After much time spent ironing out the details, the Lake Orion Village Council approved the process for evaluating Village Manager Paul Zelenak at their Sept. 22 meeting.
The process, involving a form drafted by previous councilmembers, would assess Zelenak’s first six months as manager. The council hired him in Feb. 2008 after ousting previous Manager JoAnn Van Tassel.
Previous attempts at adopting such a process to evaluate performance of that position had ‘died on the vine,? according to Gary Dovre, the village’s attorney.
Now, the issues at hand were the timeline of the evaluations and the criteria councilmembers would use to judge Zelenak’s work.
Village Councilmember Doug Dendel said he had a problem with having only six months on which to base his evaluation. He said there are a lot of ongoing projects like the water main project and the Atwater Commons development.
‘There are a lot of things I’m looking at to see how they are going to be resolved. Really, you need a length of time to see how people are solving their problems. If you’re working with someone everyday like a regular job, you can do that. But when you’re only seeing it once every two weeks, you just don’t get enough to respond to,? he said.
Other members of the council like Mike Toth wanted to get the process moving as quickly as possible, to at least have the council fill out the forms with rough goals in mind by the following Monday, and then go from there.
‘Let’s just do this now,? Toth said.
Councilmember Ken Van Portfliet said it was important to get the ball rolling with the six-month review so Zelenak knows what to expect at the more significant nine-month review, which deals with budgeting salaries.
‘He’s not going to get blind-sided in February,? he said.
Zelenak wanted to make sure the criteria was established.
‘I’d like the council to quantify how they are going to evaluate me,? he said.
Some members of the council were hesitant to push forward without such criteria.
‘I’m still having a hard time reviewing him with goals he doesn’t know,? Councilmember Julie Drabik said.
The process that was eventually unanimously approved is intended to let the six-month review in Oct. roughly set the criteria for the review in Feb.
It will begin with members of council filling out evaluation forms, that were handed in at noon on Monday (Sept. 29). Then, council set a tentative special meeting for Tuesday, Oct. 8, where Zelenak will not be present, to talk about the forms and prepare to go over the results with Zelenak at the regular council meeting on Oct. 13.
In this way, he can be better prepared for the annual review in Febuary, according to the council.
The form the council approved will evaluate Zelenak in the following areas: decision making; personnel management; flexibility/adaptability; initiative/leadership; community relations; relationship with village council; planning and financial management; and communications.