Melody Cornelius hired as the City of Oakridge’s Finance Director

The City of Oakridge is pleased to announce the hiring of Melody Cornelius as the city’s new permanent Finance Director.  There were 3 excellent candidates who applied and interviewed for the job on 9/5/24.

Melody Cornelius was selected by a 6-member hiring panel, consisting of Oakridge City Councilor Kelly Brewer, City Administrator James Cleavenger, Community Development Director Rick Zylstra, City Recorder/Accounts Payable Clerk Jackie Taylor, Senior Utility Billing Clerk Leah Brewer, and Municipal Court Clerk/Police Admin. Sgt. Mikal McPherson.

After scoring the candidates’ application materials and interviews, the hiring panel used STAR Voting to determine the winner, by ranking all 3 candidates on a scale of 1-5 (5 being the top score).  In the “scoring round” of the STAR Voting process, Cornelius received 30 points.  The 2nd place candidate received 22 points and the 3rd place candidate received 11 points.  During the “runoff round” of the STAR Voting process between the two candidates with the highest number of points from the scoring round, Cornelius was unanimously preferred over the 2nd place candidate by all 6 panelists.

  Cornelius’s compensation and employment contract are still being negotiated and must be approved by the Oakridge City Council before being finalized.

As the former Mayor (2021-2022) and City Recorder (2015-2019) for the City of Westfir, Cornelius brings a wealth of government accounting experience to the City of Oakridge, where she has been serving as the Interim Finance Director for the past several months.  Cornelius is a graduate of the University of Arizona and was a high school teacher before moving to Oregon.  She lives in Westfir with her 2 sons and a small pack of rescued dogs.

The City of Oakridge is excited to welcome Cornelius to the team!