The Bainbridge Island City Council approved a new firm to conduct city manager recruitment efforts as part of its Feb. 10 meeting.

Recruitment firm Raftelis was unanimously approved by the council. Council also planned to interview a second firm, Bob Murray & Associates, which withdrew its application for consideration, acting city manager Ellen Schroer said. “The other firm let us know that they had accepted too many other recruitment opportunities to be able to do what they felt would be a good job for us,” she said.

Councilmember Kirsten Hytopoulos served on a subcommittee alongside Councilmembers Leslie Schneider and Clarence Moriwaki, who reviewed multiple firms’ qualifications, conducted interviews, and made a final recommendation to the council. The council previously selected the firm Prothman to conduct recruitment efforts for a city manager before terminating the contract with the firm in January due to the proposed compensation not aligning with the anticipated level of effort, per the city’s website.

Hytopoulos shared her support for Raftelis, adding, “ I just wanted to give my endorsement to this firm as not just hey, they were the only ones that showed up. They [Raftelis] made it to our finals when we were doing the careful work. I thought that they were amazing from the beginning. And so I just want to be really clear to the community and the council that I fully endorse this firm,” she said.

Council also voted unanimously to appoint Councilmembers Ashley Mathews, Brenda Fantroy-Johnson and Hytopoulos to a subcommittee to coordinate with the selected city manager executive search firm.

Following interviews Jan. 27, neither of the two candidates under consideration for interim city manager were chosen, city communications coordinator Shannon Hays said. She said the city doesn’t yet have a timeframe when a new interim city manager will be hired. “The interim city manager was not in Raftelis’ proposal presented. The contract hasn’t been fully flushed out yet, so there are still a few things unknown at this moment in time, whether that would be a service that would/could be added or if that’s the direction of council,” Hays said.