Search on for new city attorney and city manager for South Lake Tahoe

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Prothman Executive Recruitment has been hired by the City of South Lake Tahoe to conduct searches for the next city attorney and city manager, but the process to find an interim city manager will be conducted in house, for now.

During Tuesday's City Council meeting, Brad Robbins of Prothman Executive Recruitment was the only representative of the three companies who submitted proposals to show up.

Robbins, a retired city manager from the City of Corona, told the Council: "You guys are very professional, you did a fantastic job – you are facing nothing different than other communities. No screaming, no yelling like in other places."

Prothman will be paid $19,000 for each the city manager and city attorney searches.

"Its worth the money to get the right candidate," said Councilman Tom Davis.

So far, the Human Resources Department at the City has received three resumes from people interested in the interim position. More can be submitted through Thursday, April 26. The Council will seek input from the current city attorney on the exact procedure, but the current plan is to review the applications during a special meeting on Tuesday, April 30. A meeting had already been scheduled for that day for Brown Act and AB 1234 training for the Council.

If no viable candidates come out of that group, the Council will hire Prothman to find an interim manager, something they didn't come prepared for on bids.

Councilwoman Brooke Laine didn't think the Council and HR doing the search was the best route for them to take and was problematic. "I prefer to hire the firm to do all three," she said. "I don't want to stumble, let the professionals guide us through it. I am very concerned about how we accidentally trip ourselves up without a professional manager at the helm."

Fire Chief Jeff Meston, who has been covering the City Manager position since the resignation of Nancy Kerry, told Council he would do the job until April 30. But with this new timeline in place, he told South Tahoe Now he would stay until the position is filled by an interim manager.

City Attorney Nira Dougherty said she'd stay until August.