by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
For the third time in a few years, the City Council is looking for a new public relations person. Last week, Cindy Warner resigned as Chief of Public Information to take a similar role in the Supervisor of Elections Office under newly-elected elections chief Jerry Holland.
According to Council Director Cheryl Brown, there isn’t a pressing need to fill the position and no matter how many candidates apply for the job, it may take a while to settle on someone.
“There is no urgency. We can take our time,” said Brown. “We have more than capable individuals that handle the workload of the City Council. I’ll take care of some of the work and I’ll distribute some of it.”
The process of filling the position — as with most higher-level positions within the City of Jacksonville — can be quite time consuming.
The City will first post the job and accept resumes from within the organization. If that method doesn’t produce enough qualified applicants, Brown will advertise the job to the general public.
Those resumes will be culled through first by the City’s Human Resources Department, which will weed out all that don’t meet the criteria of the job.
That’s the was it works and Brown is adamant when she says that trying to go around the process by bringing resumes to her or going through friends within the City will not work.
“We have a system,” she said. “All the applications have to go through HR and there is no contact with City Council members allowed. They will get disqualified if they are not viable candidates and they do not follow the procedure we have in place for hiring. When we see one, we see them all.”
“We” is the Council’s personnel committee of Council President Elaine Brown, Council Vice President Kevin Hyde, Finance Chair Reggie Fullwood, Rules Chair Pat Lockett-Felder and Gwen Yates, who was appointed to the committee by the Council president. Collectively, that group will evaluate the resumes — all at one time — that Cheryl Brown recommends.
Brown said one of the unique aspects of the position is that it’s somewhat fluid. The nature of the job allows for changes in the job description depending on who had the position before, how they performed and what the committee would like to see added or taken out. The general job description is within the City’s ordinance code, but she it’s not so rigid that it can’t be altered.
“They can change the code after Cindy’s exit interview and reorganize the job,” explained Brown. “They also go with the code as is. The resumes go through my office and I make recommendations to the personnel committee. There are no preconceived notions about what we want. I make the recommendations because as director. That’s my job.”
One aspect of the hiring and interview process that isn’t flexible or up for interpretation is Brown’s strict adherence to the Sunshine Laws. She expects the initial process will result in 15-20 qualified candidates with about five actually granted interviews.
“The interviews are open to the public,” said Brown, although she said she’s not sure why anyone would want to sit in. “We are not going to circumvent the State of Florida’s Sunshine Laws. We have a policy that we interview everyone together (as a committee, not with all the candidates at one time), but there is no discussion about anyone. We take our own notes or designate someone to take notes. We ask everyone the same questions in the interest of fairness.”
Brown said the entire process may take a couple of months to complete. It’s a big salary range; $35,000 to $83,000.