The number of Centralia City Manager candidates has been trimmed to five.
Mayor Bryan Kuder says the city council narrowed the field from the 18 applicants to the top five in a closed session meeting on Tuesday night.
Kuder says one of the remaining candidates is local, another is from Illinois, as well as one from Iowa and two from California. He reports the council will now do their due diligence in tracking down information on the finalists. Interviews will then be arranged with them.
Kuder says the goal is to have a new city manager selected by August first ahead of the expiration of Interim City Manager Forest Langenfeld’s contract in early August. Langenfeld has indicated he cannot stay any longer in the interim position.
The council rated all of the candidates on a grading scale prior to Tuesday night’s closed-door meeting where they compared results and whittled the number of finalists to five.
