A Coast Guard aeronautical engineer based in Washington DC will get an offer to work as Sitka’s next city administrator. The assembly decided on Cmdr. John Leach, following an interview with the runner-up last Friday (9-27-19).

The Sitka Assembly has been working since August 13th to narrow its choices for municipal administrator. By Friday, it came down to John Leach — who had once been stationed in Sitka with the Coast Guard — and Craig Cugini, who works for the U.S. Army at Ft. Greely. 

“If Ft. Greely is a city, the garrison commander is the mayor, and the deputy to the garrison commander is the city administrator,” Cugini said, referring to his work at the military base. “My goals were to learn how to work with people, manage people in large volume. I went from managing 10-15 people to managing 300 people.” 

Cuguini said at Ft. Greely he managed a budget of over $56 million. Assembly members asked him about everything from budgeting, to management of staff, and his ideas for Sitka’s future. After about an hour and a half, the group went behind closed doors to discuss their interviews. When the assembly returned, Mayor Gary Paxton said they’d made a decision. Leach, not Cugini, was their man.  

“We did that based on two what we felt were very capable proposals and conversations by both men,” Paxton said. “It was the consensus of the assembly that we offer the position to Mr. Leach.”

There was no public discussion about how the assembly arrived at its decision — just a 6-0 vote  — to direct the city attorney to draw up an offer with Leach. Leach is a commander and aeronautical engineer manager for the U.S. Coast Guard. He was stationed in Sitka for several years, and though he’s now stationed in DC, his family still lives here. Leach says he received word of the decisions late Friday evening, and got a call of congratulations from Mayor Paxton on Saturday morning. 

“It was a pretty vigorous process. There were some tough questions and it was very challenging,” Leach said on Monday (9/30/19), speaking to KCAW by phone. “But I can tell you that I said I was very humbled before, and I’m very humbled by the outpouring of support I had from friends and colleagues in Sitka. It’s pretty overwhelming. I’m glad they’re giving me the chance to exercise my leadership and management skills for the city.” 

He’ll begin the negotiation process with the city attorney this week. If he accepts the city’s offer, he may not be able to start for another four to six months. So after the assembly voted to make him an offer on Friday, they considered who they’d want for a long-term interim administrator.

Member Valorie Nelson motioned to have human resources reach out to former city administrator Hugh Bevan to see if he’s interested in stepping in as interim administrator. That passed 6-0.  

The Sitka Assembly has pared its list of administrator candidates down again, this time from seven to two. John Leach and Craig Cugini are moving forward to the final round, although there wasn’t full consensus around either candidate.

One interview after another, seven candidates’ pixelated faces were splashed across projector screens. Via teleconference, they each told the Sitka Assembly their aspirations: To be chosen for the city’s top job, city administrator. The job was left vacant after Keith Brady was dismissed by the assembly in June.

In two special meetings the assembly asked questions of  candidates over the internet, and sometimes struggled with garbled answers and frozen faces — the result of a poor connection. But technological challenges aside, when their last interview concluded Tuesday (9/3/19), the assembly forged on to trim the list down yet again. 

“Well, now we are about to do what we set out to do,” said Mayor Gary Paxton, getting the conversation started. He suggested selecting the final two or three candidates and inviting them to interview in person, but some assembly members wanted to take it a bit slower.

“I’d like to see us narrow it down a little bit, do Skype interviews where we can formulate questions that we kind of go a little deeper,” said assembly member Kevin Mosher.

As they considered whether they were choosing applicants for another round or the final round, some assembly members expanded on what they were looking for in a candidate. Member Valorie Nelson said she was interested in two or three candidates, and she said “honesty” was her top priority. 

“When I’ve been told untruths by staff, I want an administrator that’s going to hold them accountable. I don’t think that we have had that in the past,” she said. “I’m not going to mention names I didn’t when we terminated the previous administrator, but that’s one of the things I’m looking for is honesty.” 

Member Aaron Bean said he was looking for someone he said would “call a duck a duck” and grapple with the city’s budget. 

“Someone who kind of recognizes what has already been identified by an applicant as a crisis, and start calling it that. And stop with the spending, maybe entertain a debt ceiling,” he said.

“For the public record, I don’t think we’re in crisis. Do we have some significant challenges? You bet we do,” said Paxton, in response to Bean. “I’m looking for a person who has the critical skills, the organizational skills to come in and empower staff and hold them to account. And it’s not an easy process.” 

The group discussed each candidate’s application behind closed doors with the exception of former Sitka Mayor Marko Dapcevich, who, according to city staff, elected to have his application considered in public. The assembly voted against advancing Dapcevich and former Sitka Police Chief Sheldon Schmitt to the next round, on 4-3 votes, with Nelson, Bean, and assembly member Richard Wein voting in favor of both candidates. 

The body also passed on Cordova city manager Alan Lanning who’d received a unanimous vote to advance on to the initial round of interviews. Assembly member Kevin Knox made a motion to advance Lanning’s application, but no one seconded it and it failed due to inaction. 

Two candidates, John Leach and Craig Cugini received enough votes to advance to the next round. Both come from a military background: Leach is a commander with the U.S. Coast Guard whose family lives in Sitka, although with his current job he’s stationed in Washington DC. And Cugini works for the U.S. Army at Fort Greely.

Member Steven Eisenbeisz didn’t vote to move forward with any candidate. 

“I didn’t feel that any of these were necessarily the fit we were looking for. A lot of this goes back to our termination of the previous administrator,” said Eisenbeisz. He said according to the city’s charter, an administrator should be appointed “solely on the basis of his executive and administrative qualities.”

“That was one of the reasonings we used to remove him from his seat,” Eisenbeisz continued. “So going forward I feel it is my duty as an assembly member to appoint someone based on the executive and administrative qualifications.” 

And another question remained: Would this be a final or semi-final round of interviews? And would those interviews happen via the internet or in person? 

“I personally would rather do this as a semi-final and a final round, have the opportunity to ask more detailed questions about their personal resumes via Skype or other ways,” said member Kevin Knox. “If we do feel like they are candidates we can, again move forward with, then we go down that road of having them here in person. 

“It’s vastly premature to fly someone here without digging into some of the more personal, in-depth harder questions that are going to be asked in the next round,” said Eisenbeisz.  

“Well, I mean, we’ve narrowed this down to two people, and Steve you didn’t vote for any of them, so no offense on that,” responded Bean.

Bean made the motion to offer the two candidates final interviews in person next week. That passed 5-2 with Knox and Eisenbeisz opposed. Dates for the interviews have not been announced.

As of Friday (8/30/19), the assembly plans to interview seven candidates after Tonya Miller took herself out of the running.

During a special meeting Thursday (8/29/19), the assembly interviewed the first three. They were: former Long County, Georgia administrator Franklin Etheridge; former Sitka Mayor Marko Dapcevich and Craig Cugini who works for the U.S. Army at Fort Greely.

Assembly members spent around a half-hour speaking with each candidate via video conference and asked them each the same eight questions. The group will interview four more candidates on Tuesday (9/3/19) at 5 p.m.

The finalists will be brought to Sitka for a face-to-face round of interviews.

Note: Raven News will provide additional coverage of both special meetings when the first round of administrator candidate interviews concludes on Tuesday (9/3/19). Read previous coverage here.