City to interview interim administrator prospect
Last Updated on 12/4/2008
Published on 10/9/2008
By Tommy Howard
thoward@gtowntimes.com
Georgetown City Council will have a special meeting on Thursday, Oct. 16 in Council Chambers.
The meeting begins at 3:30 p.m. Council members plan to go into executive session to interview an applicant for the position of interim city administrator.
The need for an interim administrator came about after former City Administrator Steve Thomas was allowed to resign, following efforts in recent months to fire him or allow him to resign or be terminated. His last day with the City was Friday, Oct. 3.
Thomas initially was hired as an interim administrator in August 2005 to succeed Boyd Johnson, who retired from the City of Georgetown. Johnson later became director of the Georgetown County Planning Department.
After Thomas unsuccessfully fought to be reinstated by the City of Conway, where he had been fired in the summer of 2005, he was named as the full-time Georgetown City Administrator.
One stipulation of his "Employment Agreement" with Georgetown was that he would move to the city from Conway within 12 months. That never happened, and was among the reasons that several members of City Council sought his removal.
There is no indication who the interim candidate is. A special meeting of City Council was held on Oct. 1, where Thomas had offered to stay on the job as interim. That offer had no takers, and the five members of Council present at the meeting voted to seek help from the Municipal Association of South Carolina and elsewhere to find an interim administrator.
In addition, the city is advertising for a permanent city administrator. The successful candidate, according to advertisements, must be "a team player" and must move within the city within three months.
The regular meeting of Council will follow. It begins early at 4:30 p.m., instead of the normal 5:30 p.m.
|
This position is simply interim, not permanent. Maybe an outside, fresh pair of eyes, to examine the current status is a good thing. After all, they won't owe any favors. Hopefully, they will have a clean view and prospective, to evaluate the current staff and state of the city. We need an educated professional who can make qualified good decisions to better the city. Then when a permanent is hired, who hopefully possesses the same passion for this city and its residents, they will be able to inspire people, and allow them to understand the importance of the role they play in order to be effective, bring together a team of city employees with a common cause, and install the passion they have for the city. Posted by Voting & Taxpaying Resident on 10/11/2008
|
|
When will you people wake up to reality. We have people in Georgetown who would make a better person for this job than someone outside the city. People who know the city and how it should be run and not some person from another State or city to run it because people from this area knows better how to conduct the business. What we need is a person who will look after the tax payer first and put the city second. We can’t continue to raise taxes and spend it like its free I am sure there are areas that can be cut from the budget and lower the taxes on the property owner. Tax payers of Georgetown you need to demand that things be done different that what they have been done in the past five years. Posted by table1945 on 10/11/2008
|
