The Cumberland Plateau Water Authority Board preparing to begin interviews for candidates interested in serving as the authority’s general manager.
Chairperson Greg Hanson said several people have recently applied and several more are currently being reviewed for the position. Hanson said Subcommittee Chair Sean Stephens spoke at the most recent board meeting about how the process should be handled once interviews begin.
“He asked each of us to provide some questions that he thought would be appropriate interview questions for the candidates when we finally get a chance to sit down with them,” Hanson said. “And also asked for each our our availability, the folks outside the committee, if they wanted to, in fact, sit in on the interviews.”
Hanson said they are also contacting each of the five utility districts the authority works with to see if they would like to have representatives present for the interviews. Hanson said they will work out a timeline for the process after they hear back from each district and determine when they can all be present.
“I’m the liaison with Crab Orchard,” Hanson said. “I did, in fact, reach out to Everett Bolin, the general manager, and would expect that Everett will, in fact, be sitting in on the interviews when we start scheduling them.”
Hanson said the general manager position was built into their latest annual operating budget that was approved on Monday, August 12.
“I would like to be done with the process by the end of September,” Hanson said. “That may be aggressive, but we’ll see. The sooner the better.”
Hanson said the general manager can help prepare the board to begin moving toward the idea of discussions on alignment.
“The only thing that it really precludes us from doing is commencing negotiations with one or more of the utility operations to see if they’re ready to join the water authority,” Hanson said.