City manager picked by SF commission

The South Fulton city manager’s position has been offered to a Kansas City, Kan., man who has prior city manager experience.
During a called meeting Wednesday, the five-member South Fulton City Commission unanimously voted to authorize South Fulton Mayor Ron Haskins to offer the position to Ralph Wise, one of three out-of-state applicants who had appeared before the commission for a second face-to-face interview in recent days.
Commissioners made the decision after Haskins had asked each of them to list in order how they would like to offer the position to the three candidates, according to information from city recorder Debbie Beadles.
Vice Mayor William “R.K.” Kane made the motion for Haskins to extend the job offer to Wise and the decision was unanimous on a roll call vote.
Haskins has also been serving as interim city manager for the past month while the city manager search has been under way. The previous city manager, Kathy Dillon, resigned effective Sept. 28 to begin work Oct. 1 as the City of Union City’s director of administration and accounting.
Haskins told The Messenger this morning that Wise has indicated he will accept the position and he had only a couple of requests that need to be addressed by the city commission. Haskins declined to specifically identify the requests, pending their being brought before the commission, but said he doesn’t believe they are unreasonable.
Haskins said Wise — who formerly worked as a city manager in Ohio — “made a good impression” during his interview for the South Fulton position and, in his opinion, seemed the most qualified of the applicants interviewed by the commission. He said Wise also asked the commission some very knowledgeable questions during his interview.
In other action during Wednesday’s brief called meeting of the commission, Haskins said he would contact a representative from Constellation Energy to set up a meeting between the company and the commission regarding the city’s natural gas contract.
Haskins told The Messenger he is awaiting word from the gas company representative and anticipates another commission meeting will be called in the next few days in order to discuss the natural gas contract, as well as the requests from Wise.
The city manager search and the natural gas contract were the only two items on the agenda for the commission’s called meeting Wednesday evening.
Staff Reporter Chris Menees may be contacted by e-mail at cmenees@ucmessenger.com.
Published in The Messenger on 11.02.07

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