Washington narrows search to five admin finalists

The city of Washington has whittled its list of new city administrator candidates to five finalists after a closed session last week.

“The search has gone great, we had 21 applicants, 17 of which met our required qualifications,” Mayor Jaron Rosien said. “We narrowed that down in committee … to eight semifinalists. With the help of council and the confirmation of council, we narrowed those down to five.”

Rosien said those five finalists would be interviewed by three panels Sept. 29.

“We have a panel of community leaders, we have a panel of department heads, and we have the panel of elected officials,” he said. “The finalists will also take a tour of the town, and there will also be a luncheon where other members of the community and members of staff will be invited to attend.”

While ways of partially opening the remaining proceedings to the public are being considered, Rosien said the privacy and pandemic-related implications of doing so left the city’s options unclear for now.

Still, he did disclose some information about the remaining candidates: three are Iowa-natives, another is from an adjacent state and one more from “farther away.”

The reduction to five finalists lines up within a week of a timeline provided by the city’s hiring consultant firm in July, keeping the schedule on track for a new administrator to start work in October or November, depending on the notice required to their current employer, which the firm said would typically be 30 or 60 days.

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