Kalamazoo City Commissioners have narrowed a long list of volunteer candidates for the At-Large Director of the Foundation for Excellence Board to the six finalists they want to interview.
Commissioners said they used a variety of criteria to narrow their personal lists to six, several mentioning that candidates had to have financial and fundraising backgrounds and the time available to do the job. It took three rounds of voting to choose the six finalists.
They are: Pastor Nathan Dannison, Craig DeNoyer, Sid Ellis, Dale Hein, James Houston and Jim Perry. It is an impressive list of people with a wide range of involvement in the affairs of the community.
There was no shortage of interest in a job that will pay nothing. There were 42-candidates on the original list that Commissioners brought to Monday night’s special meeting.
Everything the Commission does with the Foundation for Excellence is a first, but they aren’t making it up as they go along. They are referring back to past and best practices as they proceed, doing everything out in the open and in public and doing it step by step.
While there is a sense of the importance of the work, there is also a lot of humor, some Commissioners spontaneously breaking into the “Jeopardy” theme as they waited for others to vote.
The finalists will, if they can make it, all be interviewed at another special meeting now scheduled for next Tuesday, January 16th. A final choice will be made sometime after that.
Other board members have been chosen through a process overseen by the Kalamazoo Foundation, through a set of criteria to insure there is a broad diversity on the panel, and that many sectors of the community are represented. The Kalamazoo Foundation will act as a facilitator and provide support functions for the Board.
Following the Commissioners selection of a Director, the 15-member Board will go through training and orientation before they go to work, managing the funds they have and working with a fundraising committee to create a half billion dollar endowment for future city funding.
