Albertville Enters Administrator Discussion with Elk River's Thistle

With a city clerk hired and starting soon, the Albertville City Council is moving forward.

The council, minus mayor Mark Meehan, who was absent from both meetings Monday night, met with city staff and an interim city adminstrator candidate following the regular council meeting Monday.

"Bob Thistle is the best interim option," Jill Hendrickson said as way of introduction.

"His terms are desirable and we've invited him here to talk specifics," city engineer Adam Naftad added before allowing Thistle to introduce himself and give some background.

Most recently Thistle was working in the City of Elk River and plans to work in Albertville "not as a caretaker, but as someone actively engaged."

The options Thistle explained included either bringing him in and also a search firm that would be actively pursuing a permanent administrator, or bringing him in as a mentor to Nafstad.

If the second option is pursued, Thistle recommends a process that would that would have him mentor and teach Nafstad and eventually move to an advisory role.

Current St. Michael city administrator Bob Derus has also offered the city of Albertville assistance. He retires from St. Michael at the end of this month, and he has been helping in Annandale on a consultant basis as he has transitioned to retirement.

"The conversation has been very preliminary," Derus said in a phone call Tuesday. "The part that really interested me was possibly helping and mentoring Adam [Nafstad]. But they all need to be on the same page and ready to move forward. Albertville moving forward is good for St. Michael too."

The council's most tenured member wasn't in support of the idea.

"That'd be like letting the fox in the henhouse," Albertville council member John Vetsch said Monday about bringing Derus in.

The ad-hoc recommendation is to hire Thistle in the interim, but city attorney Mike Couri recommends the council know which direction they are going permanently beforehand.

"If we bring Bob [Thistle] on, we need to have a good understanding of the permanent plans," Couri said.

He also reitterated what he had previously shared with the council in a written memo, "no city admin should come in without one or more council members on board or with any serious doubts."

"I don't know where the mayor stands on any of this," council member Dan Wagner said.

Larry Sorenson agreed, "It's premature to talk about longterm because we haven't even decided what we are looking for. Adam [Nafstad] is a talented engineer, but I have concerns."

"I'm not looking to make controversy," Nafstad said. "I would only be interested in the council decided to continue to pursue this as an option. Engineering is the backbone of my career, and I think it could work as a dual role."

Couri and Thistle will be working together to develop a proposed contract for the next council meeting and workshop, which is scheduled for June 18. At that time, the council is hoping to clarify the long term direction of the city administrator role whether that be using an executive search firm or pursuing Nafstad to be mentored and trained in as city admin.