Marine City adopts review policy for city manager

Officials also address goal setting sessions

By Barb Pert Templeton

The Marine City Commission continues to move the city forward under the direction of City Manager Michael Reaves. Official recently established a formal job review policy for Reaves and will be working together to set future goals for the city.

Reaves was asked at a past commission meeting to come up with an evaluation policy and he introduced two at the March 6 meeting. He referred to one as a long form and the other a short form version of the policy.

“It will be up to you in your discussion with the city manager what form you choose is appropriate for that evaluation,” Reaves said. “That way, you’ll have two available and you can edit them down the road if you decide there’s another area you want to add or even take something out.”

He said the short form might be good for a mid-year evaluation and the longer one for an annual review. Reaves said he removed the numbers that would have rated the city manager as several commissioners had issues with those, noting that one person’s three rating might not mean the same as someone else’s three rating.

“Most importantly, on both of them there’s significant space for narrative and I look at this as a 50/50, so it should be 50 percent the written part and 50 percent of the evaluation should be oral, there should be verbal communication back and forth,” Reaves said.

Mayor Pro Tem Lisa Hendrick said she liked both forms and liked the idea of having a short one even if they do a starting and then a mid-year (review). She said since there will be seven different forms filled out by members of the commission how will that be sorted.

Reaves said the commission would compile them and then have a consensus for each section.

“Really. it’s there to generate a discussion out of it, what you’re looking for, areas of concern and what’s positive and what’s negative and how do we move forward into seeing change,” Reaves said.

Hendrick asked if they use both forms did the commission need to state which form they were going to start with or what?

“That’s your choice, you can do either one, I’m happy with either one, I feel I get evaluated bi-weekly when I get a paycheck,” Reaves said. “Whatever your choice is, we can do it verbal, we can do it oral, we can use both, we can use one or the other, makes no difference to me.”

Mayor Jennifer Vandenbossche said she liked the idea of having both forms. She then called for a motion to adopt the policy.

Commissioner Jacob Bryson made the motion to adopt both forms and it was seconded by Commissioner William Klaassen. The commission then unanimously approved the policy. Commissioner Rita G. Roehrig was absent from the March 6 meeting.

Goals setting sessions planned

Reaves told the commissioners that he feels it’s difficult to have an evaluation without having a set of goals established by the commission for the city manager.

“Other than just fixing things as you go along and that’s the process we’ve been utilizing,” Reaves said.

He said it’s important that not only the commissioners and the city manager, but the department heads and the staff are all in agreement and have input in determining the goals.

Reaves said the process would include:

· Defining what they want to accomplish and how they are going to do it.

· Make them measurable – connect them to a metric so you can tell when you reach them.

· Achievable – make sure they are realistic so you can accomplish them.

· Time bound – what’s the deadline to achieve them.

“What I’d like to do is at the next meeting have a small goal session and since this is probably a new practice for this board and we’re bringing on a new trustee, to limit the discussions around five or six goals we can hone in on,” Reaves said.

He said the ideas he has so far were from himself and city staff.

“We’ve got multiple different projects going and that’s a goal in itself and one of those spans over two years and out of that project has sprung multiple other projects and the management of those type of projects is a goal in itself, it’s a solid goal,” Reaves said.

Another one is to continue the grants process for the city and he noted that the city has already applied for and received a number of grants in a short period of time.

“I’d like to see us continue that process and I’m looking at some specialized grant writers in specific areas,” Reaves said. “One would be in waste water treatment facilities and another would be in housing, that’s just the idea focused around grants.”

He outlined a number of other goals including future development for the city and the importance of employee recruitment and retention.

“I think that’s a great goal and I really think it’s critical to the success of the city and the lack of continuity over the years has really hampered the city’s operations in a number of different areas,” Reaves said. “I think that’s a key factor. You set the goals those are the folks that carry it out but we keep changing the teammates repeatedly you can’t get the goals.”

An idea submitted by the city staff was to have employees from different departments come before the city commission and share what their job is, what tasks they are responsible for and how things work. Reaves said he agreed that process would be a good one.

Having the city televise the commission meetings, a complete ordinance review and cleanup, bringing back the vacant building ordinance and finally, a walk ability assessment which would involve repairing sidewalks to make the city more walkable even it it’s only a block at a time.

“So those are some goals that I have, I’m asking you to think about it,” Reaves said. “I’d like you to shoot me some ideas; we’ll lay them out and be prepared at the next meeting to have a discussion, pick five out of there and have a discussion.”

The commissioners commented that some of Reaves’ goals, if not most, were already on their own lists and they were pleased with his assessment and plan for things going forward.