STEUBENVILLE — Plans to interview the two finalists for Steubenville’s soon-to-be-vacated city manager’s position were derailed Monday when they took themselves out of the running.

Emerging from a nearly hour-long closed-door meeting, council announced the city manager search will resume immediately — but this time, the emphasis will be on attracting quality candidates “in Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.” They’ll also advertise the position through the International City Manager’s Association, “but we’re going to check and see if they can do it regionally, not over the whole United States,” Councilman at large Joel Walker said.

“The two candidates who were supposed to be here this evening declined to continue with their interviews,” Walker said, his irritation evident. “One of them already accepted a position and said he doesn’t feel right leaving after just two months (there) and he’d already signed, I believe, a two-year contract; the other one basically said it’s not in the cards for him financially right now to move and everything else.”

Council had interviewed four candidates — including the two finalists — via Zoom just before Christmas, and council met in executive session last week to discuss salary in response to questions they’d posed before withdrawing their names from consideration.

Mayor Ralph Petrella, though, said he looks at their bail out as an opportunity to “find the right fit.”

“We want to make sure we have the correct individual to steer our city in the right direction,” Petrella said. “We have a lot of momentum, you know, a lot of momentum going forward. Things are going really well in Steubenville — we have great attractions, a crime rate that’s probably the lowest it’s ever been in Steubenville’s history.”

Incumbent City Manager Jim Mavromatis had planned to retire in March, but Petrella said council “can extend his contract for 30, 60 or 90 days as needed, worst case scenario. We also can actually appoint an interim city manager until such time as we (find a replacement).”

Walker said the last thing they want is to “hire somebody just to hire somebody.”

“We were going to be looking at two candidates tonight and if neither of them had panned out, we would have started over anyway,” he said. “We just want to make sure we get the right person to help move the city forward — we don’t want Steubenville to (regress).”

Applications will be accepted through Jan. 30.