By Dave Fidlin
Correspondent
Three City of Whitewater departments remain in a state of flux amid an ongoing effort to seek candidates for a string of vacancies.
The city is close to naming a finalist for the media services manager position, while recruitment efforts are picking up steam for two freshly vacated director positions — one in the finance department, the other in parks and recreation.
City Manager Cameron Clapper discussed the status of the three positions at a Common Council meeting Dec. 20.
“We have our hands full, but we’re moving,” Clapper said of the process.
Clapper said he plans to have a person in place for the new media services manager by the end of this month.
“We had two excellent, daylong interviews with our top two candidates,” Clapper said of the finalists who bubbled to the top of the candidate pile.
The position has been tweaked since Alan Luckett left the city in July to assume operations of the City of Janesville’s public access efforts on cable TV.
Luckett’s successor will have more of a public relations role that includes social media and other community outreach efforts that extend beyond the traditional public access channel.
Clapper said efforts to fill the parks and recreation and finance director posts are in their early stages.
The city is currently accepting applications for both positions, and a cutoff date for both positions is expected late this month.
Once all of the applications are in hand, Clapper said the usual process of interviewing candidates and naming finalists will begin in the road to naming persons to the leadership posts.
Clapper said his goal is to have the hiring processes completed for the three positions by the end of the first quarter of this year.
