City to start process for hiring new city manager

FORT MADISON – The Fort Madison City Council will begin the process of looking to replace former City Manager David Varley in June.
Fort Madison Mayor Matt Mohrfeld sent the council and city staff a memo on Tuesday with some starting points on how the city could go about putting together the vision.
“I kind of gave a vision of the hiring process for the new city manager.
He said June 6 there would be a work session with Mike Norris of Southeast Iowa Regional Planning Commission to help the city sort that out.
“We’re gonna walk through what we want in a city manager starting with a big picture, what we want the town to be, how the attributes of a city manager work from that.”
Then he said a group would be appointed to move forward to get the person hired.
He said city staff and council should create their own views around what the position would look like and the characteristics of the person and the position.
Varley announced his resignation from the post on March 29. It was effective May 2.
Varley didn’t give specifics on the reason he left the post, but said it was just time to step away.
Mohrfeld didn’t set a timeline on getting a person in place to fill the position, which carried a salary of about $126,000.
The council will meet again on June 6 with an earlier start time to allow for the meeting, the work session for hiring the new city manager, and an appointment to the Council's 5th ward to replace former councilman Chad Cangas.
In other action, the council:

• approved budget amendments for the 2022-23 fiscal year. Total expenditures budgeted were $36.4 million and, after the amendments, those expenses totaled $47.3 million. Additional revenues in transfers totaled $7.28 million leaving a fund balance on June 30, 2023 of $12.73 million, down from the original budgeted ending balance of $14.07 million.
• approved an engineering agreement with French-Reneker Associates of Fairfield for design services for Phase 4 of the PORT trail.
• approved an engineering agreement with Warner Engineering Associates Inc. of Mt. Pleasant for design and construction engineering services for the upcoming Avenue L 20^th to 30^th Street Roadway Rehabilitation Project.
• approved a contract with Parkview Veterinary Clinic for animal impound services at a cost of $22,200 per year. The fee represents a 34.5% increase over the previous year, but the city has not seen an increase in that vendor fee for 29 years. The new contract is for three years.
• approved the appointments of Jamie Carle and Richard Thele to the Fort Madison Housing Authority.