SEQUIM — Interim City Manager and Police Chief Robert Spinks has been diagnosed with an acoustic neuroma, a non-cancerous tumor on his auditory nerve that if left untreated will kill him, according to his doctor.

Spinks told the Sequim City Council on Monday night that he will go to Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle next week to arrange for surgery to remove the 2-centimeter growth, which is near his left ear.

Spinks, 49, recommended that the council hire Prothman, a Bellevue-based executive search firm, to find an interim city manager to replace him.

The council voted 4-1 in favor of that recommendation, with council member Erik Erichsen casting the “no” vote and fellow member Ken Hays abstaining. Erichsen called hiring the so-called headhunter a waste of money, while Hays said he felt the recommendation was being “rammed down [his] throat.”

Over the weekend, three finalists for the job of permanent city manager came to Sequim for interviews, but the council was unable to close a deal on salary, benefits and a potential severance package with any of them.

Spinks said that after several days of hospitalization and an unknown length of time for recovery, he will be able to serve as interim city manager until a replacement is hired.

Acting manager

But during the time later this month when he expects to be unable to work, he has recommended that City Attorney Craig Ritchie step in as acting city manager.

Spinks’ second in command at the Police Department, Lt. Sheri Crain, is on medical leave following knee surgery. Spinks did not name an acting police chief.

“My No. 2 person will be on very limited duty,” Spinks said of Crain.

He added that the recommendation to hire Prothman would not have come so soon “if I didn’t have a tumor in my head.”

Spinks said he won’t know his surgery date for another week and a half. To do anything else but hire a recruiter now, he added, “would not be in the city’s best interest.”

Councilman Bill Huizinga, in urging the others to vote for the recruiter, added: “If we hire Prothman, we could have an interim city manager here within weeks.”

The recruiter will next spring restart the search for a permanent city manager, “when the waters are calm,” Spinks said. He and the council agreed to hope that the position will be filled by fall 2009, before three City Council seats go up for election in November.

In an interview, Spinks said the neuroma’s cause is unknown, but that there have been studies linking the type of growth to cell-phone use.

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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.