AUBURN — Councilors will host a special meeting Jan. 26 to get residents’ opinions on hiring a new city manager.

Interim City Manager Don Gerrish told councilors he was prepared to host the public session to find out what kind of background a new manager should have according to residents. That includes what kind of job experience is necessary for the job and what other qualities are necessary.

The public session will be scheduled to gather more of the same information and will be shown live on Great Falls Television.

Gerrish said he plans to put a questionnaire on the city’s website, www.auburnmaine.gov, by Friday, Jan. 13, designed to gather the same information.

“We suggest doing two things,” Gerrish told councilors. “First, we suggest taking time to talk about the process — here’s how the council will be making this choice. No. 2, we’ve found it useful to have a copy of the Charter to make sure everybody understands those roles. And thirdly, we want the public to come up and talk to us about what they want.”

Gerrish, a consultant from Maine firm Eaton Peabody, said he plans to use information from the Web page and the meeting to draft an advertisement. It should begin running in February, with applications due by March 9. The company would give councilors a notebook containing those applications and applicant resumes by March 16.

“That’s when you start looking at actual resumes, and those will be in executive session,” Gerrish said. Gerrish said we would expect councilors to begin interviewing candidates at the end of March, settling on a group of four finalists. They’d be invited to meet Auburn residents at another community meeting in April. Councilors would be negotiating with a potential hire early in May.

“But it could still be another month before the person comes on,” Gerrish said.

Councilors also settled a question posed last week, whether they should approach Lewiston officials to see if they were willing to share a top manager.

Mayor Jonathan LaBonte said he talked with Lewiston Mayor Robert Macdonald and Council President Mark Cayer, and they agreed it was a good topic to discuss at a later date, but not now.

“That kind of discussion and exercise may be helpful and warranted at some point,” LaBonte said. “But we have two newly elected city councils on both sides of the river and starting with this issue could be challenging.”

But Ward 2 Councilor Robert Hayes said that he was willing to consider it because Lewiston has such a good city administrator in Ed Barrett.

“I think it says a lot about what our council is looking for in a manager,” Hayes said. “I think many of our constituents — and many of us on the Council — agree that the qualities we see in Ed Barrett are qualities we’d like to see in a manager here in Auburn.”

The previous City Council voted to terminate City Manager Glenn Aho’s contract in October. They voted in November to hire consultants Eaton Peabody to lead the search for Aho’s replacement and manage the city in the meantime.

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