Photo by Solomon Crenshaw Jr.
Homewood Mayor Jennifer Andress at a special called council meeting on Jan. 29, 2026. Photo by Solomon Crenshaw Jr.
The Homewood City Council will not change course in how the next interviews will be conducted for the position of city manager.
Homewood City Attorney Keith Jackson drafted two resolutions: one where interviews will continue to be done privately and the second where they would be open to the public.
The council voted 5-0 at a specially called noon meeting last Thursday to continue having Human Resources Director Kim Kinder and Sam Gaston, the special assistant to the city manager, conducting the interviews without a public audience.
Sixty-one applications were received for the position with applicants coming from the local area and across the country. Kinder and Gaston selected 14 applicants for interviews and two of those backed out.
Councilman Chris Lane asked when the public can witness the proceedings.
“At what juncture — if there is a juncture — where we go public?” he asked. “Or do we go public with any of these further interviews?”
While he voted for the resolution that was moved and seconded, Lane said after the meeting that he preferred the process be public going forward.
“Personally, honestly, I was more involved with the resolution that [the process] potentially could be public,” he said. “For me, I personally would like to have seen it done like it is, the way we're doing the interviews, but potentially make it public anyway so people could see. Obviously, we elected not to do that.”
Mayor Jennifer Andress said interviews that are not open to the public have been “much better” than the open interviews done for interim city manager. She cited the obvious experience of Kinder and Gaston.
“They're so professional and they're so good,” she said. “This has really been more of a business conversation, which I really appreciated.”
The mayor also cited privacy concerns.
“I think maybe not everybody knows these people are interviewing for jobs,” she said. “I think there's some privacy concerns as well. I know we had an applicant the last time that was concerned that his employer would know he was interviewing. I think, for me, those were considerations.”
Kinder and Gaston will pare the applicants to a list of three to five for the second round.
