The Rye City Council has received interest from up to 30 applicants for its open city manager position.
The permanent managerial role overseeing the day-to-day operations of city government was posted on various job boards and websites for about a month, with between 26 and 30 candidates applying for the position, Democratic Councilman Josh Nathan told The Record.
There is no timeline for the selection process, according to Nathan, who could not confirm whether Interim City Manager Brian Shea was in the applicant pool. Sources told The Record, however, that Shea is expected to make a strong push for the position.
The city is being aided by the consulting firm Pracademics, which was hired in March.
“We’ll go from those expressions of interest to a short list and at some point, there’ll be interviews and then there might be another set of interviews,” said Nathan, who is running for mayor. “Assuming that in there is the candidate that we are hoping for, then at some point we would make that decision.”
If the ideal candidate doesn’t materialize, Nathan said, the city could always repost the position, particularly since city officials are not operating under a specific timeline to fill the post.
The process began earlier this year after then City Manager Greg Usry announced in December his plans to retire in the spring. Usry, who was earning an annual salary of $215,000, officially stepped down at the end of March after five years in the post.
A search subcommittee — comprised of Mayor Josh Cohn, who is politically unaffiliated, Republican councilman and mayoral candidate Bill Henderson, and Nathan — laid the groundwork for the process by conducting interviews with city staff, researching search firms, and identifying interim candidates before appointing Shea, the assistant city manager at the time, to the temporary role in March.
Shea’s salary as assistant city manager was $159,000. The City Council bumped him up to a prorated salary of $213,900 to take on the interim post.
While the remaining work to determine the city’s next administrative leader is largely up to the council, the subcommittee remains available to step in when needed, according to Nathan.
The City Council was expected to discuss the search in executive session before its May 7 meeting.
