CITY CONTINUES PROCESS OF HIRING POLICE, FIRE CHIEFS

Cape Girardeau City Manager Michael Miller plans to announce the names of new police and fire chiefs in three weeks while the search for a new airport manager begins.

Miller said the new fire and police chiefs should be in office by the first of the year.

A list of about 60 candidates each for police and fire chiefs has been limited to seven candidates for each position, Miller said. He expects the process of narrowing them to one will take about three weeks.

Acting police chief Capt. Steve Stong and acting fire chief Max Jauch are both on the short lists for the top positions of their departments, he said.

The other candidates wanted confidentiality as most of them are at other jobs, said Miller, who has the final decision on who gets hired.

Filling the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport manager's position is just beginning, Miller said. An advertisement announcing the opening of the position has been placed in a national publication, he said. Miller has been getting calls from people interested in the job already.

A deadline for applications for airport manager has not been set. Miller said he has been too busy with the police and fire chief right now and will focus on that later.

He said the search process is going well.

"Any time I look for a department head I like to come out with the most number of qualified candidates as I can," Miller said. "That way we have a good strong pool to choose from."

Two teams made up of city department heads recently finished reviewing 75 applications for the police chief position and 65 for fire chief, said Dan Ward, city human-resources director. The applications were received after advertising nationally, he said.

The final candidates all have command experience in their respective fields and all are very qualified, Miller said.

Over the next two weeks police and fire chief candidates from "various cities from all over" will come to Cape Girardeau for personal interviews and to participate in "assessment centers," Miller said. The various centers will test the candidates by placing them in various situations to see how they respond.

Final candidates will also give presentations about themselves and why they are the best candidate for the job.

Strong, who many within the police department feel would make an outstanding police chief, may have one strike against him: In the past, Miller has expressed concern over the fact that Strong maintains a residence outside the city limits.

Miller upholds the belief that city department heads should live in the city limits. Wednesday he said he still feels that way.

"What we hope to do with this is come out with the strongest candidate," Miller said. "If he is the strongest candidate, Steve and I will deal with that then."

Strong has said he could perform his duties just as well from his family home in the outcounty. Strong said he has never been slow to respond to a call because of the location of his residence.

City officials have been searching for replacements for fire and police chief since early August when police chief Howard "Butch" Boyd and fire chief Robert Ridgeway announced they would resign to take other jobs. Ridgeway is now fire chief in Gastonia, N.C., and Boyd is director of security at Southeast Missouri Hospital here.

Cape Girardeau Regional Airport Manager Greg Chenoweth announced his resignation in October. Chenoweth's last day will be in early December. He accepted a job managing the airport in Chandler, Ariz., a Phoenix suburb.