A Coast Guard aeronautical engineer based in Washington DC will get an offer to work as Sitka’s next city administrator. The assembly decided on Cmdr. John Leach, following an interview with the runner-up last Friday (9-27-19).
The Sitka Assembly has been working since August 13th to narrow its choices for municipal administrator. By Friday, it came down to John Leach — who had once been stationed in Sitka with the Coast Guard — and Craig Cugini, who works for the U.S. Army at Ft. Greely.
“If Ft. Greely is a city, the garrison commander is the mayor, and the deputy to the garrison commander is the city administrator,” Cugini said, referring to his work at the military base. “My goals were to learn how to work with people, manage people in large volume. I went from managing 10-15 people to managing 300 people.”
Cuguini said at Ft. Greely he managed a budget of over $56 million. Assembly members asked him about everything from budgeting, to management of staff, and his ideas for Sitka’s future. After about an hour and a half, the group went behind closed doors to discuss their interviews. When the assembly returned, Mayor Gary Paxton said they’d made a decision. Leach, not Cugini, was their man.
“We did that based on two what we felt were very capable proposals and conversations by both men,” Paxton said. “It was the consensus of the assembly that we offer the position to Mr. Leach.”
There was no public discussion about how the assembly arrived at its decision — just a 6-0 vote — to direct the city attorney to draw up an offer with Leach. Leach is a commander and aeronautical engineer manager for the U.S. Coast Guard. He was stationed in Sitka for several years, and though he’s now stationed in DC, his family still lives here. Leach says he received word of the decisions late Friday evening, and got a call of congratulations from Mayor Paxton on Saturday morning.
“It was a pretty vigorous process. There were some tough questions and it was very challenging,” Leach said on Monday (9/30/19), speaking to KCAW by phone. “But I can tell you that I said I was very humbled before, and I’m very humbled by the outpouring of support I had from friends and colleagues in Sitka. It’s pretty overwhelming. I’m glad they’re giving me the chance to exercise my leadership and management skills for the city.”
He’ll begin the negotiation process with the city attorney this week. If he accepts the city’s offer, he may not be able to start for another four to six months. So after the assembly voted to make him an offer on Friday, they considered who they’d want for a long-term interim administrator.
Member Valorie Nelson motioned to have human resources reach out to former city administrator Hugh Bevan to see if he’s interested in stepping in as interim administrator. That passed 6-0.
