MEIGS — The Meigs City Council will interview a candidate to fill the vacant city manager position following a vote Monday night.

Mayor Cheryl Walters said she was in favor of bringing on a city manager but felt a disproportionate amount of work in searching for suitable candidates was placed on her shoulders.

“I think we need a city manager. I would like a city manager,” Walters said. “I’m tired of working 40 to 60 hours a week doing city manager work of which the city council has offered me no help or support.”

When it comes to hiring a city manager, the mayor said the council needed to take the project into their own hands in order to ensure their satisfaction.

“You are the council, you are in charge of the city,” Walters said. “You call them, you set up your interview and you do the hiring.”

Council member Tommy White said he also believed a city manager should be hired and noted the council had received at least one application.

Walters then recalled a previous executive session in which she said White criticized her judgment in evaluating candidates.

“If you will remember, you were most unsatisfied at the way the last selection for city manager was conducted,” Walters said to White. “You did not hesitate to let me know in no uncertain terms that I didn’t know what I was doing.”

White then told Walters to “calm down” before the mayor continued.

“I am calm,” Walters said. “I’m very calm. But apparently you have not done your work.”

White argued that the city had advertised for a new city manager multiple times before Walters gaveled the meeting back to order.

Walters said a city council member would have to make the appointment for an interview with the applicant. White offered to set up the meeting and the mayor said she would attend the interview.

The mayor said one proposal which has been discussed was for two to three small municipalities to band together to hire a single individual to serve as city manager in order to afford the salary of a quality candidate.

White objected to the idea and said he was concerned the process would take too long and could present conflicts of interest.

“If he’s working in Boston and working in Coolidge and over here and he tells them something that happened here in Meigs, that isn’t any of their business,” White said. “I think we need our own one. We’ve already approved the money for a part-time (city manager).”

Walters said part of the reason why the idea was discussed was to save costs in bringing aboard a city manager.

“Meigs is putting out a lot of money,” Walters said. “Our budget is tight. We’re paying our ex-auditor to bring out books up to date, which they are doing, but that’s not cheap. I thought it was an idea to throw out there.”

White argued that the mayor had the situation confused — that a city manager must be hired in order to address Meigs’ budget problem.

“Until we have a city manager, we aren’t going to have a budget and we aren’t going to know what kind of money we’ve got,” White said.

“You’re not going to have a budget until the woman who is doing our accounting can bring our books up from (being) several years out of date,” Walters said in response. “That is the problem. A city manager has no financials to work with at this time.”

Council member Jimmy Layton said he had reviewed the applicant’s resume and was concerned about his qualifications.

“I see no place on here where he’s ever worked for a city,” Layton said. “I don’t see any place where he knows anything about water being certified or waste water.”

City attorney Thomas Lehman noted that the issue at hand was whether to bring the candidate in for an interview.

The council then voted 5-0 with Layton abstaining to allow the candidate to be interviewed.