DISCUSSION — City Council members discuss the process they’ll be using to select Steubenville’s next city manager. The man currently holding that title, Jim Mavromatis, told council several months ago he’s planning to retire in mid-March after a decade in the job. -- Linda Harris

STEUBENVILLE — City Council got its first look Tuesday at the resumes of the 10 people who want to be Steubenville’s next city manager.

City Manager Jim Mavromatis, who’s held the job for 10 years, told council months ago that he’s planning to retire around mid-March, prompting council to start looking for a successor.

Councilman at large Joel Walker said he’s pleased with the response: A total of 12 resumes were submitted, but two came in after the application deadline and had to be discarded sight unseen.

Of the 10 that survived the initial cut, two don’t meet the minimum job requirements spelled out in the city charter: An undergraduate degree in public administration, business administration, accounting or a related field and at least two years’ experience as a manager/administrator or assistant manager/administrator for any municipality or county; or two years comparable experience as a manager/administrator or assistant manager/administrator for any municipality or county; or at least five years experience as an executive officer or chief fiscal officer of any business or governmental entity.

“There’s 10 resumes (submitted on time) but two of these 10 are not qualified,” he said. “…They don’t meet all the qualifications, so they do not, will not be considered as we move forward.”

But Walker also admitted they don’t know yet if all eight of the qualified applicants are still interested in the job: The deadline to apply was six weeks ago, at the end of August, and a lot can change.

“As of this moment, we have no clue,” he said, pointing out that “this is unchartered water for us as a council…We have to figure out what our next step is going to be.”

He said they’ll be sending disclosures forms to each valid applicant, along with an as-yet undrafted message that would invite the eight of them to indicate their continuing interest in the job as well as sign forms authorizing the city to begin checking references and looking into other variables.

“(The) authorization forms for the people to sign are for us to actually get into their backgrounds, into their education and their finances and everything else, then we can get a better grasp of the people,” he said.

Walker said after the meeting he’s pleased they have a field of eight to work with in this initial phase.

“Their qualifications look good but we have to get their permission to contact their schools and others,” he said, reminding council that years ago a previous council hired a city manager without checking references and ended up bringing in someone who was on the verge of being fired by their previous employer.

He said Law Director Costa Mastros had approved forms they’ll be sending to the eight candidates to sign “for us to actually go into their backgrounds, into their education and their finances and everything else, then we can get a better grasp of (them).”

“My thinking is we need to keep moving forward with this process,” he said. “If we don’t get anybody out of this group, then (next time) when (candidates) send us an application or a resume, we’ll send one of these out to them immediately and they can fill it out and send it back to us, and then future councils could do the same, unless they want to change (the process).”