Staff with the City of Roseburg has announced that the Roseburg City Council will meet in Executive Session on Monday night.
The agenda said the meeting is regarding the city manager hiring process. On July 22nd, the council named Public Works Director Nikki Messenger as the final candidate for the position. Messenger, who has worked for the City for over 20 years, has been city manager pro tem since May 1st, after City Manager Lance Colley retired.
Months of searching for a new leader led the council to designate Paul Eckhert as the final candidate for the position this spring. However, Eckhert, current city administrator for Gridley, California, withdrew his name from consideration on May 1st. After that occurred, Mayor Larry Rich asked that the council wait a couple of months before coming back to the issue of the city manager search. Rich said he wanted to give Messenger some time to see if she might be interested in the position, on a permanent basis.
While the council will talk about the process, no decision can be made, as the meeting is not open to the public. It will be held in the Public Safety Center. The next public meeting of the council will be on Monday August 12th.