Costs Climb in Search for City Manager : Pasadena: The city has already spent $53,770. The expenditures could reach $80,000 as city directors travel to the home cities of the three finalists.

The new city manager, who will replace retiring City Manager Donald McIntyre, has already cost the city $53,770--and he hasn’t been chosen yet.

The city has spent that much so far on search firms, recruiter expenses, interview lunches and dinners, as well as reimbursement of travel expenses for city manager candidates.

The expenditures could go as high as $80,000, Mayor William Thomson said, because some city directors have decided to travel to the home cities of the three finalists: Jack Bond, county manager in Durham County, N.C.; Philip Hawkey, city manager in Toledo, Ohio; and Larry Moore, city manager in Richmond, Calif.

Director Rick Cole visited the three cities last week. Thomson and Director Kathryn Nack will make separate visits next week, the mayor said.

The board is making the trips “to actually see what the communities are like and to see what the accomplishments are of the different candidates as they have been described to us,” Thomson said. “It’s one thing to be told a person has accomplished something and they are proud of it. It’s another thing to see it.”

Thomson also said the trip would enable the directors to observe how the candidates get along with minorities in their urban communities.

Of the three candidates, only Bond has escaped on-the-job controversies involving minorities or women during his tenure in office. But his job performance may have benefited from the rising financial health of Durham County, which peaked when Bond took office in 1984, said Durham County Commission Chairman William Bell. The city also has a number of prestigious black-owned businesses, such as banks and life insurance companies. In the 1930s, the city was dubbed the “Black Wall Street of the South,” Bell said.

Meanwhile, Toledo had lost money in savings and loan investments shortly before Hawkey took the job there. Hawkey also inherited some lingering discontent engendered by past racial discrimination, Toledo officials said.

In his effort to reorganize Richmond City Hall, Moore drew opposition from women employees and a labor union official, Mayor George Livingston said. However, Livingston said, Moore ultimately received citywide support, including the business sector and minorities.

Thomson downplayed the controversies and said city directors have examined the issues to their satisfaction and do not perceive them as serious obstacles to hiring any of the three final candidates.

The mayor said he could not predict exactly when the new manager will be named.

The three finalists were chosen after a lengthy recruiting effort by two search firms, RJA Management Services Inc. of Arcadia and Shannon and Associates of Sacramento. The search firms held public hearings in Pasadena to provide an opportunity for residents to list the qualities they desired in the new city manager. Two recruiters also traveled across the country to cull six semi-finalists from among 75 applicants. Those six were interviewed by Pasadena directors March 8 at the Airport Hilton Hotel in Burbank. The three finalists returned in mid-March with their spouses for more interviews.

Despite the lengthy search period, the directors could not decide on a new city manager and decided to make the additional trips. Although Director Chris Holden has publicly criticized the added expenditures as unnecessary, Thomson said the expense is small compared to the importance of finding someone to oversee a $226-million annual operating budget.

The expenditures so far include: $44,600 for the two recruiting firms; $7,900 for travel reimbursement of candidates, including some of the first 75 applicants; and $1,270 for the interview room in Burbank.

Still to be filed with the city are receipts for a lunch and dinner at the Caltech Athenaeum with the full board, two candidates and their wives, and a lunch at Vista Del Arroyo at the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals with another candidate and his wife.

Additional travel expenses are expected to be filed by other candidates and by the directors who travel to the finalists’ hometowns.