Winooski City Manager search hits dead end, search to begin anew

Six months ago, the Winooski City Council set out to find a new City Manager after the previous city manager, Jessie Baker, left to become the city manager of South Burlington, leaving the job up to the co-interim city managers Jon Rauscher and Phoebe Townsend. 

This search effort, however, has come to a roadblock, as the finalist for the position was not selected for the position. VTDigger first reported the new search. 

Rauscher and Townsend both serve other roles in the city government, Rauscher as the Public Works Director and Townsend as the Human Resources Director, while still serving as interim co-managers.

“The City Council met on September 27 to evaluate all input on the final candidate and chose not to move forward with an offer,” read a Sept. 30 memo from Mayor Kristine Lott, describing how the City Council ultimately decided against their manager candidate. 

During the Oct. 4 city council meeting, other possibilities were brought up in adapting the search process to get candidates that the City Council would approve, such as reaching out to third party organizations and expanding the search and interview process, both of which has been supported by Equity Director Yasamin Gordon. The goal was also made to have the new candidate confirmed for the position by Town Meeting day in March 2022.

“I think it’s important to have an established committee of people that have been here, that are here, and that are coming here,” said City Councilperson Michael Myers during the Oct. 4 meeting, “I don't know if the recruiting firm is going to have some kind of knowledge of how our city operates or how our state operates, if we’re doing a recruiting firm from outside our state.”

Gordon has given the new search team some new recommendations for the next cycle in the City Manager Hiring Process memo, including being more transparent with the public regarding the recruitment and being more proactive in their inclusivity of diverse candidates. 

Read Mayor Lott’s memo in full here.