Meet The Candidates for The Dalles City Manager
By Tom Peterson
The Dalles City Council has a huge decision before it this week.
Who will they choose to be the next City Manager to usher in the coming era of growth for the community’s foreseeable future?
With major infrastructure, housing and revitalization projects that will require partnerships, compromise and thoughtful guidance, who is primed to make it happen? Who can invigorate the downtown core? Who can navigate code to make housing more affordable? Who can nurture partnerships to find housing for service workers or displaced by rent and property prices?
“I think it is the most important decision this Council will make,” said Mayor Rich Mays late last week. “This is the chief operating officer for the city of The Dalles and its highest-ranking official. We must obviously hire the right person for the job.”
The job had an advertised wage of $145,000.
Meet them on Wednesday, March 16
There are four candidates for the position:
Daniel Hunter, the City’s current Human Resources Director;
Matthew Klebes, Wasco County Administrative Services Director;
Troy Rayburn, City of Sister’s Public Works Project Coordinator
Matthew “Selby” Selby, Interim Assistant City Manager of Yakima
They will be at The Dalles Civic Auditorium for an open house starting at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday after a tour of the City. The public is welcome to come and meet them and ask questions. It’s an important part of the hiring process as it is both a stress test as well as a chance to get a feel for their style of communication - the number one asset in inspiring and getting the best out of a workforce of 106 city employees.
Interviews on March 17 - 2 Interview Panels
Two panels will interview the candidates during 40-minute question and answer sessions beginning at 9 a.m. on March 17 at City Hall.
The first interview panel will be made up of City Council- Mayor Rich Mays and Councilors Darcy Long, Rod Runyon, Dan Richardson, Scott Randall and Tim McGlothlin. The interview will be held in an executive session.
The second interview panel consists of stakeholders and includes Steve Lawrence, Corliss Marsh, JorgeBarragan, Andrea Klaas (Port of The Dalles Dir.), Nate Stice, Karly Aparicio, Scott McKay, Dave Anderson (Public Works Dir), Tom Worthy (city Police Chief), Angie Wilson (City Finance Director), Megan Thompson (The Dalles Area Chamber of Commerce), and Addie Case.
Councilors will then receive feedback from three of the stakeholders and will discuss the merits of each candidate.
Council could come into an open session that day and choose a candidate by vote or it could be delayed until an open meeting on Friday, March 18. There is always an off chance none of the candidates are selected and an application process is rebooted.
Brief background on each candidate
Daniel Hunter, 52, The Dalles
Daniel Hunter, 52, The Dalles
Hunter, a native of Oregon, came to The Dalles in 2014 and started with the city as an Administrative Fellow under then-City Manager Nolan Young. He worked on Mainstreet projects, economic development.
He points to the bronze sculpture at Lewis & Clark Events Park as a major achievement from that period. He said he was able to bring the project from a price tag of $2 million to $200,000 after six others had struggled with it.
Hunter also took on the expansion of the Library on 7th St. Place, which added a children’s wing andf 2,300 square feet. It was completed in 2017. Hunter said original costs were estimated at $690,000 but went to more than $2million when it went out to bid.
“We had to value engineer the project with the architects and the contractor to get it - the price - down to where people were happy,” he said. The project came in at $1.9 million at completion.
Hunter, a fly fisherman that goes for bass on the John Day and Deschutes Rivers, has also served as City Manager pro tem in recent months when Julie Krueger took leave.
If selected for the job, he said he looked forward to the City’s completion of its 2040 Vision plan.
“It will give me goals,” he said. “We’ll have to figure out how to get there and develop a plan.”
Click here to read his resume.
Matthew Klebes, 36, The Dalles
Matthew Klebes, 36, The Dalles
Klebes also came to The Dalles in 2014 as a Resource Assistance for Rural Environments employee and immediately went to work with The Dalles Mainstreet.
Klebes said he worked with downtown property owners, the City and nonprofits as he took the organization from an annual budget of $5,000 to $100,000, according to his resume.
In his most recent work, Klebes has been heavily involved in the Strategic Investment Program that nurtured the deal between the City, Wasco County and Google for two new proposed data centers in the Port of The Dalles.
He is still in the middle of the process of helping negotiate how future Community Service Fees - millions of dollars in annual payments - will be allocated amongst taxing districts and coffers for community projects.
He also served s an assistant to The Dalles City Manager from 2016 to 2019, working on the deal to secure matching funds for a $7.3 million state allocation to build the dormitory and skill center at Columbia Gorge Community College.
Klebes, a SCUBA diver, is married to Krystal Klebes a teacher at The Dalles High School. The couple has two children ages 1 and 4.
He said the overlap of his City, County projects with the State has provided him with “interesting and challenging work.”
Click here to read his resume.
Troy Rayburn, 60, Sisters
Troy Rayburn, 60, Sisters, Native of the Dalles. TDHS Class of 1980
“I was the high school mascot at one time,” Rayburn said of his years at TDHS.
Rayburn started his career in The Dalles City Manger’s office working as an intern while he earned his degree from Oregon State University in Public Administration.
“I’d be honored to return home and spend the rest of my career in The Dalles,” he said.
Rayburn said he had recently taken a lateral move from Redmond - population 65,000 to Sisters - population 2,600- changing from urban renewal and economic development specialist to a public works project coordinator.
He said his current job has allowed him to learn about myriad programs, including parks, water, wastewater.
“I’ve had a rewarding and successful career in program and project management and from what they tell me, I am pretty good at it,” he said. He pointed out that he led the effort to design and contract a park expansion project including Centennial Park and 7th Street Plaza in Redmond at a cost of $3.3 million.
“My greatest strength is my ability to coordinate and manage staff across various departments to achieve goals and objectives,” he said.
Rayburn said he also worked on workforce housing while employed with the City of Aspen, Colorado and also directed urban renewal grants to revitalize buildings in its business district.
To read his resume, click here.
Matthew “Selby” Selby, 49, Yakima
Matthew “Selby” Selby, 49, Yakima
Selby said he is currently working on the houseless problem in Yakima and is disposing of surplus city property so that Habitat for Humanity could use it. He said he had a hand in developing a program to create an ordinance to eliminate service development fees for water and sewer connections for affordable housing.
He has been in his position as interim Assistant City Manager at Yakima since November 2021 and prior to that, he spent five years as the Economic Development Director at Acton, Mass.
“I had a mutual separation with the town of Acton,” he said. “We reached a separation agreement and I got some severance. They went their way, and I went mine.”
He said after he left, the City of Acton reduced the responsibility of the position and reduced the pay for the job. “It had nothing to do with my performance,” he said.
Selby described himself as an avid snowboarder, kayaker and future kiteboarder if he gets the job in The Dalles.
When asked if he had undertaken a $28.5 million water upgrade as the one The Dalles faces with new Google agreements, he said no.
“I have not overseen infrastructure of that magnitude but there is a benefit to the city for sure and it’s something I could wrap my head around,” he said.
Selby pointed to his economic development work in Acton, noting he was able to usher through a deal to bring Insulet Corporation to developing a $200 million manufacturing plant on long-abandoned property. He said the company that produces insulin pumps brought 1,000 jobs with an average salary of $85,000.
To read his resume, click here.
