City manager search narrowed to one
By Terry Murry on Wednesday, November 23rd, 2022 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories
WALLA WALLA – Following two separate executive sessions held Friday in which the Walla Walla City Council was expected to vote on selecting five finalists from a list of eight applicants for the position of city manager, the council announced it is going in another direction.
“The council is unanimously of the opinion that of eight semi-finalists, one applicant is, from our perspective for a variety of reasons, superior to the other applicants,” Mayor Tom Scribner announced at the meeting. “We believe that if we continued with the interview process, the result would not change.”
The council voted unanimously to not choose five finalists. Scribner announced the council decided to instead postpone any further interview process and go forward with negotiations and background checks solely with “Applicant Number Four.” The candidate has not been identified and council members have not voted to hire this candidate yet.
Scribner said the council hopes to announce the hiring of a new city manager on or before Dec. 13. The city of Walla Walla has a council-manager system of city government. Deputy City Manager Elizabeth Chamberlain is currently taking on the responsibilities of city manager following last month’s retirement of Nabiel Shawa.
