The Bainbridge Island City Council will hold a closed-door executive session to talk about City Manager Morgan Smith at its meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 11.

The session will be held at the start of the council’s business meeting, and the council will adjourn to 30-minute private meeting. (The council is allowed, under state law, to exclude the public as the discussion will be held to “evaluate the qualifications of an applicant for employment or to review the performance of a public employee.”)

Smith was hired as city manager in October 2018 after eight years as deputy city manager on Bainbridge. She replaced Doug Schulze, the previous city manager, who resigned to take a job in Banning, California.

Smith, who began working for the city of Bainbridge Island as deputy city manager in October 2010, has an employment agreement with the city that expires Dec. 31, 2020.

The council conducted a performance evaluation of Smith in early 2019, and Smith was highly praised by the council, and was told she was doing “a great job.” Some said her performance had exceeded councilmembers’ expectations.

The council had originally planned to talk about Smith, and the city manager’s position, at its meeting this week.

But at last Tuesday’s meeting, Councilman Kol Medina asked that an agenda item labeled as “City Manager Contract and City Manager Search” be removed from the Jan. 28 council agenda and postponed until a future date so the council could discuss the matter privately.

“I think there’s a whole lot of that discussion that we need to have in a private place because it could be detrimental to a future search,” Medina said.

The council agreed. The topic is now the second item on the council’s business agenda for Feb. 11, following the call to order and roll call.