The Bainbridge Island City Council gave high marks to City Manager Blair King for his first annual performance evaluation, finding that he has consistently performed exceedingly well and is doing a stellar job for the City. King began his role with the City in May 2021.
Mayor Joe Deets said, “the City of Bainbridge Island is fortunate to have Blair King as its City Manager. Council in particular has benefited from his decades of city administrative experience. Blair regularly meets individually with Councilmembers, which allows him to understand each of our interests and positions. I believe that a solid foundation for teamwork has been established between the City Manager and Council.”
Deputy Mayor Clarence Moriwaki added, “In his short tenure as our City Manager, his career in municipal administration, community relations, political experience and approachable demeanor have raised the overall level of professionalism and image for the City of Bainbridge Island.”
The evaluation included ratings for ten areas of performance in a variety of topics such as fiscal management and community relations. Overall, members of the City Council gave King a score of 4.63 out of a possible 5 points. His highest score 4.93 was in “Citizen Relations”, where the City Council gave him praise for his efforts keeping the public informed and for being responsive to their requests.
In addition to the performance scores, members of the Bainbridge Island City Council submitted feedback on the City Manager’s strengths, areas of critical improvement, suggestions to enhance performance and comments on priorities, expectations, and goals and objectives for the next review period.
In the area of specific feedback, the City Council asked for clarification of the communication protocol with department directors and other staff, mentioned the need for improvements in the planning process and encourage King to continue to focus on the City’s priorities of climate change, transportation, and housing. The City Council also expressed alignment with the recommended goals and objectives the City Manager outlined for the next review period.
The City Council retained the services of Ray Corpuz to facilitate the City Manager evaluation process. Corpuz is a Senior Advisor with the International City/County Manager Association (ICMA) and the Washington City Managers Association. He is a retired City Manager with over 28 years of experience and 48 years in local government. Corpuz used the ICMA best practices for city manager evaluations in facilitating the City of Bainbridge Island’s annual city manager evaluation.
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