Boy, some could say there's a leadership vacuum in Naperville. We've been without a city manager since December and the city council seems in no hurry to fill the position. We currently don't have a fire chief. Our Park District executive director is on leave for reasons unknown. And now the schools superintendent is stepping down.
What do think is a better way to fill these positions: to promote from within, or to look outside the city for the best candidate? The trend nowadays is to conduct national searches. But that doesn't always produce the best selection, and it isn't always the best situation for taxpayers. Consider those school superintendents, park directors and city managers who can get fully vested in a very generous pension plan in one state, then a few years later accept a job in another state and before long become eligible to collect another full pension. What a country!
Tell us what you think. Is it better to do a national search, or to promote from within?
The local governments should search wherever they can find a good candidate and the internal people should get a shot at the jobs.
Having said that, moving from one of the management positions at City Hall to City Manager for a 150K person city is a big jump. Would the more likely progression be moving to manager of a small town or city, then something bigger?
The SUN may be asking the wrong question, perhaps the question should be “why are qualified people apparently unwilling to take or keep jobs in Naperville?”
Unless the new managers have the freedom to set new policies and bring in a new management team (if needed), they will serve as little more than rubber stamps for the entrenched policies and special interests in Naperville.
Top talent won't work as a front man, carry ineffective or unethical senior managers or act as rubber stamp for failed policies. Herein lays the problem.
On the other hand, if the packages are structured so that it pays to leave after a couple of years, does this point to an oversight failure by the various boards or is this simply the way governments are now structured?
The most qualified candidate should always be hired. No exceptions. If that person happens to be an internal candidate, wonderful. If not, so be it.
Let us not have 3 police men running the City of Naperville!
I do not want to live in a police state!
Robert Marshall is not the right man for the job!
It is doubtful he has the right experience or is even qualified.
He may be part of the BLUE BOY'S CLUB!!!
We need diversity from outside the NPD!
Let us look for the best!
And I don't like double paying anyone with my taxes! While he personally is not doing anything wrong, we are rewarding a broken system that needs to be fixed and not rewarded!
"And I don't like double paying anyone with my taxes! While he personally is not doing anything wrong, we are rewarding a broken system that needs to be fixed and not rewarded!
Marshall has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo with the "good old boy's club" and directly benefit from it. As such he is part of the problem not part of the solution. We need new leaders who are not tied to existing system and who can look fairly and objectively at it and work hard to fix what is wrong.
Marshall is simply the wrong man, at the wrong place, at the wrong time.
I don't think that question can be answered without looking at the potential candidates. Sometimes hiring from within works out better since the candidate may have experience and connections to the Naperville area making them more in-tune with our needs. Other times, outside candidates are better as they bring in fresh ideas and a new outlook. It has to be the best candidate that is hired, rather than basing it on internal vs. external.
What we see happening in our city is similar to what happens at the corporate level.
High level positions tend to be filled from "outside" due to various internal biases against internal candidates, including but not limited to the following:
>they are assumed to be lacking in certain skills (why else are they not already in that position?)
>their shortcomings have already been seen due to the fact they alrady work here (versus the external candidates, who will be seen as omniscient and perfect since all we have to go on, really, is what they say they are!)
>we see us as "worldclass" and as such, we feel the need to expensively search far and wide for the one elusive hero out there that we "deserve".
For those who feel that the only solution is to go external, we need only to look at both our own experiences in Naperville (can anyone say Park Director?) and in nearby Chicago, where the new police chief is being put through hell by the rank and file.