The City Council met on Tuesday, Nov. 9 and will meet again on Thursday, Nov. 11.
Two long meetings in one week would ordinarily result in a good bit of news, but since the meetings are entirely in closed session except for a call to order and a motion to go into closed session, on the news front it’s pretty quiet.
The meetings are being held to interview candidates for the open position of Greensboro city manager. Former City Manager David Parrish resigned effective June 30 and Assistant City Manager Chris Wilson was named interim city manager. Unlike the three previous interim city managers – Denise Turner Roth, Jim Westmoreland and Parrish – who all were promoted to city manager, Wilson is reportedly not interested in the job of city manager.
Mayor Nancy Vaughan said that the City Council narrowed the number of candidates to three last week and this week the City Council is interviewing those three candidates in person.
These interviews are being held at the Sheraton Hotel on Gate City Boulevard for additional privacy. If the candidates were being interviewed at city hall it would be difficult to keep their names from the public.
Vaughan said the City Council completed the interviews with two candidates on Tuesday. She said, “We still have another person to interview and then the council needs to come to a consensus.”
Vaughan said she expected the council to hold another closed session next week to compare notes and come to a consensus because, while all the councilmembers were interviewing all three candidates, the council was interviewing them in small groups rather than all together largely because of scheduling conflicts.
Vaughan said, “We have three really good candidates.”
And she added, “It’s possible we could begin discussions with a candidate next week.”
“Begin discussions” means begin contract negotiations with the candidate that is the choice of the consensus of City Council.
If that is the case and those contract negotiations don’t get bogged down, there could be announcement about the new Greensboro city manager before Thanksgiving.
