Leader searches gather steam
Council committees currently narrowing down lists of candidates for borough manager and police chief
LANSDALE » Timelines continue to come into focus for the next occupants of two of Lansdale’s highest positions.
Borough officials announced Wednesday that the hiring processes are continuing for the next borough manager and police chief, and both could be in office by the end of 2017.
“First and foremost, I’ll let everybody know that council met as a full group, in executive session, separately, a week ago Wednesday, to discuss this issue,” said council President Denton Burnell, referring to the borough manager search.
Borough Manager Jake Ziegler announced in June that he intends to retire around the end of the year, after just short of three years as manager and an additional three-and-a-half decades in the Public Works Department. In July council contracted with an outside search firm to help find the next manager, and in August Burnell announced that a search committee would be formed to help narrow down the applicants — a process he described in more detail Wednesday night.
Burnell said the search committee will consist of himself, Administration and Finance Committee Chairman Jason Van Dame, and Councilman Leon Angelichio, and those three will do the first two rounds of evaluating resumes,
after an advertisement for the position is posted this week with a submission deadline of Oct. 4.
“From there, the search committee will meet to review, and decide the first cuts on or around October 12. The first actual round of interviews will occur on or around October 26,” Burnell said. “The second round of interviews, after we cut that group back, will be on Nov. 2, and then the final round of interviews with all of council will happen on Nov. 9.”
Once council chooses a candidate, Burnell said, his goal is to formally appoint the next manager during council’s Dec. 20 meeting, and that next manager could officially start working on or around Jan. 15, 2018.
“It’s a pretty well-defined schedule. There may be some variability to it, but at least the interview process, those dates are pretty firm,” Burnell said.
Searches are also still going on for the next leader of the borough Police Department, after the retirements of longtime Chief Bob McDyre in April, police Lt. Alex Kromdyk in July, and the imminent retirement of police Sgt. Dean Miller. Burnell and Ziegler said the search committee for the next chief has already begun to meet with Towamencin police Chief Tim Dickinson, who runs a search firm that has been hired by the borough, to discuss the roughly two dozen applicants received so far.
“Right now, that’s been narrowed down to 10 people that are going to be resubmitting additional information, and then those ten individuals will be vetted and narrowed down further,” Ziegler said. “That process is still ongoing, hopefully to be completed within a month or two.”
Borough council next meets at 7 p.m. on Sept. 20 at the borough municipal building, 1 Vine St. For more information or meeting agendas and materials visit www.Lansdale.org or follow @LansdalePA on Twitter.