Mayor negotiating with city manager candidate.


By MICK PECK
Managing Editor
Cameron Herald

Published 3/8/2005

Cameron's search for a new city manager is nearing an end.

The council emerged from a two and one-half hour closed-door session Monday afternoon and agreed to offer a contract to Roger Mumby to become Cameron's new city manager.

The council also authorized Cameron Mayor William C. Meacham to begin negotiations with Mumby on contract terms. Those negotiations were expected to be under way Monday afternoon.

A retired U.S. Army veteran, Mumby has served as city manager in West Columbia for the last seven years. Prior to his employment in West Columbia, Mumby was Garrison Commander (city manager) at Ft. Hood.

Meacham said Mumby was one of five finalists submitted to the council from a field of 56 applicants comprised by the Dallas-based Waters Consulting Group Inc. Mumby was also the lone finalist interviewed by the council for the post.

"When we looked over the resumes, Mr. Mumby just stood a head and shoulders above the other applicants," Meacham said following the Monday session.

Mumby said that the Cameron job offered him the opportunity to move closer to relatives in the Copperas Cove area.

Meacham said that if contract negotiations are successful, Mumby has indicated that he could begin his new position in Cameron in about two months.

"That time would give him the opportunity to close out any business he has in West Columbia and to make the move to Cameron," Meacham added.

Cameron has been operating with an interim city manager since mid-October when long time city employee and City Manager Janet Sheguit resigned from the post following a controversy that developed over disciplinary action taken against three Cameron police officers. Shegiut, who continued to serve as a paid consultant to the city through the end of the year, had been employed with the city for 29 years at the time of her departure.

Subsequent to Sheguit's resignation, City Secretary Amy Kopriva was named the interim city manager.

Monday's closed-door session was the third such session held by the council since it began searching for a new city manager.