BY TRACY LEE TATE
Special to the Times
LAKE BUTLER—The City of Lake Butler is still searching for candidates to fill the vacant city manager position. The position has been re-advertised, and a new selection of applicants, 20 in all, were read and discussed by commission members at a special meeting on Wed. Nov.15, 2023. The commissioners had received the applications ahead of time, so they all had their picks and comments ready for discussion.
Commissioner Annette Redman started out the discussion by saying that she found, upon reading the first 15 applications to come in, that many had little or no city of county experience. She noticed that several were in medical fields, social work, were business owners and one was a former St. Lucie County Commissioner. Redman said only one applicant really stood out to her as a candidate and that was Kimberly Hayes, who is currently employed as the Solid Waste Director (as well as running mosquito and animal control) for Union County. Vice-Mayor Melissa Hendrix agreed that Hayes was also the applicant who impressed her the most. She was also seen as a standout by Commissioner Rondoll Huggins and Mayor David Stegall.
Stegall said he thought that several of the applicants seemed more like they might be more qualified to apply for the city financial director position, which the commission will seek to fill once a manager is hired. Hendrix noted that “there is a world of difference between business finance and government finance” and urged caution in inferring competency in the latter from the experience listed on the applications. “We need someone who can handle budgeting and serve as one of the checks and balances on the finance position.”
After the discussion of the applications, the question arose as to whether to hold another special meeting to discuss any applications received between the date of the meeting until the special meeting or rather to go ahead and hold a special meeting for the purpose of interviewing the three candidates agreed upon. The board voted unanimously to hold a special meeting on Thurs. Nov. 30 to conduct interviews with the three candidates picked and deal with other applications that might come in (no more as of press time) later if necessary. This decision is likely the result of what happened during the initial advertisement for applications earlier this year, where two of the three selected for interviews had already located other jobs in the interim between their application and the scheduling of interviews.
The three applicants selected are Kimberly Hayes, Jennifer Johnson and Olajuwon White. The plan is to conduct three 30-minute interviews at the meeting. All of the commissioners have generated questions they wish to ask and City Attorney John Maines has cleared them with a human resources professional that sometimes assists the city to make sure the questions asked do not violate the civil and health confidentiality regulations currently required by the state and federal government. Whether or not the commission is prepared to hire someone after these interviews was not stated, but all of the commissioners have commented over the past three months that they want to find the right person for the job and hire them as a key part of assisting the board’s work to help the city recovers from the overspending seem last year.
