Council picks a candidate for City Manager

FORT MADISON – After nearly six hours of closed sessions, the Fort Madison City Council voted 6-0 to make an offer of employment to a candidate for the vacant City Manager position.
A panel made up of the Fort Madison City Council, Brett Hinson from Hinson Consulting of Mason City, city department heads, and the city’s attorney, have met in closed session five times now starting with a week ago Saturday to evaluate the qualifications of the candidates.
Each time, the council came out of closed session with no decision.
On Tuesday night, the council debated for close to 90 minutes and then opened a special public session to announce a candidate has been selected. However, no names were released despite the three candidates under consideration being escorted through town last Thursday as part of the city’s annual Wine & Beer Walk.
Fort Madison Mayor Matt Mohrfeld got a motion and a second to extend an offer of employment to the preferred candidate for City Manager and to direct the consultant, the Mayor, and those resources that the mayor request, to negotiate an offer of employment to said candidate.
The motion was made by Councilwoman Rebecca Bowker and seconded by Donna Amandus. Mohrfeld also requested that Councilwoman Angela Roller help with the negotiation process.
Councilman Dustin Yager was not in attendance.
The offer would be subject to approval by resolution of the council should it be accepted by the candidate.
The position was vacated when former City Manager David Varley resigned on May 2 of this year.
City officials worked with Hinson Consulting and Southeast Iowa Regional Planning to set up the structure of the search.