Although Mayor-Elect Nann Worel has witnessed the role of mayor during her six years on the city council, she and newly elected council members Tana Toly and Jeremy Rubell will get a behind the scenes look at their new roles. City Manager Matt Dias says the city has a comprehensive on-boarding system for bringing new candidates up to speed.
“In the next several months,” Dias said, “we'll be working with the candidates-elect to bring them, to ingratiate, them with all of our programs, policies, departments and initiatives. And so, we run sort of a comprehensive orientation where every new member gets to sit down with each department head in our organization, sort of unfettered, and hear from them directly about opportunities and challenges and how they go about their daily work. So, I was very, very impressed and we're going to continue that.”
While Dias is technically the boss of all city staff members, he and the city attorney report directly to the city council – which is essentially their boss. He says time is set aside twice a year to ensure that they’re living up to the council’s expectations.
“We do that probably at least twice a year,” Dias explained, “where we have the opportunities to sort of step back and assess the progress that we're making and, you know, different goals and initiatives and capital projects. And we typically do that in February during our annual retreat. So, the new members of our council the mayor will be sworn in in January. And then you know, immediately thereafter, usually within 30 days, we enter into at least a two- day annual retreat and that for the new mayor and council will be sort of their first real opportunity to engage at a deeper level at a policy level with their peers and with staff.”
With Worel now elected as mayor and still two years left in her city council term, Dias says her open position will be filled by the newly seated council next year.
The mayor and council he says will solicit applicants, interview them and make the nomination together.
