FAIRMONT– On Monday the Fairmont City Council ended up talking about the open city administrator position and whether its community development director, Pat Oman, would reconsider it. Oman was the final of three candidates that withdrew their application for the position and just last week submitted his resignation to the city for his current position, effective Nov. 12.

While the item wasn’t originally on there, ahead of approving the agenda on Monday, Council Member Randy Lubenow said he would like to add a discussion item about the interim city administrator position and what the council’s plans are for making a long-term, 40 hour per week interim or permanent city administrator position. After some discussion, the motion passed on a 3-2 vote with Councilors Wayne Hasek and James Maynard opposed.

Council Member James Kotewa said he would also like to add a discussion item about adding/updating the code of conduct for city staff and council members. The motion unanimously passed.

When the time came for the discussion, Lubenow said that over the past few months, interim city administrator, Jeff O’Neill, and he have had a lot of discussion about the position and that while he appreciates O’Neill, he felt like the city needed “more hours per week.”

“Now that we didn’t hire a city administrator, we’re kind of in no man’s land and I guess I’d like to know when we’re going to get to more leadership in this building. I really think it needs to be full-time,” Lubenow said. “I think we need to do something to get stability back and get everybody back in their lanes.”

For his part, O’Neill said that when he took the role (for the second time), Oman had been here for six months and things were running pretty smoothly with the rest of the staff.

“I thought we’d get to this point in time where we’d have a city administrator identified and either that’s Pat, or Pat’s working as community development director and then I’d be able to matriculate back to where I came from. There’s no one in this room more than me that wished that could have happened,” O’Neill said.

He said he’s to the point where he needs to be thinking about moving on from the role because his personal commitment was going to be a year, which is close to being reached.

O’Neill said there was no agenda item on the matter for the meeting because he hadn’t had a chance to talk to staff and assess next steps.

Maynard said he was against adding the item to the agenda because he didn’t want to blindside O’Neill and staff.

He asked O’Neill for clarification on the number of hours worked. O’Neill said he has been working 40 hours a week, per the agreement, with typically two days in Fairmont and the rest worked remotely, which he admitted wasn’t ideal.

Lubenow said they still have a staff member who is highly qualified for the position. He made a motion to offer the interim city administrator position to Oman, barring a standard background check, which Council Member Britney Kawecki seconded.

Kotewa said in his conversations with Oman, Oman has asked for respect in accepting his decision to move on and away from the city of Fairmont.

Kawecki said in her conversations with Oman, he has shared why he has considered jobs, but has not said that he would not consider staying in Fairmont.

She asked Lubenow if he would consider an amendment to the motion and offer Oman the city administrator position based on his performance, experience and knowledge and on the feedback of an outpouring of citizens, contingent on a successful, standard background check that’s done for all city administrators.

“We’ve all seen him at the podium coming up with so many things that you have seen in one year that we haven’t seen in five years from staff. These are all things that are moving the city forward,” Kawecki said.

Lubenow said he was okay with the amendment.

“I, too, have had a lot of citizens reach out to me,” Lubenow said. “I think, as a council member, if I’m not reaching out one more time to Pat Oman, I’m letting all of the citizens of Fairmont down.”

Maynard said he’s also been impressed with Oman as a community development director and that he wishes he could support him as a city administrator, but that he has been given information– that’s not publicly available– that he considers serious enough to not promote Oman.

When Mayor Lee Baarts called for a vote, in a roll call vote, the motion failed 3-2 with Hasek, Maynard and Kotewa opposed.

Lubenow then asked for a special meeting at 5 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 20 so that the council can hear from Oman if he’s interested in reapplying for the position.

The motion passed 3-2 with Hasek and Maynard voting no.

Next, the council discussed the item Kotewa added to the agenda, which he said he wanted to add because over his last nine months on the council, he’s been frustrated with moral and ethical issues that have occurred.

He said he’s been researching code of conducts that have been successful in other cities and counties.

“Social media has been terrible because of misrepresentation and misinformation that goes out there. We absolutely need to hold ourselves to a higher level. We have to do so with some moral integrity and we need to take a look at something that we can all agree to and hold to and have a code of conduct for city personnel to fall in line with also,” Kotewa said.

Hasek said he did not think that city business belonged on social media, unless it was coming from the city’s website or social media page.

Kotewa made a motion to ask staff to research other municipalities or counties that have a code of conduct for council members and city staff. Maynard seconded it.

Kaecki said she thought there were a lot of missing parts and that freedom of speech needs to be taken into consideration as well.

O’Neill asked people to remember that while freedom of speech is important, some of the things are restricted through the data practices act.

“Even though we have freedom of speech, we also have responsibility to uphold the law as far as what we can say and not say,” O’Neill said.

The motion passed unanimously.