By Danielle Coots

For the News-Current

BEAVERCREEK — The City of Beavercreek is in search of a new city manager and the city has no shortage of qualified applicants. With the application pool closed, council has begun the task of narrowing down the list of applicants.

The current Beavercreek City Manager Michael Cornell recently announced he intends to retire at the beginning of the new year. He’s been the city manager since 2007. Now, the search is on for his replacement.

Since putting out the word that a position is opening, the city has received 26 applications from around the United States. Out of the 26, 10 applicants currently reside in Ohio, three from Michigan, three from Texas, two from Virginia and one each from Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, North Carolina, Washington and Wisconsin.

“California, Florida and Texas have the largest pool of managers that have experience in our form of government,” Beavercreek City Council member Chad Whilding said. “We have a nice pool of candidates.”

Out of the 26 applicants, 15 of them have previous city administrator and manager experience and three of them have assistant administrator experience and eight others have other municipal experience. Even names were not disclosed yewt, the city looks forward to pushing to the next phase of the process, which is to dwindle down the list of applicants.

“Are you going to invite any of the citizens to be involved in the narrowing down of candidates?” Beavercreek Mayor Bob Stone asked.

Whilding indicated residents would have an opportunity to meet the semi-finalists after they have been determined. A public meet-and-greet will be scheduled soon.

Danielle Coots is a freelance writer for Greene County News.