Applications are in for new city manager
By Ty Johnson
Published in News on April 13, 2011 1:46 PM
The city made progress toward hiring a permanent city manager Tuesday during a special noon meeting of the City Council.
Following its regular business, including discussion of the initial draft of the city's election redistricting, the council moved into closed session to discuss the personnel matter. The council was briefed on the search by Jim Mercer of The Mercer Group, a management consulting firm.
Mercer said he was unable to comment on the search, but Mayor Al King released some details of the meeting. King said there were about 64 applications received for the position and that the council had sorted through 20 during the meeting. He later commended the council for getting so much done during the session, which lasted about 45 minutes.
He said Mercer would narrow the field down to about a dozen before the Council would meet again to discuss the next step.
"We will decide, of the 12, how many we're going to interview," King said, predicting there would be five to eight candidates who would be asked to interview.
"Now we're going to set a time and a date for (Mercer)] to come back and a time and a date to conduct some interviews," he said. "(City Clerk Melissa Brewer) is now going to be working with Mercer to find a time that's convenient for him and us."
Once hired, the new city manager will begin a similar search to fill a vacancy, King said.
"Once the manager gets here, the manager's going to have to hire a police chief," he said, adding that the interim police chief, Maj. Jeff Stewart, will continue to serve until a replacement is hired.