The Town Council voted to use its Human Resource Manager, Bill Merryman, and Florida City and County Management Association (FCCMA) Senior Advisors to identify the best prospects to replace Town Manager Sarah Campbell.

The council called a special meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 3, two days after Campbell tendered her resignation at the Town Council meeting. Campbell, selected as Town Manager in 2017, accepted a position at Fernandina Beach.

The council asked Campbell what options it had to replace her. She gave them three choices: hire someone by vetting candidates by using town staff members; use a combination of town staff and members of the FCCMA to establish minimum job requirements and establish a short list of leading candidates; or hire a professional recruiting firm for approximately $32,000 to do a national job search.

The council liked her second suggestion.

Former Vice Mayor Susana Thompson also spoke during the public comment session before the council started its debate.

“We're trying to budget efficiently here,” Thompson said. “It would be great to have an outside firm to do all of this, but we also have an HR manager who could work with the (FCCMA) senior advisors in combination and basically do the hiring per your criteria.

“So, I was kind of thinking when it comes to funding, if you use the two resources, you could possibly have them work together along with you and not hire an outside firm.”

The motion passed unanimously, 5-0.

 After the motion passed, current Vice Mayor Winnette Sandlin wants the initial search to be expanded to the top five or top 10 candidates.

“I would change that,” she said. “It's not that hard, and we can do that. But remember, we still may want to go outside that top 10, because there might be someone better. I want to make sure that we are not limiting ourselves, that we’re opening it up to people interested in coming to this town to do this job. There still might be somebody better out there, somebody better fit us better than we have.”