The City of Sedalia has named an interim city administrator after Gary Edwards announced last week he was leaving the position.
According to a news release, Finance Director Kelvin Shaw will serve as interim city administrator until a permanent person is found to fill the position. A national search is now underway and it is anticipated a new administrator will begin in late 2017 or early 2018.
Edwards’s last day in Sedalia will be Friday, Sept. 22 as he has accepted the position of city manager in Aransas Pass, Texas.
“I was looking for a position that had palm trees and warm temperatures and challenges,” Edwards told the Democrat last week. “… (Aransas Pass) is very tourist-oriented. There are challenges there I find very fascinating, that was a factor. There is a good council here, and there, a good staff here and friendly citizens. Those are important factors. We have all those here, but I was looking for more of a challenge — things are going well here, the staff is doing a good job, council and the mayor get along.”
Mayor Stephen Galliher said the decision to name Shaw the interim administrator came from his knowledge of the city’s finances.
“He handles the checkbook and he’s in all the meetings, he’s in 90 percent of them as the finance officer. We thought he would be the best fit for this job for interim,” Galliher said. “We asked if he’d be interested and he said he’d love to do it. He can handle both of them (both position).
“… He has good staff members to be able to help him and there should be no disruption to services while we look for a new administrator,” he added.
Shaw will serve in both roles for the short term until a new administrator is hired. Galliher said HR Director John Rice posted the job opening through several different avenues last week and has already received 10 responses. The posting will be open for about a month, then a committee will review the applicants. Galliher said he is in the process of finalizing the committee members.
“If we don’t get any good ones (after the first month), we might have to start over. We did that with the finance director and public works director — we didn’t get the applications we needed so we had to open it up again,” Galliher explained. “We want to be very careful with this and do it right the first time so hopefully we don’t have to do this again for awhile. This is an extremely serious position, a critical position to the city. We’re going to take our time and do it right the first time.”
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