The city of Canby is one step closer to choosing a new police chief.
The council agreed Wednesday night to enter into a personal services contract with Prothman Co. of Bellevue, Wash., to serve as the city’s search firm for a sum not to exceed $25,000. The fee for Prothman’s services came in at $16,500, but the city will be responsible for expenses incurred during the recruitment process. Any and all expenses over $8,500 must be discussed with the city before being spent.
The company’s owner, Greg Prothman, said he’s excited to work with Canby.
According to Fire Chief Ted Kunze, vice chairman of the police chief advisory search committee, Prothman demonstrated a marked enthusiasm for helping Ca
nby during his company’s recent presentation.
“Greg Prothman enjoys this kind of work. He assured us that he will personally lead this search,” Kunze told the council. “He understands the situation and the involvement of a citizen advisory group.”
The city council and advisory group will hold a joint meeting Thursday to go over specifics with Prothman. From there, things will move quickly.
“Once we’re on board, it will be about a 90 day process, give or take a week,” Prothman said. “We want it to be very community driven — have a very strong community presence. We want to have input on developing the position profile, then do a broad search for the candidates.”
Kunze said that when the committee met to discuss the three candidates, Prothman earned a unanimous recommendation.
“We’ll go through a very rigorous screening process,” said Prothman, “leading to a community involved selection process where we solicit input. It’s a really appropriate method for police chiefs, fire chiefs and city managers — the big three — where the community has a real vested interest in the process. I think that’s one of the reasons we were selected. We really do focus on community involvement.”
Prothman Co. provides this guarantee: “Our record of success in placing highly qualified candidates provides that Prothman will guarantee the placement of a qualified candidate. Provided the client follows our finalist candidate recommendations and the key elements of the search process as outlined in the proposal, if the selected finalist candidate leaves the position or is terminated for any cause within two years from the employment date, we will conduct a replacement search with no additional professional fee. The only cost to you would be the expenses related to the additional search.”
Prothman Co. has been around since 2001, but Greg Prothman has been in the industry since 1996. He worked as a city manager and a police officer earlier in his career. His company has conducted 25 public safety searches in the past eight-plus years.
“We’ve been around the block a few times,” he said laughing.
He added that his company has a pool of candidates it can look through and that there are national data bases that allow them to know who’s looking and where. They will cast a broad net.
“We’ll advertise in several areas and since we’ve done enough police chief searches lately, we know who’s interested,” he said.