Loudon City, LUB extend offer for manager role

After 10 months, City Council and Utility Board vote unanimously to hire Timothy Ibisch

Alyssa B. Martin news-herald.net

The Loudon City Council and Utility Board each unanimously voted to extend an offer to Timothy Ibisch for the dual manager position. If he accepts, this will put an end to a nearly 10-month candidate search for the role.

Ibisch, who is currently the general manager of public utilities in Casson, Minn., was part of the large pool of candidates that came through the hired candidate search firm in January.

He was originally selected as one of the top candidates and participated in a ZOOM interview; however, when he was asked to come to Loudon for an interview in the spring, he declined due to Mayor Harris’ application being considered for the role.

Throughout his public interview Monday morning at Loudon City Hall, Ibisch expressed his interest in the position with well thought out responses and thorough research on Loudon County as whole, not just Loudon City.

His managerial style is to communicate expectations upfront, while being able to correct as he sees fit, but without micromanaging his staff. While he does oversee and ensures projects are being completed, he said you have to trust people to do their jobs.

A COLLABORATIVE APPROACH

“I think you have to be collaborative and you have to communicate your expectations very clearly,” he said, regarding taking on a new role such as this one. “… It’s important to communicate your expectations very clearly … You don’t wait until a performance review and say, ’Hey, you know, you’re doing this wrong’ or ‘I think you need to change it.’

“You need to be following up immediately … because at the end of the day, it’s the same relationship that I want to have with the City Council, which is if I do something that you don’t want me to do, I can fix it, I can change it. And I think that if you’re communicating those expectations, then when you do come to a review process, they know that they’re on the right track.

“Listening to them is going to be really key, especially if I were to take this position,” he said. “You have an extremely experienced staff from what I can see … Obviously there’s different rules and things like that. So listening is a big part of it, being collaborative, and then working within the confines of what the direction from the City Council (and utility board) is.”

Members of City Council and the Utility Board asked questions regarding their respective responsibilities; and, with each question, Ibisch and the interviewers appeared to become more relaxed and comfortable with each other.

The Council and Board held a joint meeting between the LUB and Loudon City meetings Monday evening to discuss their thoughts on Ibisch’s interview and determine next steps in the process.

As soon as Harris opened the floor for discussion, Council member Eric Newman motioned to extend an offer to Ibisch, with a second by Council member John Cardwell. However, Cardwell did request a discussionary period before the final vote.

It seemed each member of the Council or Board that spoke, commented on the candidate’s professionalism, the amount of research he had done and his seeming ability to adapt to the Loudon community well. As a soon-to-be 40-year-old with a young family, many members noted it would be beneficial to have a younger person in the role who can connect to the area and be involved in that way.

“I think he demonstrated his desire to be here. He’d done his homework,” Cardwell said. “He had knowledge about Loudon’s issues; he knew about our growth issues. He knew about Lenoir City’s growth issues. He knew about Tellico Village’s infrastructure issues.

“He’d done his homework,” Cardwell reiterated.

The only push back was from Council member James “Bear” Webb, who advocated for considering a local person. However, he said that out of all the candidates thus far … Ibisch had impressed him the most.

When it came time to vote with each respective entity, the decision was 100% unanimous. Next steps are for City Attorney Kris Frye to extend an offer.

“I’ll contact him to let him know that he’s being offered the position. Then we’ll enter into negotiations on salary and benefits,” he said. “If we can come to an agreement on that, (we can) then come up with a timeline for when he’ll be able to start work here.

“Obviously, he’s going to have to go back and give notice to his current employer. We want to be respectful of that. There’s a lot that goes into accepting a position like this.”

Pending Ibisch’s approval, this could be the end of an extended manager search for Loudon County.

To watch the full public interview or Monday evening’s LUB and City Council meetings, go to Loudon TV3 on YouTube under the “Live” tab.