City to expand search for clerk

The search for a new city clerk will be extended after action by the Ely City Council Tuesday night.The council voted to extend the filing deadline for applicants to Feb. 11, to expand the advertising to the Twin Cities area and to keep the current applications as part of the process.A total of 10 candidates had applied for the position. “Normally when we have a department head position we get a couple dozen applications. Then we narrow that down to interview the top six or seven. I think the posting time had something to with it because of the holidays and not being able to get it into different publications,” said Deputy Clerk Patty Wellvang. Council member Chuck Novak also discussed plans by the city to change job descriptions to give the new clerk more responsibility over department heads.“I will bring this to the council for a vote at our regular meeting Tuesday,” said Novak. “Wasn’t there already a consensus on this?” asked council member Mark Zupec.“If the council does affirm this then all of the department heads’ job descriptions will change so that the clerk is their immediate supervisor,” said Novak. “I’m trying to get the council to commit to this in chamber, not out of chamber,” said Novak.The ambiguity over who worked for whom cropped up when Terry Lowell was clerk and continued from there. The council has discussed making the change but has not formally taken action. “If you guys want I’ll bring concrete and we can chisel it in there,” said Zupec. “We’ve heard from everyone that is the way they want to go.” The change would mean the department heads would be supervised and reviewed by the clerk. The department heads could still appeal issues to the council. “Being on Employee Relations it would be nice because we wouldn’t have to do annual evaluations,” said council member Butch Pecha. “We really struggle with that.” “Then you don’t have seven bosses, you have one,” said council member Dan Przybylski. “And we’re going to review the reviewer,” said Pecha. Novak said he would put together an organizational chart to illustrate the changes. The council also interviewed candidates for various committee positions.