Published: January 17, 2008 11:41 pm      

City manager candidates face interviews

Hopefuls are from Ronceverte, Illinois, North Carolina

FAIRMONT — City officials and members of the public are slated to meet today and evaluate the three candidates vying to become Fairmont’s next city manager.

Carefully chosen last week by a 12-member committee appointed in December to sift through the applications, the three position hopefuls all hail from outside Marion County, and only one is a West Virginia resident.

A press release issued Thursday from the city lists the applicants as James W. Snider from Kewanne, Ill., Blaine Oborn from Ronceverte, and Richard Douglas from Raeford, N.C.

Snider and Douglas are currently employed as city managers in their respective cities, and Oborn is the city administrator.

Beginning at 1 p.m. today at the city’s Public Safety Building, the candidates will face three interview sessions. Two of these will be private sessions conducted by the city’s department heads and council members, and one will be a public session with the community.

The community interview is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m., and Mayor Scott Sears said members of the public are encouraged to attend and participate in the process.

Ultimately, Sears said one of these hopefuls is slated to be officially named to the position at the next scheduled council meeting Jan. 22. He said council is expected to go into executive session at the beginning of the meeting and then come out and name the new employee.

Sears added that the process the city is going through now is likely similar to the one used to name retiring City Manager Bruce McDaniel to the position 10-plus years ago.

He said the city is essentially looking to hire someone with unique leadership skills, a proactive and aggressive vision for economic development, and a positive and open working relationship with officials and the public.

“Being that Fairmont really has a lot of projects on our plate, we are looking for someone who can very easily keep these projects moving at a quick pace to get them to fruition,” Sears explained. “And we are just looking for someone who has a very good rapport in working with their staff and with the department heads, and a very good open-door policy.”

He added that officials are also seeking someone with experience negotiating government contracts, which he said all of the three remaining applicants have.

“They all had experience negotiating contracts, and in today’s world, that is a very important issue,” he said.

The search committee met a total of three times following its official formation last month and narrowed the total 25 applicants down to the six most qualified. Members then conducted phone interviews with them and chose the best three.

Sears, who sat on the committee, said the work of the group was very important to the overall process of choosing a qualified person to fill the position.

“We had six very qualified applicants, and it was a tough decision to get those to three,” he said. “With us choosing the three most qualified, I feel we are going to be very satisfied in the hiring of a new city manager.”

The group was made up of members Dixie Yann, the Rev. D.D. Meighen, Greg Hinton and Ron Straight from the community; city employees Matt Pigott, Dave Whiteman and Joe Feltz; Sears and councilmen Matt Delligatti and Bill Burdick.

During next Tuesday’s meeting, a resolution is also slated to be introduced calling for the council to name someone to serve as interim city manager until the new employee can be brought in.

Sears said this is necessary because the current jobs of all of the applicants likely require a certain amount of notice before they can leave. He added that this person will likely be McDaniel, who he said will also likely stay on hand with the city to help with the transition once the new employee comes in.

E-mail Mallory Panuska at mpanuska@timeswv.com.