45 hopefuls apply for Homer City Manager position

During Monday night’s Homer City Council work session, known as the committee of the whole meeting, Personnel Director Andrea Browning had some good news regarding the search for a new city manager. On the day after the application period closed, she reported there were 45 hopefuls for the job.
    She said the candidate selection is even stronger than it was a few months ago.
    “The last time, as you can remember, I broke them up into three groups, A, B, and C, and then just placed them alphabetically. So the first group meets the educational requirements and it has the municipal experience. The second group meets just the educational requirements, but maybe has no municipal experience. And the third group does not appear to meet the qualifications,” Browning said. “Right now you have a really large Group A. And the largest group is B. And so, you know, there's some of those that you may want to look at and think they have some applicable work experience. But you have a lot of educated people in this pool. But you have a bigger group of Group A this time, so you're gonna have more to pick from I think.”
    And, just as the city did when looking for a replacement for Katie Koester over the winter, Browning said the city will again be getting input from a citizen’s panel.
    “Aaron Weiser agreed, Barbara Howard, Kate Finn, and Matt Clarke are going to help out again with myself,” she said, “So I'm really looking forward to that, and I think you're going to be happy with the applicants. You have a pretty strong pool.”
    Browning said she will gather up the list of questions given to applicants from the last go-round, and wants to combine them with others to present to the city council.
    “So my thought, unless council has a different direction they'd like to go, is in your packets, your binders, I'd like to include a list of questions that you asked the last time, so that you have those. I'll break it up so that you have what was asked during telephonic and during in person, just for review. And then I'd like to give you a kind of a suggested list,” Browning said. “The committee last time had really great questions and we spent a lot of time putting them together, but we had a lot of other questions and they're just not enough time to ask. So I'd like to make some suggestions. And then of course, you all can tailor that list however you'd like to.”
    Browning told the council the schedule has an applicant review set for May 26 at the Committee of the Whole meeting, and telephone interviews with finalists during the weeks of June 1 or June 8, depending on council approval.