Brad Peters, Butch Patterson and Gary Carver will have second interviews with the Greeneville City Council concerning the ongoing search for a new City Manager .
A brief called meeting of the board Friday afternoon included comments from Pete Auger with MTAS, which is helping coordinate the search.
Although not yet made official, it appears the three candidates will meet with city leaders on the morning of Saturday, March 28, at which time each will be asked to make a three to five minute presentation followed by questions from City Council members. The candidates will be sequestered until their scheduled interview time. It’s anticipated that session will begin during the 8 o’clock hour and be finished by noon. It will be advertised as a special called meeting which would allow for any board action related to the search if felt necessary.
Two weeks ago, seven who had submitted resumes for the position were interviewed by the council.
Near the conclusion of that meeting, Auger and Interim City Manager Cathy Osborne tabulated the scores of each candidate based on identical questions asked of each during the early-morning to mid-afternoon work session. Peters scored best of the candidates at 3.2 while Patterson and Carver both totaled 3.1. During the Friday meeting, Auger reported he reassessed the numbers from two weeks earlier using a different method, which still ranked Peters, Patterson and Carver as the top three.
Brad Peters
BRAD PETERS is a current MTAS Public Works Consultant. He was Town of Greeneville Engineer and Director of Public Works from 2011 until 2022. Prior to that he was the Greeneville Town Engineer from 2005 until taking over both positions in 2011. He has served as a Greene County Commissioner since September 2014.
Butch Patterson
HAROLD “BUTCH” PATTERSON has been the Director of Greeneville Parks and Recreation since February of 2007. He had also earlier served as a Greene County Commissioner.
Gary Carver
GARY CARVER is the current Community Development Director in Newport and a former Planning Director in Gatlinburg.
PUBLIC COMMENT
During the public comment period of the meeting on Friday, Tracy Solomon addressed City Council about the search process.
Solomon – “I want to focus on an important issue before the council, in regards to the search you guys are undertaking. To me, it’s not about who’s local, who interviews well, who’s the most familiar. This is about the town or whether the town is prepared to put the right person in the most important administrative job in Greeneville. As CEO at TEVET, I’ve learned that when you hire for critical leadership roles, you hire people with a proven track record of relevant success. You do not hire based on comfort, convenience, or the hope that someone grows into the job. You hire people who already know what success looks like because they have done it before. That’s my concern here. I think it’s a big difference between being good in a departmental role and being ready to lead an entire town. The job requires proven executive leadership, sound judgment, and experience managing complex issues across organizations. I think we’ve all seen what happens when the wrong person is in the role, so I would urge this council to take a hard honest look at the current field, and if that group does not include someone with the proven track record this job demands, then do not force the decision. Go back to the market, find that person. There is no shame in extending a search. That would be settling.”
CANDIDATES IN ATTENDANCE
Three of the seven candidates who initially interviewed for the job attended the less than half hour long meeting Friday, Peters, Patterson and Andy Broyles.
