The Names Of Those Interviewed For Dothan City Manager And Those Two Being Considered

Rickey Stokes

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Posted by: RStokes
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Date: Nov 20 2018 12:28 AM

DOTHAN: The Mayor and Dothan Commissioners are hiring a Dothan City Manager. The current City Manager, Mike West, has announced his retirement.

Recently Dothan Mayor Mark Saliba and Dothan City Commissioners conducted interviews for City Manager. Saliba was quoted recently that they ( Mayor and Commissioners ) are in negotiations with two of the three interviewed.

Dothan hired a consulting firm to assist them with the search for a City Manager. Saliba is quoted as they have gone from 20 plus candidates to three. Now they have narrowed the three down to 2 candidates.

Under Alabama Open Meetings Law the commissioners can not meet and conduct business with a quorum present. So private interviews were conducted with Mayor Saliba and the Commissioners individually or in pairs. This was a deliberate attempt to keep the registered voters of the City of Dothan from knowing who they were talking to.

I wonder...can we get the Mayor and Commissioners emails and see if they polled each other? Wonder what they have said. Jack Mason could probably provide those!

AND THE SECRET NAMES ARE... AS FOLLOWS

The current City Manager of Titusville Florida, Scott Larese.

CLICK FOR TITUSVILLE FLORIDA CITY MANAGER PAGE

The current City Manager of Donalsonville Georgia, Steve Hicks.

CLICK FOR ARTICLE ON STEVE HICKS AS CITY MANAGER OF DONALSONVILLE GA

James Dinneen, the former County Manager of Volusia County in Deland Florida. He announced his retirement in June 2018 and will be receiving $ 249,046.00 in severance pay.

CLICK FOR ARTICLE ON DINNEEN QUICK ESCAPE FROM VOLUSIA COUNTY FL

Scott Larese:

A former Army combat pilot and a top military base administrator has been selected to become the next city manager for Titusville in August of 2014.

The city council voted unanimously Monday to offer Scott Larese of Columbus, Ga., the position that became vacant after Mark Ryan left earlier this year to become city manager in Indian Harbour Beach.

City attorney Richard Broome expects to begin negotiations with Larese this week and to have proposed contract at next council meeting on Aug. 12.

Larese was a Army garrison commander at Fort Rucker, Alabama, for three years before leaving the military to work in the private sector. He is managing director of the Cunningham Center at Columbus State University The conference center provides leadership and sales training.

STEVE HICKS

Helping steer Enterprise through natural disasters and an economic boom as its city clerk and treasurer, Steve Hicks is headed off for a new challenge.

Hicks resigned and retired from the City of Enterprise effective Sept. 30. He will begin his new post as city manager for Donalsonville, Georgia, beginning Oct. 3.

A native of Dothan, Hicks has been with the City of Enterprise since 2001. When he arrived in The City of Progress, Enterprise had about $200,000 in its general fund and had just borrowed $400,000. Currently, Enterprise has a general fund of about $4 million and operating funds of about $12 million. At Hicks’ last meeting of the city council Tuesday night, a $53 million budget was approved.

Hicks graduated from Dothan High School, and later Wallace Community College of Dothan and Auburn University.

After working for about 18 years in the banking industry, Hicks became the Houston County Administrator in 1989. He became the Pike County Administrator in Troy in 1995, and was hired by Enterprise and then-Mayor Tim Alford in 2001.

James Dinneen

Served as County Manager in Volusia County Florida for 12 years. Dinneen, age 68, is the same age as Dothan's current City Manager Mike West.

The meeting Dinneen resigned was a heated meeting. A online petition called for Dinneen's resignation. An online petition with more than 2,000 signatures and each of the county’s public safety unions, representing more than 500 employees, have called for the council to immediately cut ties with Dinneen. Several are expected to hold up “Fire Dinneen” signs as part of a pre-meeting protest. And Sheriff Mike Chitwood, who has been Dinneen’s most vocal critic for the past year, has vowed to echo those calls during the meeting’s public comment time.

Sheriff Mike Chitwood kicked off the council discussion by describing Dinneen with words like lying, reckless, corrupt and inept.

Dinneen resigned collected some $ 250,000.00 in severance pay and asked to be allowed to leave immediately.

DOTHAN MAYOR AND DOTHAN COMMISSIONERS

In a recent interview Mayor Mark Saliba was quoted as saying the three interviewed has been cut to two. Saliba said that the City of Dothan is "negotiating" with two.

The commission likes, guess which one? You got it...James Dinneen. But his age is a factor being 68 years of age.

The commission likes Scott Larese. He served three years as Garrison Commander at Ft. Rucker which is like a City Manager. Then worked for college in Columbus and then City Manager in Titusville Florida. His work track record is Larese has not stayed anywhere for a long period of time.

The commission does not feel that Steve Hicks has enough experience. But then again, anyone from Dothan has never been considered smart enough to be City Manager. But Hicks has been one that has stayed on the job longer then the others. In Enterprise from 2001 to 2017. Hicks lives in Dothan and a product of the Dothan City School system.

The Mayor and Dothan Commissioners will be making a decision soon. The City Officials have kept the persons interviewed a secret and deliberately set the interviews to be hidden from the public. This is the first release of the names of the three finalists.

And from what my research has revealed, which does not surprise me, the Dothan home grown is not in the finalists. Only the two Florida boys.

So when you graduate Dothan City Schools, do not expect to come back to Dothan.