PARIS – The Board of Selectman has narrowed the pool of candidates for the town manager position and plans to conduct interviews next week.

On Tuesday, the board will meet and expects to hold an executive session to review the applications.

“The pool has been narrowed to five (candidates),” Chairman Bill Merrill said.

There were 32 applications to begin with, according to interim Town Manager Elisa Whiteley. She was unsure of where the applicants live. Merrill would only say “that all the people that have applied are from the United States.”

He said it is difficult to tell how long the hiring process will take. “When we hired Steve McAllister we narrowed the field to five and then there was a lot of discussion on the first round of interviews. And then we narrowed the pool to three and we held another round of interviews.”

McAllister went off the town payroll on Nov. 11, after taking a month of vacation time.

Whiteley said the selectmen have scheduled interviews for 4 p.m. Monday and Tuesday. The interviews will be conducted in executive session.