The second of six candidates for Sammamish City Manager withdrew today from consideration.
Daniel Morgan
Daniel Morgan, a retired US Army colonel who is currently a business consultant, withdrew. He only said the position did not meet his career goals, Sammamish Comment was told.
Six people were finalists from 45 applicants. Reagan Bolli, the city manager of Covington, withdrew this week, citing Facebook postings from a city council member.
The city council is interviewing the remaining four candidates this weekend.
Interim city manager Larry Patterson is scheduled to leave next month. He was hired when former city manager Lyman Howard was forced out over policy and other differences with the council.
Sammamish Comment 
Time to re-open the search the 2 most qualified candidates pulled out. Greg Young appears qualified but public comment he made when he left Ferndale was not classy at all.
Sadly, I sort of agree with you… although I don’t think you are going to find a lot of people chomping at the bit to take this job. Having two out of six drop out makes it look like something’s seriously wrong with this search.
Scott, I am really curious to get your opinion on this whole situation aside from the factual reporting. Is this the result of the dysfunctional council Sammamish has?
@Concerned: Yes.
They can reopen but fact is folks don’t like dysfunction. They don’t like to see the types of things that have gone on in this City with staff the target of attacks and accusations. Guarantee the smart ones will check to see what happened to the last City Manager. The City manager position is more politicized, so it’s less likely a candidate will give up a good position for an iffy proposition. A few on Council have been so focused on control and chasing their anti growth agenda that they haven’t much cared that they were destroying Sammamish’ reputation in the process.
unfortunately, fully agree
City Managers tend to like compliant City Councils. They view citizen participation as something to be channeled rather than listened to. As a group, they tend to be very close to land development interests. Controversy is not a sign of dysfunctionality, it is a sign that issues are being fully aired. Beware your local government when everyone is singing the same Lego Movie tune: “Everything is Awesome, everything is cool when you’re part of a team…” That “team” seldom has your interests at heart! Sammamish needs a city manager who isn’t promoting a personal career path agenda. Sammamish needs a city manager who has the courage to empower the people and their Council.
Not exactly sure how a new city manager would go about ’empowering’ the current city council. Their meetings are ‘cage fights’ that accomplish nothing
Wow, Brian. Very perceptive comment.
Should the City Manager act at the pleasure of the City Council or is the City Manager obligated to act in the best interest of the citizens of Sammamish? The former City Managers told me they act at the pleasure of the City Council.
Maybe we need to change this allegiance to “act in the best interest of all of the citizens of the city” and not just enforce policies being advanced by council members with a political agenda.
I think that the City Manager candidates do not want to be a puppet of enforcement of council policies that conflict with sound public policy. Examples past conflicts are poor transportation planning, the failure to enforce existing plat approval requirements, violation of concurrency and development requirements as well as making no effort to improve connectivity.