City administrator gets good marks

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Farmington city administrator Peter Herlofsky got mostly good marks on his third performance evaluation as the head of the city’s administrative team.

City council members conducted the evaluation in a closed session at their June 16 meeting. Council members each ranked Herlofsky on a scale from 1 to 9 in categories such as decision making, time management, stress management and leadership.

Herlofsky’s final scores, an average of scores from each council member, ranged from a low of 5.8 on “quality of work” to a high of 7.6 on “stress management.”

On the scale council members used any score from 4 to 6 indicated Herlofsky met expectations and a score of 7 or above indicated he exceeded expectations.

Herlofsky received his lowest individual score in the category of time management, where one city council member scored him a 1. He received a 2 in the leadership category, and received 3s from council members in decision making, quality of work, ethics and professionalism, accepts responsibility and conflict resolution.

On the high side, Herlofsky scored at least one 9 each in decision making, knowledge, time management, ethics and professionalism, where he scored two 9s, accepts responsibility, relationship with supervisor, stress management and leadership. He got 8s in decision making, knowledge, quality of work, time management, ethics and professionalism, public relations, accepts responsibility, persistence and flexibility, relationship with supervisor, teamwork, leadership and management skills. He got two eights each in stress management and initiative.

Opinions in some categories varied widely from one council member to the next. In the category of ethics, for example, Herlofsky received two 9s, an 8, a 4 and a 3. In time management, where Herlofsky received his lone 1, he also received a 9, an 8 and a 7.

The results of Herlofsky’s review were on the consent agenda — a list of routine items typically acted on with a single motion — at Monday’s council meeting but council member David Pritzlaff asked for further discussion. Pritzlaff raised concerns about discussion during the closed review meeting regarding appointing council members Steve Wilson and Christy Jo Fogarty to start working on a new contract for Herlofsky.

Mayor Kevan Soderberg accused Pritzlaff, who is up for re-election this fall, of trying to make the new contract a political issue.

“If you want to make that a campaign issue you’ll have to do that somewhere else,” said Soderberg, who has announced plans to step down at the end of the year to take a teaching position with the Federal Aviation Administration in Oklahoma.

Neither Wilson nor Fogarty is up for election this fall.

Tags: news, city, administrator, peter, herlofsky