UPDATED: The East Ridge City Council will hold a workshop to discuss the applicants for the City Manager job on Thursday at City Hall. The workshop is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m.
The City Council appears to be inching forward in its selection of a new City Manager.
Last week, an official from the Municipal Technical Advisory Service ranked all 57 applicants who applied for the job. Mayor Brent Lambert and the Council had requested that Honna Rogers, former City Manager of Signal Mountain and now a staff member of MTAS, rank the qualifications of the people seeking the post.
Four applicants received a ranking of 4.25 out of a possible five points. Those applicants are Michael Brillhart, Christopher Dorsey, Mark Kutney and Gary Palmer. Dennis Sparks was the only applicant to receive a four ranking.
Four categories were used in the rankings. The applicants were judged on their cover letters, experience/education, their resumes and a category called “similarity.” The City Charter requires that a City Manager have a college degree and must have a minimum of three years supervisory experience in a government sector position. The council, in its advertising of desired qualifications, also preferred that the next city manager have a background in economic development.
According to an online resume, Brillhart holds a Master of Public Administration degree from the University of South Florida. He was the County Administrator of Barnstable County in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where he directed an organization of 245 full-time employees and 171 part-time.
Prior to the Barnstable County job, Brillhart directed business, economic development and legislative affairs for the Board of County Commissioners in St. Lucie County Florida.
From 1999 to 2001, Brillhart was the City Administrator of Paris, Illinois. Paris employed 125 people and had an annual budget of $20 million.
Dorsey turned down the job of East Ridge City Manager in 2013, to take the city manager’s job in Signal Mountain, where he served eight months before being terminated. Dorsey, who holds a Masters of Public Administration degree from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, served as Red Bank City Manager from 2005 to 2011. Prior to his job in Red Bank, Dorsey served as the Budget Manager for the City of Memphis.
Dorsey most recently served as an Interim City Manager for Millington, Tenn.
Kutney, according to a cover letter he submitted when he applied for the City Manager’s position in Fernandina Beach, Fla., has more than 35 years experience in local government management. He holds Masters Degrees in Public Administration and Regional Planning.
From 2011 to 2014 Kutney was the Town Manager of Loxahatchee Groves, a town of 3,173 people in Palm Beach County, Florida. He rates among his achievements there: guiding Palm Beach State College in building a branch campus in the town; implemented the conversion of the town’s wireless computer system with new hardware and software; created a new website; and monitored and directed the town recovery activities during Tropical Storm Isaac.
Kutney was Deputy City Manager of Belle Glade, Fla. from 2007 to 2011. While there he also managed the city’s airport and emergency services. He also stepped in as Interim City Manager for two months in 2008.
Kutney served from 1999 to 2007 as Development Services Director for the town of Davie, Fla., with a population of 90,000.
Palmer, who has a Masters Degree in Public Administration, has served as Assistant Town Manager of Farragut, Tenn. In a recent cover letter he submitted when applying for a city manager’s job in Florida, he wrote that has in-depth experience in strategic land planning and comprehensive land use planning. Palmer co-chartered the Farragut Business Alliance and chartered the Town Economic Development Committee and the Town Education Relations Committee. Palmer said that he worked with retail recruitment firms and represented Farragut at the International Council of Shopping Centers convention in Las Vegas, which brought the first Costco to the Farragut.
Sparks has more than 30 years of experience in government positions. He is the former City Manager of Silsbee, Texas, and has served as city managers in Ohio and Illinois. He was a county administrator in Virginia and Nevada. According to his resume, most of those jobs were short-lived. The bulk of his experience in government was a tenure of five years in two county administrators’ positions in Page and Washington Counties in Virginia. He served as Fiscal Officer for the State of Virginia Department of Corrections as an Assistant Financial Reporting Manager from 1992 to 1999.
Fire Chief Mike Williams has been serving as Interim City Manager since the July 2015 resignation of Andrew Hyatt.
It is unclear when the City Council will begin interviewing the candidates to find a permanent City Manager.
