Why Is A Search Committee Used For Open Positions?
The elected positions are important positions for the community. They tend to generate many more candidates and require more due diligence as outlined in the process HERE. As such, we leverage a search committee process to help with this work, very similar to other boards that use a sub-committee process to manage issues that require more due diligence and work effort.
A search committee is made up from volunteers from the Caucus Committee plus up to six volunteer members of the Caucus Executive Team. A search committee has representation from all the Wards and tends to represent at least 20-30% of the full Caucus Committee.
This process is very similar to the process for all other board and commission positions that are first sources by designated Wards. The Wards first interview the candidates, then put forth the top recommended candidates for final evaluation and vote by the full Caucus Committee which is made up of 43 elected committee members.
Our voting process is always competitive. We are always evaluating the merits of multiple, qualified candidates for every position we recommend to the Mayor and/or the community. Again, the Caucus only recommends the final candidates for consideration. The Mayor and the voters of Lake Forest make the final appointment for the candidates they feel will best serve in the role.