STEUBENVILLE — The five-person committee overseeing the city manager search process will begin accepting applications a little over a week from now.

Current City Manager Jim Mavromatis has told council he plans to retire in March, prompting council to begin searching for his successor now.

Councilman at large Joel Walker told council Tuesday the committee, which he heads, will begin accepting applications from individuals interested in on Aug. 1.

“If you read the last page, it says we’ll start accepting them on Aug. 1 through Aug. 29,” Walker said. “That’s a date but it’s not set in stone, because if we don’t find someone by that time, we’ll keep looking until we actually fill the position.”

The document spells out the minimum qualifications that candidates must meet, which includes an undergraduate degree in public administration, business administration, accounting or a related field, along with at least two years’ experience as a manager/administrator or assistant manager/administrator for a municipality or county, or at least five years experience as an executive officer or chief fiscal officer of any business or governmental entity. Walker said those interested will be asked to submit a cover letter, resume and contact information for three professional references.

“Then we, as a committee, if we want to actually get an actual application made up, we can do that, but we’re going to start the process of receiving information from people that are interested in becoming the city manager,” he said.

Council also will have to decide if they’re okay with how the proposed charter changes will appear on the November election ballot.

Law Director Costa Mastros said he’d assumed each change would be voted individually but was notified by the elections board that the most logical way to proceed would be to present them to voters grouped into issues, which would require eight votes. To consider the proposed changes individually would involve 28 different votes.

“They only separate out the issues and not the sub-issues, so you have to vote on the entire issue,” Mastros said. “And then I had a call with the director, and he said, ‘Look, this is how it is done. This is what you have done in the past. If you want to do it differently, you can. You will create 28 proposed issues that people have to vote on.'”

Mastros said Elections Director Bob Gale was concerned with the additional cost, “plus, if you break it out and some pass but some don’t, you might have a conflict in your charter and at that point it would create an issue with your charter.”

The second reading of the city’s Fiscal Year 2025-29 consolidated plan and FY 2025 one-year action plan was heard.

Councilman Tracy McManamon sunshined legislation to put five-year renewal levies on the ballot for:

• the 0.7 percent (seven-tenths of one percent) municipal income tax, which generates revenue used to fund street improvements, capital improvements and equipment, parks and recreation and the general fund;

• the 0.3 percent (three-tenths of one percent) municipal income tax, which generates funds for salaries and street improvements.

He also sunshined proposed amendments to the city’s codified ordinances for both.

Councilman Royal Mayo suggested earmarking a bigger chunk of the 0.7 percent income tax funds for recreation, which currently only gets $100,000 a year for capital needs. Councilman Mike Hernon, however, said while he agrees funding is a problem, “I think that’s worth bringing up as part of the budget process, rather than us putting it into an ordinance that’s then restricting (how the money is used) forever.”

Councilman Dave Albaugh also pointed out that any council member can call a committee meeting, whether they chair that particular committee or not. That became a point of contention after Mayo recently voiced his displeasure with McManamon calling a recreation committee meeting to introduce council to a Missouri firm that specializes in helping communities develop inclusive parks. Mayo chairs recreation and had complained he was not consulted prior to the meeting.