By CHARLES RICHARDS
eParisExtra.com
Members of the Paris City Council are expected tonight to narrow their search for a new city manager to two or three finalists.
Since Thursday afternoon, each councilman has had a brochure containing the resumes, cover letters and a search firm’s background checks on the 10 applicants that were considered the best of last week’s run-through of 34 applicants from 19 states.
Mayor AJ Hashmi said all 10 fit his personal criteria — currently employed and either managers from growing cities smaller than Paris or assistant managers of larger cities.
“I think all of us are very pleased,” Hashmi said. “I am confident that our next city manager will come from this group.”
The council will reach agreement tonight on two or three finalists and have their search firm bring them back for interviews as quickly as can be arranged – at a special meeting if necessary.
The council in November hired Keller-based Strategic Government Resources (SGR) to conduct a search after the council’s own months-long hunt attracted about 70 applicants, none of whom generated excitement among a majority of the council. Most of the applicants were former city managers in between jobs.
SGR's Chet Nolan
Chet Nolan, the SGR official handling the search, said the company’s preference is to conduct its own video interviews of the finalists and bring those back as the next step. Then, SGR would invite to Paris whomever the council wanted to interview personally.
“I’m not interested in the video interviews,” Hashmi said Sunday. He said the council will want the search firm to bring the two or three finalists directly to Paris for interviews that will determine who will be offered the job.
“We want to get this done,” the mayor said.
Hashmi wants the finalists to have done their homework on Paris and to be able to show that their cities have progressed steadily under their watch.
Identities of the applicants have not been disclosed, in order to protect their situations with their current employer.
Paris has been without a city manager since Kevin Carruth resigned on Jan. 1, 2011, after accepting a $140,000 buyout. He was hired in August 2007 and had a contract that was to have expired on Aug. 1, 2011.
Finance director Gene Anderson has been the interim manager since early 2011.
Carruth filed for and received a total of more than $10,000 in worker’s unemployment compensation over a six-month period in 2011. He was hired in December as city manager in Rockport, Texas. Formerly, he was a city manager at Daingerfield, Hillsboro and Brownwood and interim city manager at Prosper.
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Charles Richards Charles Richards moved to Paris in 2004 after retiring from a 40-year career in journalism – the last 26 years as a news writer and sports writer with The Associated Press in Dallas and Washington, D.C. In mid-2004, The Paris News coaxed him out of retirement, and he began covering the police, court and regional beat for The Paris News. Then in early 2005, he was switched to coverage of a sharply divided Paris City Council. He was appointed by the City Council in 2006 to the 12-member City Charter Review Commission, which extensively rewrote the outmoded document. His writing awards include two first-place awards in statewide competition for feature writing. The most recent was his 2005 story on a Paris doctor’s startling use of leeches in a successful attempt to re-attach a man’s severed ear. Over his career, Richards’ interview subjects include Alabama Gov. George Wallace, President Bill Clinton, President George W. Bush, David Koresh, Arnold Palmer, Muhammad Ali and numerous other political and sports figures. He is an alumnus of Texas Tech, where he was editor of the school newspaper. He lives in Paris with his wife, Barbara, who is retired after 30 years as a teacher and high school counselor.
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