Luzerne County’s Manager Search Committee has decided to interview four applicants for the top manager position, which means one has not advanced, committee member Rick Morelli said Thursday.
The volunteer citizen committee had selected five finalists to complete outside personality assessments and undergo additional review. Committee members discussed the five finalists in closed-door executive session Tuesday night to determine which will be interviewed in person.
Committee Chairman Chris Hackett had declined to specify the number of applicants who will be interviewed and said Thursday he has no committee updates to report at this time.
Morelli said one applicant was eliminated due to the committee’s ongoing review process.
“Even when we’re not meeting, we’re doing homework on them,” Morelli said.
The committee will be conducting its in-person interviews Friday and Monday, Morelli said.
As previously stated, the committee plans to present its recommendations to council Tuesday. Council has a regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday night, and council members are slated to discuss their own manager selection plans during that meeting.
In the previous manager search in 2016, council had asked the committee to present the top three finalists in alphabetical order with no ranking to prevent bias in council’s own independent review. Seven of 11 council votes are required to hire the manager.
For the upcoming presentation, council did not approve a set number of applicants it wanted to receive from the committee or any parameters for that submission.
Morelli said Thursday an unranked list is the only fair way to proceed because the elected council has the ultimate say in which applicant it chooses based on its own evaluation and determination of the qualities needed in the next manager. The committee would be putting council in a difficult situation with ranking because council members may reach a different conclusion, he said.
“Our job under the home rule charter is to recommend applicants, not steer council toward a specific person,” Morelli said.
Committee members had originally envisioned forwarding at least three qualified applicants to council, but there is no set minimum or maximum in the charter.
Morelli also argued the names of the applicants recommended to council should be public for transparency.
In 2016, the newspaper printed the names of the finalists after they were presented to council, with the information obtained from a source who argued the public has a right to the information when applicants were formally under council consideration.
In addition to Morelli and Hackett, the following citizens serve on the search committee: Walter S. Mitchell Jr., Alec Ryncavage, Sherri Homanko, Brian D. O’Donnell and Patrick Patte.
The manager position is open because C. David Pedri resigned last July. Romilda Crocamo has been serving as acting county manager and declined to say if she applied for the position, saying she is respecting the committee’s decision to maintain confidentiality.
It took nearly a month for council to complete interviews and other due diligence before hiring Pedri in 2016.