The Oak Creek Board of Trustees voted 5-1 last week to approve a contract to hire Louis Fineberg as the town’s new administrator.

The decision followed a tense public meeting that bared divisions over salary, housing assistance and the dynamics of remote work for the town’s top administrative official.

After months of searching, negotiating and interviewing candidates with the help of Colorado Springs-based recruiting firm KRW Associates, the board ratified Mayor Melissa Dobbins’ signature on a letter of agreement for Fineberg, who has served for six-and-a-half years as city manager in Creede. 

The interim town administrator position has been occupied by Mary Alice Page-Allen since the departure of David Torgler last July.

Fineberg’s contract includes a $130,000 salary and housing assistance — a package that sparked both support and concern among trustees and residents.

Town Trustee Erika Pastor questioned the necessity of providing housing assistance on top of the salary. 

“I just feel like with the salary of $130,000 that Louis could pay his own rent,” said Pastor. “I know that the city of Creede might have done that for him in the past, but I don’t think that was ever really what we were going to do.”

Mayor Dobbins responded that housing assistance had been a “non-negotiable” item for Fineberg and that the need to offer such assistance reflected broader trends in Colorado’s municipal hiring. 

“So many of these advertisements had housing assistance in their agreements. Several even had free housing for town administrators,” Dobbins said. “It is definitely, I think, a major shift that seems to be happening in town administration through the state of Colorado at this point.”

Another point of contention was Fineberg’s request to work remotely up to five days per month while living at his home in Trinidad, which some trustees and residents worried could leave the town without leadership during critical periods. Pastor raised the possibility of those days being taken back-to-back, effectively making Fineberg absent for two weeks if timed at the end and beginning of consecutive months.

“I won’t do that, I promise. That wasn’t the intent of that,” Fineberg assured the board, who ultimately agreed to amend the contract to clarify that remote work days could not be taken consecutively across two months.

Trustee Kelly McElfish voiced broader concerns about remote work, especially during emergencies. 

“If you were to look at that and say, one week out of the month, but then you add in two weekends, that’s one third of the month that this … person we’re offering the job to can be out of town,” said McElfish. “In terms of emergency response situations, who is that person?” 

“In the six-and-a-half years I’ve been with Creede, there hasn’t been one emergency that I had to be at,” Fineberg responded. “I could be in touch with people who were there on the phone … but town managers, generally speaking, are not first responders in emergencies. It’s police, it’s fire, it’s public works.”

“I’ll be honest with you, if you weren’t giving me remote work days or rental assistance, it’s just a non-starter,” Fineberg added. “I made it very clear, not only to the recruiter but to all of you, that these were my basic requirements and I couldn’t do it without those things.”

McElfish also pressed for greater clarity on Fineberg’s obligation to attend community events, noting that only Labor Day was specified in the contract. 

“When I first started being on this board, the town administrator, the clerk, was at every event that we had,” said McElfish. “I understand that we should maybe not require somebody to be at every event, but I do feel that one event out of all the other things doesn’t represent a person that’s representing our town.”

Fineberg replied that he was comfortable participating in local gatherings. The board later agreed to update the contract to require his attendance at a minimum of half of Oak Creek’s public events.

McElfish and Pastor, as well as Trustee Julie Gregory, expressed frustration with the negotiation process itself. 

“I feel like the board should have been able to have had an executive session to have this discussion before this was brought to a public hearing,” said McElfish. “Prior to this, I do feel this should have been brought to us so we could’ve had these discussions obviously not in front of everyone.”

“That’s how I feel like this whole process has gone,” Pastor echoed. “We don’t have a say, just like, ‘this is what’s happening and this is done,’ even though this was supposed to be the meeting that was determining what we wanted and what we didn’t.”

Gregory said that she was still “struggling with the salary part and housing.” 

“We’ve had many, many executive sessions discussing this process … and we’re out of time,” said Dobbins, noting the difficulty of being without a town administrator since the summer. “If I could invent time, if we could’ve had the month of May to go through this process, sure, I would’ve entertained to be able to do this behind closed doors. But right now, we’re out of time.”

Fineberg made it clear he would not accept the job if the board could not come to a consensus.

“If this is going to be a split vote, I’m going to decline,” said Fineberg. “I don’t want to walk into a situation where you guys are unhappy with the agreement and then that translates into you being unhappy with me.”

Despite the heated discussion, several trustees and residents spoke to the significance of hiring an experienced administrator and compensating that official properly as Oak Creek faces considerable growth and development. 

“Having a master’s degree in government administration, having experience as a town administrator, these things are very, very important,” said Trustee Bernie Gagne. “This isn’t the maintenance guy at the airport, this isn’t an electrical contractor … this is really really important for the future of the town.”

“Oak Creek is on the precipice of change and has a lot going on,” said a resident at the close of the discussion. “Let’s change the tone a little and say, ‘It’s exciting to have a new town administrator and a really great leader.'”

In the end, the board voted to approve the contract, with McElfish casting the sole dissenting vote. The letter includes amendments to clarify remote work expectations, require that Fineberg provide a lease agreement for housing assistance and specify his attendance at community events. According to the contract, Fineberg is slated to begin the position in early June.

The town is also seeking to hire a deputy clerk and a new police chief after the town’s former police chief, Ralph Maher, stepped away from the post last year.