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Photo by Solomon Crenshaw Jr.
Councilman Andy Gwaltney gets Ward 1 referendum results from the door of the Homewood Rec Center.
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Photo by Solomon Crenshaw Jr.
Council President Alex Wyatt said Homewood doesn't need a city manager who is learning on the job.
Councilmembers will meet on Oct. 1 to certify the election results from Tuesday's city manager referendum. Beyond that, the next step will be for the council to determine how to bring this change to fruition.
“How are we going to put a city manager in place and going through that evaluation process, looking at candidates,” Wyatt said, repeating that an interim city manager could be hired before the role is permanently filled. “We don’t just want to look at one candidate. We want to look at multiple candidates and figure out how we go about this.”
Finding the right person for the right situation will be key in the short term, he said, and even more permanently beyond that. And the experience the candidate brings to the table will be “vitally important.”
“I don’t want to speak for all of us but I think experience as a city or county manager is important -- someone who’s done that job and knows how to do it,” Wyatt said. “They can help us set up the city in the way it needs to be set up and function with that position. [We need] someone that can help us evaluate how to get a permanent person for that position and someone that has the training and qualifications in place so the city can benefit from that.”
The council president, who replaces the retiring Mayor Patrick McClusky on Nov. 1, said the city doesn’t want someone who is going to be “learning on the job with this. We want someone that’s going to help guide us into this system so the next council can really hit the ground running and move forward beginning in November of 2025.”
Wyatt plans to retire from public office in Nov. 2025 when the new mayor and council are elected.
With a fairly tight result of a somewhat contentious campaign, could the road ahead be bumpy for city leaders, old and new? Wyatt hopes that’s not the case.
“Homewood is a close-knit community. It’s a thriving community,” he said. “We have different opinions about stuff and people are passionate about it. It’s good to be passionate about your city. But when we need to, we at the same time come together to make the city better. I think that will happen here.”
The council president said nearly everyone agreed that hiring a city manager was a good idea. “I didn’t hear from anybody who said we don’t need a city manager,” he said. “We may have disagreed on the particulars of how it was going to be set up but I think everyone recognizes we are going to be better off with a city manager and therefore better off in this system than what we have now.”
Wyatt believes once everything is in place with the new government, everyone will see and appreciate the difference.
“I think the city will support what we’re doing.”
