The Cedar Springs City Council will hold a special meeting on Thursday, November 19, at 7 p.m. at City Hall, to begin the process of deciding what attributes they would like to see in a new City Manager. The public is also invited to attend and give some input.

The Council put off a recommendation by current City Manager Thad Taylor to contract with the Michigan Municipal League to do the profile and search, and instead felt they would like to get a head start on the process by coming up with their own attributes of what they and the community would like to see. The average cost of engaging the MML–$15,000 to $18,000—wasn’t something they were sure if they wanted to spend. They decided that they would do the profiling first, then have the MML come in and do a presentation. The MML routinely does the profiling, all the advertising, background checks, questions, and narrows down the prospects.

The Council talked about having two meetings. The first one, on November 19, would be to gather attributes in a new city manager that are important to the council and other stakeholders—residents, business owners, community groups—and the second meeting, not yet scheduled would narrow it down to the top 5 attributes.

Taylor’s last day is November 20. Clerk Linda Christiansen will be interim City Manager.