Looks like George Kolb won’t be the new city manager in Durham, N.C. Neither will Pat Salerno.
The Raleigh News & Oberserver is reporting that Durham will award the job to Tom Bonfield, the city manager of Pensacola, Fla.
Bonfield wasn’t one of the three finalists who participated in a public forum in Durham in April. Kolb and Salerno were.
It’s interesting to contrast the process in Durham with the one here, where the city is negotiating with the only candidate it has interviewed to replace Kolb (Salerno).
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Would prefer to read that Wichita passes on Salerno.
Has Wichita become the unwanted step child of North Carolina and the east coast?
In the past several years, Wichita has regularly imported “hired gun” administrators from the southeastern states for some reason.
Now Wichita is considering hiring Pat Salerno, a washed up city manager from a Miami, Florida suburb for an exorbitant amount of money. Salerno is probably worth it in Florida where he knows the politicians, laws, developers, contractors, etc. But here in Wichita, it will take him several months to find the restrooms in city hall.
The recent Wichita downtown development director after working in Wichita for several years and not accomplishing anything but being part of the downtown arena debacle reportedly fled for some town in North Carolina.
George Kolb, recent Wichita city manager applied for a similar job in North Carolina.
And just reported in the past few days, Spirit Airplane Company is planning to build a new assembly plant, not in Wichita, but in North Carolina.
Anybody see a pattern here?
Also, we lost our business school (WSU) dean to northern kentucky, who then wooed WSU economist Janet Harrah.
But KU whipped North Carolina in the Final Four, so there’s that going for us.
Of course, we lost our great Kansas Senator, Robert Dole, to Elizabeth Hanford, later Senator Elizabeth Hanford Dole from North Carolina.