Here’s why interim leader Josh Gruber says he won’t be Hilton Head’s next town manager
It’s been over four months since Hilton Head Island Town Manager Steve Riley announced he would retire at the end of 2020, but the island is no closer to knowing who will succeed him than it was on June 2.
Last week, Mayor John McCann announced that Josh Gruber, currently assistant town manager, would become the interim town manager starting Jan. 1. The announcement came after an executive search process fell apart and the search firm withdrew from doing any further work with the town.
Although McCann has promised to revisit the search process in January after the Town Council discusses it at its annual workshop, many residents saw Gruber’s placement in the interim as a funnel into the full-time job.
But Gruber, asked by The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette on Thursday, said he will not apply for the town manager position with Hilton Head.
He also said he would not apply for any position in Beaufort County government, including the newly vacated administrator position, which he was pushed into in 2018 before being swiftly yanked out by county council members.
Right now, two of the most influential public positions — the county administrator and Hilton Head’s town manager — are open, but residents worry that the associated drama with filling those vacancies may push potential candidates away and erode people’s confidence in their government.
Those two top jobs will have significant authority on issues such as how much they pay in taxes for law enforcement, how U.S. 278 and the Hilton Head bridges will be configured and whether tourists pay for parking at the beaches.
Gruber’s history
Part of the dissatisfaction residents expressed with the search process for Riley’s replacement, which began in July using executive search firm Colin Baenziger & Associates, was the appearance that it was being heavily influenced by members of the Town Council who wanted Gruber to serve as town manager.
When Gruber was named as one of four finalists, and two immediately withdrew from consideration for unrelated reasons, the Town Council suspended the search.
“We believe that two interviewees (do) not validate the process nor the need for a town manager to take Hilton Head Island into the future,” Town Council member Tom Lennox said Sept. 24. “It isn’t a large enough sample.”
Gruber is no stranger to government turmoil.
He became assistant town manager on Hilton Head in 2018 after a controversial tenure as county attorney and assistant county administrator for Beaufort County.
Appointed interim administrator for Beaufort County following the retirement of Gary Kubic, Gruber was unexpectedly voted to be the county’s new administrator in 2018 — though he wasn’t a finalist. Less than an hour later, council members retracted their votes and chose another candidate, who later rejected the offer.
The next day, Gruber was given a controversial $24,000 consulting contract by the county, angering several on the county council. In 2019, the S.C. Ethics Commission dismissed an allegation that Gruber broke state law when he wrote the contract for himself.
Who decides what?
Now that the town council has agreed on Gruber as the interim town manager, McCann will negotiate a contract with him for those services.
Gruber said the interim contract will need to be approved by the Town Council, so once it’s negotiated, it will be available to the public. He said he doesn’t know who else will be involved in the negotiation.
How the executive search restarts is still up in the air, though.
McCann said the council will discuss next steps at its upcoming annual workshop. Earlier this month, he unilaterally moved the workshop, typically held in mid-December, to Jan. 28.
Since the council discusses personnel and contractual matters, that means at least part of the workshop, which is public and does not usually include executive sessions, will be behind closed doors.
It also leaves a wide window for Gruber to act as the town manager, since the town will be looking to hire a new search firm for the second executive search.
Search firm out
The town must hire a new search firm because Baenziger and his team withdrew from the town’s search process.
Baenzier said he did so because “essentially we had a difference of opinion on how the search would proceed.”
He said Friday that he and the town have not negotiated how the remainder of the firm’s contract will be paid.
The town was to pay $26,500 to the executive search firm. As of Oct. 19, the town had paid Colin Baenziger & Associates $14,000, according to documents obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request.
Baenziger said he’d submitted a bill to the town for $10,000 to reflect the three phases of the search his firm had successfully completed.
When asked about Gruber’s inclusion in the list of candidates and his plan not to apply for the full-time job, Baenziger said that is probably for the best.
“In our searches, 75 % to 80% of the time the internal candidate gets the job, and a lot of of really great people won’t apply if there’s an internal candidate.”
“I told (the council) if they really wanted the best candidates they needed to not have Josh apply,” he said.
This story was originally published October 26, 2020 at 4:45 AM.
