I cannot believe the City of Albert Lea is risking using the search outfit “Brimeyer-Fursman LLC” in the second go-round of finding a new city manager. At best, the city was misled or not provided full information on the candidates considered in 2010. I’ll stay away from using actual legal terms. Perhaps under the direction of James Brimeyer, this firm provided competent service to the city, Freeborn County and other local government entities, but that is no longer the case.

When it became evident the candidates had not been fully vetted and/or adequate information given to the council, I asked the city attorney if we had any recourse against Brimeyer-Fursman. However, I concluded that the cost of any action was not worth recovering the approximate $20,000 fees and expenses we were charged. Even the promise to redo the search at no charge was not enticing to me. I would have preferrred walking away and either doing the search using city staff or perhaps an alternate firm such as Springsted Inc., the firm from which we also had a search proposal. By the timeline proposed in the Jan. 10, 2011, article “Council ups the pay range for city manager,” it looks like little is changing from the 2010 schedule, and that the council will once again be rushed into making a choice. The council should be asking why Brimeyer-Fursman was in such a rush to make a decision.

In a column I wrote for the Tribune on March 18, 2010, I stated my hope was that the council would wait to make a choice, and I repeated that as we reviewed the five interviewed candidates on March 20, 2010. When it was clear that there was no desire to wait, I did vote along with the rest of the council to extend an offer, for the sake of unity. This is one of the decisions I regretted, but I try not to make the same mistake twice.

Mike Murtaugh

former mayor

Albert Lea