The city of Camas on Tuesday announced that City Administrator Nina Regor will be taking an indefinite leave of absence for medical reasons.
Mayor Scott Higgins has appointed Human Resources Director Jennifer Gorsuch to serve as the acting city administrator. On Friday, the city will hold a special meeting to discuss signing a contract with consultant Paul Lewis to provide the city with administrative assistance. The meeting will take place at 4:30 p.m. at City Hall.
Regor’s leave has no end date and is considered “indefinite,” according to the city.
The terms of the city’s contract with Paul Lewis could be between two weeks and three months, Higgins said.
“(Regor) needs to focus on her health, and we want her to do that,” he said.
A newcomer to Camas, Regor succeeded longtime City Administrator Lloyd Halverson at the beginning of this year. She’d previously served as city manager in Cloverdale, Calif., a city of 8,500 people located in Sonoma County.
Lewis, a Vancouver-based financial consultant, has worked for cities throughout Clark County. He served as Ridgefield’s interim city administrator for several months in 2012. He was also Vancouver’s finance director from 1999 to 2004 and was the city’s interim assistant city manager from November 2010 to March 2011.
Recently, he’s worked as a financial consultant for the planned long-term merger between the Camas and Washougal fire departments. He will focus primarily on helping the Camas complete its 2014 budget.
Gorsuch, a six-year Camas employee, will provide daily administrative support.
In a recent draft of the city’s 2014 budget, Gorsuch was tapped to become the city’s “administrative services director,” a new position that’s part of a planned restructuring within the city. Her temporary role as acting city administrator will be similar to the position outlined in the recent budget draft, Higgins said.
The costs of hiring an outside consultant and temporarily reconfiguring Gorsuch’s role were not immediately available Tuesday.
Tyler Graf: 360-735-4517; http://twitter.com/col_smallcities; tyler.graf@columbian.com.
