{"id":7071,"date":"2014-11-12T03:31:30","date_gmt":"2014-11-12T03:31:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=7071"},"modified":"2014-11-12T03:31:30","modified_gmt":"2014-11-12T03:31:30","slug":"city-embarks-on-new-hiring-tactic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=7071","title":{"rendered":"City embarks on new hiring course"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Sometimes it takes an embarrassment to shame a public entity into making improvements in the way it hires key administrative personnel.<\/p>\n

Amarillo has been embarrassed by controversy surrounding its Animal Control Shelter.<\/p>\n

Its top two administrators — director Mike McGee and assistant director Shannon Barlow — “retired” from the city after allegations surfaced about the manner in which unwanted pets were being euthanized. The city launched a top-to-bottom review of those procedures, enacted some changes and then set out looking for a new administrator to lead the newly named department.<\/p>\n

This week two finalists met city staff and, more importantly, were introduced to the public. They are Paul O’Neill of Midland and Richard Havens of Hutchinson, Kan.<\/p>\n

The hiring process more or less mirrors the way West Texas A&M University hires its campus presidents. It’s a healthy process that enables the public to size up applicants for a key publicly funded position. It gives the public a chance to buy in to the individuals being considered.<\/p>\n

So it is with Amarillo’s new animal control director.<\/p>\n

You know, it sounds almost like the kind of vetting process the city could employ when hiring all its department heads.<\/p>\n

The city conducted a national search and will choose one of two individuals. The hire will be made by City Manager Jarrett Atkinson.<\/p>\n

Let’s hope everyone who gets face time with the candidates is allowed to express his or her opinion of them, so that the city manager can make an informed choice.<\/p>\n

The city needs no more embarrassment.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n

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Sometimes it takes an embarrassment to shame a public entity into making improvements in the way it hires key administrative personnel. Amarillo has been embarrassed by controversy surrounding its Animal Control Shelter. Its top two administrators — director Mike McGee and assistant director Shannon Barlow — “retired” from the city after allegations surfaced about the … Continue reading City embarks on new hiring course<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[276,389,1649],"class_list":["post-7071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-amarillo","tag-animal-control","tag-euthanasia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7071\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}