Jan. 11—FAIRMONT — Marion County Sheriff Jimmy Riffle is one of the finalists for Fairmont city manager.

“I sent a resume and it’s probably been two, three weeks ago,” Riffle said in a Wednesday phone interview. “Maybe longer than that. I haven’t heard anything else.”

A source familiar with governmental procedure who requested anonymity said the city manager search committee has handed a list of finalists over to Fairmont City Council. The full city council has scheduled interviews with the undisclosed number of finalists for the second half of January. One finalist is due to be interviewed Jan. 19, with the remainder on Jan. 30. Each finalist will be interviewed by the full commission, one finalist at a time.

A press release distributed by the city on Oct. 11 laid out an ostensible timeline. Originally, the posting for applications closed on Nov. 17, with the search committee presenting a list of candidates to city council on Dec. 21. City council was due to meet Jan. 9 to discuss finalists and set final interviews, according to terms laid out in the Oct. 11 press release.

Mayor Anne Bolyard stated in previous reporting that she hoped to have a new city manager selected by mid-January.

However, the opaque nature of the city manager search, as well as Sheriff Riffle submitting his resume roughly two to three weeks ago, has made it hard to tell how the timeline is progressing. Past the initial press release on Oct. 11, city government has issued no other substantive updates on how the search is progressing. At the Jan. 9 meeting of City Council, Mayor Bolyard said there were no new announcements and that there will be announcements in the coming weeks.

That said, a reconstruction of the dates provided in October along with what is known about the search so far helps fill in a limited picture. It appears City Council has a list of finalists, which falls in line with the Dec. 21 deadline on the city’s time frame. An executive session took place the night of the Jan. 9 council meeting, which could have been to discuss the list of finalists. The line item for Jan. 9 on the timeline states, “City Council meets to discuss the finalists and sets final interviews.” The Jan. 19 and Jan. 30 interview dates also concur with the final item on the city’s timeline.

Interim City Clerk David Kirk was able to provide, “that the City Council stuck to the schedule we provided.”

Mayor Bolyard did not return calls prior to deadline Wednesday, however, she previously gave her reasoning for maintaining an opaque search.

“We will not have a public forum at this time because we want to respect the privacy of these candidates,” Bolyard said last September. “In the past where there was a public forum, those candidates were hesitant because they were still employed by other places.”

Sam Workman, professor of political science at West Virginia University, said the best way to think of council-manager systems like Fairmont’s is to think of council as essentially a legislature.

“So while it’s probably the case that the process should be visible to the public, the public’s main input into this process is through their elected officials,” Workman said. “So council members, like say the President chooses someone to lead the Department of Energy. Our input as citizens really comes through Sen. Manchin and Capito and that’s the way to think about a city manager.”

Workman said there is no real direct lever for public input on the city manager selection process except through the council members that are elected by members of the public. Accountability for the city manager is supposed to flow through council, whose job is to oversee the city manager.

Although the public might not have input on the city manager selection since it’s not an elected position, Workman said accountability for the transparency of the selection process can still flow through elections.

Governments, from time to time do make things more opaque, Workman said. Voters can determine if they’re satisfied with how opaque a government becomes and make their feelings known at the ballot box.

“In general, it’s probably not good that the process is completely shielded from the public. But at the same time, there’s no real lever or lever for the public to change that outside of elections,” he said.

As far as Riffle’s candidacy for city manager is concerned, former Mayor and current Marion County Regional Development Corp. President Nick Fantasia explained that the general public might find it surprising how much overlap there is between the role both a sheriff and city manager plays when it comes to government administration.

“City manager’s got a $12 million budget, the sheriff has to oversee a $51 million budget,” Fantasia said. “City Manager has 114 employees in the city’s full time employment base, but the city manager is really only supervising about 40. The sheriff’s supervising 38 or 39. The city manager has to navigate multiple jurisdictions. The sheriff’s got 11 municipalities and the county commission that they’ve got to navigate with.”

A sheriff in the 21st century is a far cry from the Andy Griffith perception of sheriff duties that spawned in the last century. While law enforcement used to be the primary focus of the sheriff’s position, today the sheriff is also the county’s fiduciary, the chief financial officer, Fantasia said.

One more thing to consider is that the lack of transparency has led to several swirling rumors about who the next city manager will be. What is certain, is that any outside determination at this point past anything City Council provides publicly would be premature at best.

In the meantime, if Riffle is the final choice for Fairmont city manager, he would have to step down from his elected office and a new sheriff be appointed by the Marion County Commission.

Reach Esteban at efernandez@timeswv.com