Harry's Gang: City hires should be lasting

The “Help Wanted” sign is out again at City Hall. Not only does Cloquet need to hire a new police chief, we also need to find a good city administrator. Those are two of the most important city positions, and we need to proceed carefully and deliberately. Let’s hope the new employees will be in their jobs for a long time.

Hiring is a tricky process. There’s a reason why selecting new employees starts with a resume but ends with an interview — we’re looking for the right person for the job. While the city’s personnel policy handbook says to consider the applicant’s qualifications, abilities, and experience, those criteria need to be balanced with the needs of the city. Personality has a lot to do with it.

I’ll assume the city council will screen applicants who are qualified to do the job. Both positions require a bachelor’s degree, but an advanced degree is preferred. (The chief can combine education and experience to meet that requirement.) Both require significant experience. Both require extensive knowledge of applicable laws, labor relations, and modern administration techniques, including managing budgets.

Once we start interviewing qualified candidates, what should the city be looking for?

First, I think we need to find someone who is willing to work, live and, if they have one, raise their family in Cloquet. I can’t stress this enough. If the top two jobs in the city are held by people who plan to pad their resumes and look for bigger jobs elsewhere, there’s a loss of stability and consistency that I believe is needed in the city. Certainly, there are times it makes sense to hire someone with specialized knowledge to solve a particularly tough problem, but that is not what Cloquet needs now. We need long-term, dedicated employees in the top positions who will stay here for many years.

I’ll even dare to suggest that we hire someone technically slightly less qualified if we are reasonably assured that person will stick around for a while.

In the case of police chief, the city should look good and hard at the current police force to find a qualified candidate, keeping in mind that person needs to have administrative experience and the ability to manage a budget that’s approaching $2.8 million. There are some who believe looking outside the department is the better strategy, but I disagree. Promoting from within is almost always preferable, I think, because it eliminates the risk of an outside candidate not fitting in. We’ll know whether an internal candidate works well within the department, based on history. It’s also good for morale. I think officers do a better job when they know hard work and dedication can eventually allow them to move up the ranks and become chief. It’s an administrative job, but it’s also a position of honor, respect and leadership that should be available to reward long-time employees. Only if there’s no one qualified within should we look outside the department.

That strategy is a little harder to implement for city administrator. The pool of qualified internal candidates is much smaller because of the nature of the job. Still, looking within (or to a past city administrator) would be a smart start.

There’s often a tendency to find someone like the person who is leaving and forgetting about the best fit for the duties of the position. For example, years ago, the Chamber of Commerce was run by the very capable Della Schmidt. I was on the committee to find her replacement, and we had this vague idea that we needed to replace her, not fill the position. We narrowed it down to two candidates. We hired Robin Hayes because she most closely resembled the former director. Robin was terrific. But we failed to notice that she was driven to move up and, sure enough, she left shortly for a bigger and better position. So, I think it’s wise to fill the position, not find a replica of the former employee.

If you know anyone, let them know Cloquet is hiring.

Pete Radosevich is the publisher of the Pine Knot News community newspaper and an attorney in Esko who hopes to host the talk show Harry’s Gang on CAT-7 again someday. His opinions are his own. Reach him at Pete.

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