Leslie Klusmire’s two-month contract was officially extended with the Town of Paonia at the Jan. 10 Board of Trustees meeting. The only change is that she is working about 30 hours per week rather than the 24 hours as originally agreed when she initially took the role of interim administrator.
Klusmire has created a new job description for the town administrator position and has a new way of attracting candidates as they resume their search. She said Paonia has a reputation for political strife and personal attacks and, rather than trying to hide their weaknesses, she said it is better to be open. Klusmire said applicants can easily view minutes or meetings and see the issues the town has had to deal with. Klusmire said Paonia is a wonderful community with a really smart council and that the town is moving forward in a positive direction, and she believes that will attract others.
Her sentiments in advertising for the permanent administrator position are “We’ve had a lot of political strife. We’re trying to turn that around. Come help us.” Klusmire said town manager candidates are attracted to towns where they can make a difference, and it is better to own up to problems.“We’re in transition,” Klusmire said.
Trustee Knutson applauded her philosophy on handling the advertisement of the position. He said he believed it was their negative reputation that has narrowed the pool of candidates, especially as only four applications were received for the town clerk role.
Trustee Thomas Markle said, “The acknowledgement of the town's dysfunction. That’s a good move. To actually improve ourselves at meetings can go much further than one person can do.”
When Trustee Paige Smith questioned some of the wording of the role of the administrator in the document that Klusmire created, Klusmire responded, “There’s no clear chain of command and it’s a problem. That’s one of the reasons why we want to talk about roles and responsibilities at the Jan. 30 meeting.”
“In some aspects, it gives everything to the town administrator — everything. It really doesn’t recognize you have department heads…and they should have some authority over their employees. We need to work on personnel policies so that they are clear and concise and everybody’s agreed on what the chain of authority is.”
The board approved the job description that Klusmire created for the advertisement of the permanent town administrator position. The town clerk position was discussed in an executive session earlier in the meeting and, afterwards, it was approved that Klusmire select the best candidate for the job from their pool of four candidates and then bring that to the board to approve.
Frank M. Witowski Jr. is a staff writer and photographer for the Delta County Independent.
Frank is a staff writer and photographer for the Delta County Independent. His beats include covering the North Fork area town meetings, the Delta County Commissioners' meetings and Delta County School Board. Although he enjoys covering hard news, his joy comes in writing positive features about businesses and people who are making a difference in the area. Contact Frank at 970-874-4421 or frankw@deltacountyindependent.com.
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