Mono County management gaps continue to grow

At Tuesday’s Mono County Board of Supervisors meeting, the supervisors ran into a bit of a snafu when County Counsel Marshall Rudolph announced that Lin Koester, the man that had been lined up to serve as Interim CAO upon the departure of Jim Arkens at the end of this month, had phoned the night before to say he couldn’t do it.

“Lin called last night to say that he would not be accepting the position for personal reasons,” Rudolph said on Tuesday. “So we are back at square one for the CAO position.”

The plan was to contract with Koester for four months while the Board searched for new, permanent CAO. The contract would have been for $81,384.

On Wednesday, the County hit another stumbling block when Facilities Director Rita Sherman announced her retirement, leaving another top-level management position vacant following her last day on Feb. 5.

Supervisor Larry Johnston confirmed that the Board had received Sherman’s resignation letter on Jan. 23, but said she had not publicly stated any specific reasons for her departure.

Johnston said that the County would most likely wait to fill the CAO position before it began to look to fill Sherman’s position.

“We are going to go over options for CAO at our next meeting,” Johnston said. Supervisor Byng Hunt has suggested an “Interim, Interim” CAO, which would be a current employee filling the void until an Interim or permanent person is found.

The County also has interviews already lined up for the Finance Director position, which was also left vacant upon the resignation of Brian Muir at the end of last year.