local councilperson Matt Coriel. Are they lying or just too shady to try and get their stories straight? The mayor needs to resign, and the councilpeople who supported her in this fiasco need to duck out too. They are not good stewards of taxpayer money and have shown themselves to behave unethically and with intent to cover it up. Closed sessions. Non-disclosure agreements. Nikky Knapper is power hungry and corrupt.
Same questions as Alex. Also why on earth is an NDA required to “safeguard” a presentation? Is that standard operating procedure for these matters? I think the mayor and council really owe us an explanation on that 130k.
So does this mean only one candidate had a second interview? Does that infer an offer was made to that candidate since no other action seems to have happened after that? Also, when is someone going to tell us why taxpayers are shelling out a 130,000 severance to the old city manager?