CAPE GIRARDEAU -- The city has extended its application deadline for the position of Parks and Recreation Department director, vacated when former director Steve Bone accepted a position last fall at Lake St. Louis.
The position has been filled on an interim basis by parks superintendent Dan Muser, who's applied for the permanent director position.
City Manager J. Ronald Fischer said Saturday that the application deadline recently was extended in order to advertise the position in Midwest trade magazines and bulletins. He said some of the advertising deadlines for the magazines passed earlier this month before the city was able to announce the opening.
Fischer said the extension will provide additional time for the city to consider the applications it's already received. He said he didn't know how many people have applied for the position, but he said several applications have been sent to him personally.
"I've had some people, maybe whose parents lived here, who read about Steve Bone's resignation in the paper and we've gotten resumes like that," Fischer said.
Muser said he applied shortly after the position was advertised locally. He said the transition from parks superintendent to acting Parks and Recreation director has been a smooth one.
"Most of what was going on, I was involved with probably 85 percent of the actual operations, so it's not really been anything real drastic," Muser said. "It's been pretty smooth."
Muser said there were only a few areas of the city's parks and recreation department he hasn't worked closely with as parks superintendent during the past five years.
He was hired to the position shortly after Bone was named director of the department. Muser said he thought the city's parks have undergone marked improvements since.
He said he thinks he's well-qualified for the director position because of his past "hands-on" experience with the department's operations and his education in the field. Muser has a master's degree with experience in horticulture, botany and outdoor recreation.
Fischer said he also thought the department has been running well since Muser took over.
"I've been very encouraged with the attitude he and some of his supervisory people have had," Fischer said. "I think everything's going along very well."
Fischer said that once the application deadline passes, he will probably narrow the field of candidates to three to six finalists to be interviewed.
One concern some residents have had, particularly members of the city's Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, was that the city might place parks maintenance under the authority of the city's Public Works Department.
Jim Grebing, park board chairman, said the board also was concerned that the position of parks and recreation director might no longer be a department-level position.
"At the time the position opened up, one concern was that there would be someone as parks director that would report to a city administrator instead of it being a department-level position," Grebing said.
Grebing said the park board has little to do with choosing a new director. He said the only position the board has taken is to ask that the director continues to be a department-head position, regardless of who gets the job.
"It's the city manager's call," Grebing said. "Our feeling was that Steve Bone worked to develop a separate professional department and we wanted to assure that was going to continue. We'll work with whoever gets the job."
But Fischer said there will continue to be a separate parks and recreation director. He also said he's made the decision not to include portions of the department in the Public Works Department.
"Certainly, I've looked at a lot of things to try to make things better, but I believe the bottom line with parks and recreation is, they work so closely together that it helps if you've got one hand that knows what the other one's doing," Fischer said.
"Because they work so closely together, I think those areas need to be together in a separate department."
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