{"id":26423,"date":"2024-07-29T17:16:06","date_gmt":"2024-07-29T17:16:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-needs-library-and-general-services-directors\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T05:39:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:39:00","slug":"cortez-needs-library-and-general-services-directors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-needs-library-and-general-services-directors\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez needs library and general services directors"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cortez
Cortez Public Library has announced a schedule of events through February 28.<\/span>The Journal file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

To find qualified folks to fill the general services and library director positions in Cortez, the City Council agreed to appoint a recruitment company at its meeting July 23.<\/p>\n

The company, Columbia Ltd., has done recruitment work for Cortez in the past.<\/p>\n

City Manager Drew Sanders, City Attorney Patrick Coleman, Parks and Recreation Director Creighton Wright and Director of Public Works Brian Peckins all were recruited by the company.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve ended up with incredible employees because of Columbia Ltd.,\u201d said Mayor Rachel Medina.<\/p>\n

Andrew Gorgey, the founder of Columbia Ltd., credited staff in key positions for the city\u2019s financial turnaround.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey did some very heavy lifting in the last several years to right the ship financially, and the city is probably in its strongest financial position ever because of what these people have done together,\u201d Gorgey said.<\/p>\n

Back in 2018, the former city finance director was caught embezzling at least $63,642 from the city of Cortez over a few years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we were looking for a city manager, \u2026 we were behind on audits, the city was in a very rough spot,\u201d said Medina. \u201cHe (Gorgey) helped us be very honest with the candidates.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time, folks applying were walking into a position where they\u2019d have to clean a lot up and rebuild culture, Medina said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe helped us find Drew Sanders and he\u2019s been an incredible city manager and has helped really turn the city around in the last few years. The city is doing better than it ever has,\u201d Medina said.<\/p>\n

She said it was worth contracting out the recruiting work because the HR department has two workers who are already full-time and busy doing their daily tasks.<\/p>\n

Plus, it\u2019s an extra boost to broaden the reach to find more potential candidates for the job, Medina said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a failed search for our library director and then another key position opened up,\u201d said Medina. \u201cIt was an opportunity to say \u2018Well, we have two important positions, let\u2019s go ahead and use a headhunter,\u2019 and see if we can be more successful in finding our next directors.\u201d<\/p>\n

The general services and library director positions have both been open since May on the city\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a city planner position open too, but they\u2019re not using the recruitment company to fill that one.<\/p>\n

Gorgey said it takes about 12 weeks to send out an offer letter once the search begins. He\u2019s already met with the city and folks from the hiring departments to get a better idea of their ideal candidates.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a yearlong warranty with this search, too. In the rare case the role does not work for the city or person hired, Columbia Ltd. will help source another candidate, Gorgey said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo have any role in helping with that by bringing them good people \u2013 qualified professional, executives, local government leaders \u2013 that\u2019s incredibly gratifying, that\u2019s exactly why I do what I do,\u201d Gorgey said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Positions have been listed on their website<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26424,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1429,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-26423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez-city-council","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26423"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79355,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26423\/revisions\/79355"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26423"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=26423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}