BI Council cancels recruitment firm contract for new city manager

Published 1:30 am Monday, January 26, 2026

The search for Bainbridge Island’s new city manager has the hiccups.

At a special business meeting Jan. 20, the Bainbridge Island City Council unanimously cancelled the city’s contract with Prothman Company, the corporate recruitment firm hired to seek out a new interim city manager, due to the proposed compensation not aligning with the anticipated level of effort, per the city’s website.

Prothman received a letter from the council to stop work immediately as of Jan. 21, and any outstanding invoices for their efforts will be paid, per city communications manager Shannon Hays. When hired, Prothman estimated a budget of about $18,500 plus expenses for the agreement.

The city has worked with Prothman to recruit staff for over 20 years, most recently to help the city hire for its climate and sustainability manager and treatment plant supervisor roles. The company’s efforts so far to seek a new interim city manager have produced two potential candidates, both of whom will be interviewed for the position in a closed executive session Jan. 27. If a candidate is selected, then they will begin in late February or early March; until then, deputy city manager Ellen Schroer will serve as acting city manager, Hays explained.

Two new recruitment firms will be chosen out of the original pool of candidates and will be interviewed for the contract to find a permanent city manager in a public meeting in February. Fees for the company’s services will be included in a new contract, but whether they will be increased from the original proposal is not yet clear; per Rocket Recruiting, city manager recruitment firms typically charge between $15,000 to $50,000.

When current city manager Blair King announced his retirement in late November, council began the search for an interim city manager to take the wheel after Jan. 30, when King planned to leave his post. Council issued a request for qualifications from executive-level recruitment firms, asking them to identify three or so candidates for the role by mid-February.

City leaders chose Prothman out of eight firms at the Dec. 9 council meeting, per the recommendation of a council subcommittee — created Nov. 18 and comprised of Mayor Clarence Moriwaki, Deputy Mayor Kirsten Hytopoulos and Councilmember Leslie Schneider — that screened applicants and provided input on the best recruitment firm for the job.

The agreement stipulated that Prothman identify at least three candidates for the role by Feb. 18, and that either party may cancel the contract “without cause upon thirty days’ written notice.” The decision to cancel the partnership with Prothman came as a “suggestion” from the subcommittee.

During public comment at the Jan. 20 meeting, south-end BI resident Charlie Kratzer noted that he has observed “a lack of transparency in the past few years on the part of city council,” and noted that the determination of city manager candidates was a place to start.

“I know last time there was a consultant hired, which whittled down the number of candidates from something like 60 down to three, and the public, including myself, only got to see the three […] I think you guys definitely made the right choice with Blair, he was by far the best candidate of the three, but it left me wondering — who were the 57 that we weren’t allowed to see?” Kratzer said. “It’d be nice if the public were somehow brought in earlier, and had some sort of say in weeding out the candidates, along with the consultant, since we are the constituents and we are very invested in what the city council and the city manager does. It affects our lives greatly.”