The Inside Veer - Waiting for the council’s city manager decision

Some weeks, the news cooperates with the deadline. This week isn’t one of them. As I write this while trying to beat our Tuesday deadline, the Fernley City Council hadn’t yet met on Wednesday night to interview the two remaining candidates for the city manager’s position.

By the time you read it, the council will have made its choice, or decided it doesn’t have one.

The council was originally supposed to interview four finalists, but one withdrew a couple of weeks ago, and a second one stepped aside last week. Will the council decide it likes one of these last two enough to hire one, or will it decide to start the search over again?

If that sounds familiar, it should. That’s what happened in 2023, the last time the city was looking for a manager. The council voted not to hire either of the candidates the first round of recruitment produced, before hiring Ben Marchant after a second round of recruitment.

The resignation of Marchant last May during a very contentious budget session and the subsequent disharmony among the City Council brings into question exactly how attractive the Fernley City Manager position is. What kind of candidate looks at the recent turbulence and says, “Yes, that’s the challenge I want?”

The candidate who says that, who looks at the turbulence, the turnover, the political friction, and still raises a hand, is exactly the kind of candidate the city needs. Wednesday’s meeting will tell us whether the council thinks one of the two finalists is that person, or whether they still need to keep looking.

There was apparently no shortage of interest in the position. Mayor Neal McIntyre told the council that 92 candidates applied, although he said the consulting firm whittled that down to 14 “viable” candidates before the committee chosen by McIntyre came up with four finalists.

In the end, the number of applicants matters far less than finding the right candidate. Fernley doesn’t need someone who is impressed by the title; it needs someone who understands the weight of the work and is willing to shoulder it. The council’s choice will tell us whether they think that person is in the room, or still somewhere out there waiting to be found.