City Manager Tony Ramos will be overseeing the recruitment for finding his replacement.

The news comes weeks after Mr. Ramos, who has been Claremont’s city manager since 2011 and has worked for the city for over a decade, announced he would retire at the end of the year.

Recruitment officially began Wednesday, September 13 and will last until October 27, according to Mr. Ramos. After that, the applications will be screened and those who are considered top candidates will participate in community and professional panel interviews on November 14.

The city council will interview the remaining candidates the week of December 4.

The goal of the city council is to pick a new city manager by the week of December 18, two weeks shy of Mr. Ramos’s December 31 exit date.

The recruitment process was mapped out during a closed-session meeting on Tuesday afternoon and unveiled during the following city council meeting.

City Attorney Sonia Carvalho noted that the decision to handle the hiring process in-house would save Claremont money. Typically, she said, cities hire a professional recruiter to aid in the hiring process, which could cost anywhere from $25,000 to $40,000.

New commissioners introduced

The city also introduced five new additions for various commissions—Scott Horsley for the architectural commission, Angela Bekzadian-Avila and Nancy Brower for the community and human services commission and Catherine Curtis and Parker Emerson for the planning commission.

A few of the commissioners introduced have been part of the commission system before—Ms. Bekzadian-Avila and Ms. Brower have both been part of the CHS commission, and Ms. Curtis is entering her second stint on the planning commission.

Summer Maintenance Leadership Program lauded

The city also heard a presentation from the Summer Maintenance Leadership Program. The program, spearheaded by Community Services Director Roger Bradley, involved local teens aged 14-17 learning leadership and community building skills by fixing up and beautifying the Thompson Creek Trail parking lot and the Griffith Park restroom throughout the summer.

The program, Mr. Bradley said, is a way to teach young people job skills, interview techniques, how to develop a resume, how to dress well for a job and is fostering an investment in the community.

The seven teen participants took turns describing the scope of work to the city council. The group planted 11 new trees along the trail parking lot—five redwoods, five red oaks and one Englemann oak—and re-painted no-parking curbs and emergency curbs to make it easier for first-responders to do their job. The group also made a rock pathway, painted the Indian Hill access gate and took out weeds.

At Griffith Park, the group repainted the inside and the outside of the building, creating a more inviting restroom for park goers. The group also fixed the toilet paper dispenser, installed two new restroom signs at the newly-painted green doors and improved landscaping around the restroom.

Mr. Bradley was proud of the work the teens did, pointing out that they did all their own planning for the projects.

“I’ve heard a lot of them say that this is something they can own and point to in the future and say ‘I did that, that’s something I contributed to the community,’” Mr. Bradley said.

Each participant received a certificate and a firm handshake from each city council member.