FAIRMONT– The Fairmont City Council reviewed applicants for the open city administrator position during a special meeting on Monday. In total, 27 resumes were received from 11 states including 10 from Minnesota. The council discussed the eight most qualified candidates during the special meeting.

The Fairmont City Administrator position has been open since November 2024 when former administrator, Matt Skaret, resigned following his six month performance evaluation. Since that time, Jeff O’Neill has been serving the city in an interim role. It’s O’Neill’s second stint here as he served between former administrator Cathy Reynold’s departure in the spring of 2023 and Skaret’s start date in April 2024.

Michael Brethorst, a senior consultant with MGT (formerly Gov HR USA), the firm that is assisting the city with its search, explained that the eight candidates were broken up into tier 1 and tier 2 with four candidates in each.

“Tier 1 candidates are candidates who have proven themselves in the career, have done the job, have multiple years of experience meeting your minimum qualifications,” Brethorst said.

He said he’s also screened each one of the candidates and has checked their references. However, he said an in-depth background check has not been done yet because it’s costly so it’s saved for the final candidates.

Candidate 1 has over eight years of experience in an administrator role. They also have experience with capital improvement planning and union negotiations. Brethorst said a bonus was that the candidate has a law degree and both direct and indirect experience.

“They talked a lot about their experience in restructuring financial-issued matters and conflict resolution,” he said.

Brethorst also shared that this candidate has a desire in the position in Fairmont because they want to grow professionally in this role.

Candidate 2 is also a former city administrator from Illinois with over a decade of experience who has experience in operational reform. Brethorst said they also have fiscally discipled leadership and are well-suited for long-term planning. This candidate was also previously a paralegal.

Candidate 3 is a current community development director but has experience as a city and county administrator. Brethorst said they also possess experience in policy literacy and budgeting.

“He’s really worked his way up in the ranks and wants to make a difference in the community,” he said.

Candidate 4 is a city manager in Oklahoma and possesses experience in leading capital improvement projects and has extensive experience in planning and zoning and growing experience in managing unions.

Moving to the next batch, Brethorst said tier 2 candidates can definitely “do the job,” but might have something “awkward” in their background or lack direct experience as a city manager.

Candidate 5 is also a former city manager with 25 years of experience in municipal government but just about four years of management experience which Brethorst said is what dropped them to a tier 2 candidate.

Candidate 6 is a current town administrator with over 20 years of chief administrative experience, but with multiple separations on their resume and the transitions over the year is what got them put in the tier 2 bracket.

“Good candidate, but some transitions over the years,” Brethorst said.

Candidate 7 is a finance director and Brethorst said they do not have direct city administrator experience, but that their city financial experience still makes them a good option.

The final option, candidate 8, is also a director of finance in Florida. Brethorst said they do have some separation on their resume, but boast strong finance experience and city government experience.

Following the brief candidate introductions, Mayor Lee Baarts asked the council if it wanted to cut any of the eight candidates right away.

Council Member Randy Lubenow said he felt like candidate 6 could be removed, due to the multiple separations, and the rest of the council agreed.

Council Member Jay Maynard said while he appreciated that some of the candidates had good financial experience, he noted that the city already had someone in this role.

“I don’t want to bring someone in over him who was primarily qualified by reason of having financial experience. We have the experience we ned there. I would prefer to have experience come in as a city administrator,” Maynard said.

Council Member Britney Kawecki said that if Brethorst already narrowed it down from tier 1 to tier 2, she asked whether the council should consider any tier 2 candidates.

Brethorst said that tier 2 candidates may just need a fresh start and that the city had been looking for good candidates.

“I feel that…two or three really good ones so that we can really dig in deep. If we’re trying to squeeze in five, six, seven, eight interviews, it has to be more generic and then you don’t really get to know them,” Kawecki said.

Maynard acknowledged that the council is not usually unanimous in much of anything and has a tendency to be contentious. He said the council needs someone who can handle that kind of environment.

“We need somebody that can come in… that doesn’t immediately annoy half the council. We’ve had one, two, three in the two years I’ve been on the council. That’s two too many,” Maynard said.

Baarts asked the council if it just wanted to drop the tier 2 candidates.

Council Member James Kotewa asked Brethorst whether he felt there were any stronger candidates in tier 2 and Brethorst immediately said candidate 5 was a strong candidate that could potentially bump up to tier 1.

Kawecki voiced hesitation with candidate 1.

“We’ve experienced the “I’m looking to grow,” and I don’t think it ended well,” Kawecki said.

Lubenow said he liked candidates 2 and 3 the best. Hasek said he liked all four in tier 1.

After some more discussion, Lubenow said he would like to move forward with candidates 1 through 5, which other councilors agreed with.

“Going through this a couple times, someone may drop out and decide not to interview,” Lubenow said.

Baarts asked if the council would be okay with moving forward with interviews beginning Friday, Sept. 19.

Lubenow said doing five interviews in one day wouldn’t allow them to go much in depth with all of them. He suggested spreading the five interviews over two days.

Brethorst agreed that it can be an exhausting experience and that after a while of talking to them they all kind of blended into one. He said doing the interviews over two days was doable.

Kawecki voiced concern with interviewing five candidates because of the reasons Brethorst said. Plus she noted the city has to pay for them to travel here and pay for them to stay here and pay for their meals.

“I don’t want it ended up blurred together and us not getting true actual questions and then we move forward with someone and it’s a mistake. We’ve been down this path enough that we don’t need to do it again,” Kawecki said.

The council opted to tentatively do three interviews on Thursday, Sept. 18 and two interviews on Friday, Sept. 19 with times to be determined. Following Monday’s meeting Brethorst was going to contact the candidates with news of the interview.