Town Manager search back to square one: Council majority rejects ‘great resume’ on ‘intangibles’

It seems the $24,500 the Front Royal Town Council spent to have a private-sector executive search firm seek out qualified municipal management candidates has been taxpayer money thus far ill spent.

That is because from an initial field of 49 candidates assembled by executive search firm Baker-Tilly since they were contracted on February 13, none survived the initial selection process. As previously reported by Royal Examiner, two final candidates chosen from that field of 49, were brought into town for face-to-face interviews last week.

It appears neither was found acceptable to a majority of the Town’s elected officials – though it may have been a close call on one, according to Vice-Mayor Bill Sealock. Sealock serves as council liaison to the executive “headhunting” firm as some, including the vice mayor, colloquially call such executive “hunt” professionals. However, it appears a council majority of four rejected the preferred of the two final candidates as not bringing quite enough to the table to replace Interim Town Manager Matt Tederick on a permanent basis.

Recent council meeting with Vice-Mayor Sealock presiding due to the absence of Mayor Tewalt (Chris Holloway was present but out of view at right of photo). While present, the mayor may have been locked out of a potential tie-breaking vote on the appointment of a new town manager last week. Royal Examiner File Photos

“One had a poor interview,” Sealock observed, adding that while the other candidate had “a great resume” and was generally “liked” by all his council colleagues, was found by that majority to not have the necessary intangibles for the job. The primary intangible may have been age, as in the early ’30s being too young or not allowing for sufficient experience in municipal management.

“I could have voted yes; I think two, maybe a third could have,” Sealock said without naming names, “I really wanted to meet that 90-day time-frame,” the vice mayor added of making the choice by the end of the Fiscal Year 2020. However, with the potential of throwing a deciding vote Mayor Gene Tewalt’s way for an almost sure deciding 4-3 vote in favor of replacing Tederick at the helm of the town administration, any potential 3-3 tie evaporated.

“We didn’t want to do that,” Vice-Mayor Sealock said of having the mayor, rather than council have the final word on the decision.

Of the town manager search and restart of that process in the wake of the early July failure to make an appointment after a three to five-month process, Sealock said executive search consultant Baker-Tilly had informed him that “a couple” in the initial pool of candidates might re-apply.

Over half withdrew from consideration

Of the 49 original candidates provided by Baker-Tilly, Sealock said that 27 had dropped out, taking the field to 22. Those 22 were narrowed by council to a pool of nine, which jumped to 11 with two late additions. Council then narrowed the finalists down to three, one of whom removed them-self from consideration, leading to the final two candidates being brought in last week.

Sealock noted that part of the Baker-Tilly contract states that if an appointment is made and that appointee is terminated with cause within two years, Baker-Tilly will be responsible to assist in a new town manager candidate search at no additional cost to the original contract.

So, a young, likable candidate with a “great” resume – what have you got to lose?!?

Tederick, left, and Vice-Mayor Sealock flank William Huck during recent acknowledgment of the C&C Frozen Treats proprietor’s help with facilitating weekend downtown walking mall business reopenings. The municipal pair will continue working together as a council majority continues to seek a permanent town manager.

Of on-the-street “conspiracy theories” that the consultant search is more show than substance, and that Tederick will eventually be offered the job on a permanent basis by his council and County Republican Committee allies, Sealock pooh-poohed that notion.

“I talked to Matt this morning (Thursday, July 9) and he’s not interested in the job permanently. Could we hire him under other circumstances? – Yes, but he’s not interested. He’s done an exceptional job. No one else could have come in and been dead on, on services like he has,” Sealock observed.

If lauded inside Town Hall for his job as interim town manager, Tederick has drawn some pointed public criticism, including from council candidates Bruce Rappaport and Betty Showers. Most prominently that public criticism has focused on two council decisions many see the interim town manager’s influence on the front end of.

One was Tederick’s late January 2020 dis-assembling of the Town Tourism Marketing function in the wake of the firing of five department heads, as part of his FY-2021 town budget preparation and plan to downsize or “right-size” as he termed it, the town governmental function in favor of private-sector outsourcing.

Bruce Rappaport has been a vocal critic of the council and the interim town manager’s moves toward a new EDA while litigating with the existing EDA, among other issues.

The second was the decision to sue the existing Town-County EDA and apply to the state government for authority to become the first municipality in Virginia to be allowed to create a second Economic Development Authority while technically remaining a part of the existing EDA it has chosen to litigate against, rather than negotiate with to reach a mutually satisfactory resolution on any misdirected assets from the previous EDA Administration’s financial scandal.

For a council and interim town manager focused on reduced governmental costs, many have questioned the long-term financial impacts on town taxpayers of those two decisions.

Also as reported last week, Tederick’s contract as interim town manager was extended on a monthly basis past its June 30 end of the fiscal year term, as well as adjusted to a less complicated legally, personal rather than LLC hire, as council ponders life without its interim man.

Still at it: Interim Town Manager Matt Tederick will remain on job as council seeks a more perfect candidate to replace him on a permanent basis – “But there will be a time when I’ll have to say ‘I have to move on’,” he told Royal Examiner.

As readers will recall, council first appointed Tederick interim mayor in the wake of Mayor Hollis Tharpe’s April, effective May, 2019 resignation to deal with legal issues.

Contacted by phone shortly before publication Friday, Tederick confirmed Sealock’s perception and reinforced his own previous comments that he is not interested in, and will not seek the town manager’s job on a permanent basis. He noted that restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic response delayed planned business activities on his part, allowing him to continue in the interim role longer than he might have.

“But there will be a time when I’ll have to say ‘I have to move on’. So, I’m hoping to see this resolved in the next two to three months … There was a lot of time invested in this process. Both of those final candidates were brought in for 11-hour days around their interviews,” Tederick observed of the conclusion of a five-month process since Baker-Tilly was contracted by the Town.

Tederick noted that he was not in the room for the town manager candidate interviews, nor was he privy to details of those interviews. However, as to the observation about “age” being a determining factor in the rejection of the stronger of the two candidates interviewed last week, Tederick suggested perhaps limited “experience” as a preferable choice of words.

Attempts to reach other council members and the mayor for comment on this story were unsuccessful over a two-day period prior to publication.