Waycross is still seeking a City Manager.
The City Commission did not decide Tuesday on a successor to Tonya Parrish as had been anticipated after a legal advertisement naming Ulysses Rayford and Stuart Truille the finalists listed December 20 as the date for action. However, there was no resolution to consider action on the job on the agenda for the commission’s final bi-monthly meeting of the year.
That means barring a special called meeting next week, the city will enter 2023 operating under the direction of a third Acting City Manager since Parrish left the payroll December 15. Police Chief Tommy Cox holds that interim post, following Community Improvement Director Marc Hawkins, who succeeded Fire Chief David Eddins.
Commissioners Norman Davis, Sheinita Bennett, Katrena Felder and Henry Strickland were present at Tuesday’s meeting.
Rayford and Truille were named finalists by commissioners at a special called meeting on November 29. Their names appeared in the first of two required legal advertisements in the Saturday, December 3 edition of the Waycross Journal-Herald.
That ad stated “The City Commission will meet on Tuesday, December 20, 2022, at 5 p.m. for final action or a vote to be taken.” It also said the public had 14 days to inspect documents at City Hall related to the finalists prior to any action.
Tuesday was the 15th business day since information on Truille and Rayford was first available for public prerusal on Wednesday, November 30.
City Attorney Rick Currie said after Tuesday’s meeting he wasn’t asked by commissioners to prepare a resolution for the meeting on the position. He said that instruction could have come Monday if the three commissioners present for the planning and information session — Davis, Bennett and Strickland — all had agreed on bringing the issue before the body the following evening since they formed a quorum of the five-member commission.
Given this was a personnel item, it would have been considered in executive session after Monday’s public forum. However, when Mayor Michael-Angelo James asked at the close of Monday’s proceeding if an executive session was needed he heard no call.
In order for commissioners to act on the issue before the end of the year, a special session would be needed next week. Since the city’s observance of Christmas is Monday for its holiday calendar purposes, that leaves only Tuesday-Friday for action.
There also is at least a 24-hour notice of the meeting taking place to factor in. The minimum requirement of the notice would be a posting on the body’s regular meeting place, City Hall in this case, as well as written or oral notice given at least 24 hours in advance of the meeting to the county legal organ (the Waycross Journal-Herald).
Currie said commissioners can declare special circumstances (meaning an emergency) exist, and a meeting may be held with less than 24 hours’ notice, as long as notice of the meeting and subjects expected to be considered are provided as is reasonable under the circumstances, including notice to the county legal organ.
He said in his legal opinion, the hiring of a city manager will not be “special circumstances.”
The interim role of city manager is limited to six months during any one serach. Cox replaced Hawkins on December 15 after Hawkins took over for Eddins on June 15. Eddins replaced Parrish when she offically departed.
Rayford and Truille, both residents of Virginia, emerged from a group of 23 candidates in a revived version of the search to replace Parrish, who left the city payroll December 15, 2021, to become City Manager of Flowery Branch, Ga. The second edition of the search began July 19 after commissioners had failed to hire any of the three finalists from the initial search that began in January and drew 47 candidates.
Joey Cason, Patrick Simmons and Chandler Williamson were revealed as the finalists at a called meeting of the commission June 3. A motion before commissioners on June 21 to hire Cason was voted down 3-2, and neither of the other finalists were offered in a following motion at that time.
The issue remained there until the five commissioners unanimously voted to reopen the search. None of the finalists from the original group said they were candidates in the second installment.
Parrish, who was on the job about 34 months, was hired after being named the only finalist from 21 applicants in a six-month search to replace Raphel Maddox, who was dismissed for “inappropriate conduct in the workplace.”
