Last month, the Evermore Community Improvement District interviewed four finalists for the executive director position and were poised to make a choice.
But putting their own spin on the term "finalists," board members will consider four more candidates Thursday.
The Evermore CID is again closing in on installing a full-time executive director, filling a job vacated twice in the past two years amid board dissension. Board members started with 27 candidates and charged human resources consultant Harry Owens with whittling down the list to four finalists.
But the board decided to continue the interview process following meetings with those finalists in mid-June.
"I don’t think it's that we were unhappy with the ones we’ve seen," Evermore board member Kenny King said. "But the consensus was that people wanted to hear from more candidates."
Interviews of the second group of finalists will take place at the CID's office at the former Olympic Tennis Stadium in Stone Mountain. Board members aren't expected to vote on the candidates for at least another week.
A list of the candidates had not been released as of Wednesday. Wayne Hill, interim executive director of the Evermore CID, said the agency was not required to release names of candidates in a response to an open records request.
Since 2009, board members of the self-taxing association of property owners along U.S. 78 in Gwinnett County have ousted two executive directors, conducted a recall and called off another, and delayed votes on necessary contracts such as landscaping.
In December, then-Chairman Emory Morsberger proposed the entire board resign and that new leadership take over. The board has since replaced six members, including Dwight Harrison and Morsberger, who are among Evermore's founders.
Some local officials worry that the board's reputation for conflict and turnover has hurt its quest to aggressively seek local, state and federal dollars to remain competitive with other CIDs in Gwinnett.
"I want to make sure they give Snellville the attention that it needs," Snellville City Councilman Mike Sabbagh said. "We need to have the new CID director pay attention to the direction of Snellville."
New Evermore board member Chris Garner said the recent shakeup has changed the direction of the board, with many of its members crediting Hill's steady leadership for the improvement.
"In the limited amount of time I've had to work with him, I've learned a lot," Garner said.
As a result, many of the board members say the interview process has taken longer than expected because of Hill's guidance and the importance of bringing in someone who can preserve the board's newfound unity.
Garry Lapides, Snellville's appointee to the board, also said it was possible that board members would choose an executive director from the first group of finalists.
"I happen to like some of the guys in the first group," Lapides said. "All of the candidates coming before the board have been qualified. We can't go wrong with any of them."
About the Author
