The City and Borough of Juneau Assembly is holding a special meeting to discuss the hiring process for a replacement city municipal attorney at Assembly Chambers at noon today.
The search for a replacement began after current Municipal Attorney Amy Mead was named the state’s newest Juneau Superior Court judge on July 2. Mead has been Juneau’s municipal attorney since 2013. City Manager Rorie Watt said the Assembly’s main objective Thursday will be deciding whether the search for Mead’s replacement will be an internal or external process. If the Assembly decides to start from within, it will open the process to employees within the city staff first to gauge whether anyone is interested in the position.
The Committee of the Whole agreed at its meeting on July 11 to explore within first, but Assembly member Jesse Kiehl said he is hoping the discussion Thursday allows for a more expanded approach to the search.
“I was on the side that pushed to advertise more broadly,” Kiehl, who was part of the search for the last municipal attorney, said in a phone interview with the Empire Wednesday. “I think the competition is made stronger by looking more broadly. I just think the strongest possible competition services our constituents.”
Assembly member Norton Gregory said because of the importance of the position, the CBJ Assembly members want to make sure they do their due diligence on the task at hand.
“We want to make sure we hire the best possible candidate,” Gregory said in a phone interview with the Empire Wednesday. “I think we have a lot of great attorneys in town and I am really excited to see who will apply.”
The city manager and the municipal attorney are the only two high-level positions that report directly to the Assembly.
Due to the nature of Thursday’s Assembly meeting, it will start as a public meeting but will likely to go into executive session because of personnel issues.
Mead’s last day will be sometime in mid-August. There is no set deadline on when a replacement municipal attorney must be found.
• Contact reporter Gregory Philson at gphilson@juneauempire.com or call at 523-2265. Follow him on Twitter at @GTPhilson.
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