Need a job? The City of Gig Harbor is hiring for more than a dozen positions

Like other employers these days, the City of Gig Harbor has hung out its “we’re hiring” sign.

The city is short about 13 positions, ranging from the judge of the Municipal Court to a maintenance technician, according to Kameil Borders, the city’s human resources director.

The HR department itself is also short of staff, acting City Administrator Tony Piasecki told the City Council on Sept. 27, after an assistant quit after a few months on the job.

“We are scrambling” in that department,” Piasecki said. It’s down to a payroll clerk and a half-time assistant shared with the tourism department.

However, the city is close to filling several top positions, he told the council, including the Municipal Court judge and the parks manager positions. The previous parks manager, Nicole Jones-Vogel, resigned in July of 2020, telling the council that she felt disrespected by Mayor Kit Kuhn.

The judge, Zenon Olbertz, did not seek to renew his contract. Two court clerks quit in November 2020 following a dispute over pay. The Municipal Court handles mostly traffic and misdemeanor cases, and the part-time judge is usually a lawyer in private practice.

Piasecki said the city has made an offer to a judicial candidate, and is close to making a selection for the parks manager job.

“We brought in five individuals for interviews and are bringing in two more who look pretty good,” for park manager, Piasecki told the council. “We are hoping to get that done by mid-October.”

In addition, according to Borders, the city is currently advertising for a building inspector, a senior planner, an information systems assistant, an infrastructure engineer, a maintenance technician, a lateral-hire police officer, a utility billing technician, an HR assistant and several seasonal workers.

Many of the jobs pay well. The systems infrastructure engineer, for instance, would earn between $76,000 and $95,000 a year. The building inspector could earn up to $82,000, and the parks manager tops out at $109,836.

Borders told the council on Aug. 9 that the city had lost 32 employees in 2021 and hired 21. She told The Gateway she was not able to break out the number of retirees.

An employee survey taken last December found that 32 percent of the 98 employees who responded said they expected to leave in the next two years. Before that, more than 20 employees, including department heads and longtime supervisors, had quit or retired. Some of them cited differences with the mayor.

The survey, done by an outside consultant, found Gig Harbor’s City Hall “a troubled workplace.”

At one point, the City Council discussed whether to abandon the “strong mayor” system, but that talk was shelved in January, shortly before Kuhn announced in February that he wouldn’t run for re-election.

Current open positions can be found at: https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/gigharbor

CORRECTIONS: A previous version of this story incorrectly characterized a dispute involving Municipal Court clerks. No formal grievance was filed, according to City Administrator Tony Piasecki. It also misstated when the City Council shelved talk about abandoning the “strong mayor” system. That happened just before Mayor Kit Kuhn announced he would not run again.

This story was originally published October 3, 2021 at 5:00 AM.