Haines Borough manager candidate David Sosa will travel from Hampstead, N.C., to Haines Dec. 4-6 for a public meet-and-greet, assembly interview and a tour of borough facilities.
The assembly will interview Sosa during a committee-of-the-whole meeting in assembly chambers at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 5. The public is encouraged to attend.
An informal meet-and-greet will follow, said Mayor Stephanie Scott.
“There isn’t going to be a public reception per se. What I have decided is we will interview him and after that interview we will have a time for him to schmooze,” she said.
Interim manager Julie Cozzi said the public will have the opportunity to ask Sosa questions directly following the interview.
“They wouldn’t be able to ask questions during the assembly interviews, but during the public reception if they have something like that, the public would be free as long as one person didn’t monopolize the candidate’s time,” she said.
Cozzi said Sosa also will conduct a mock staff meeting so borough employees can get a glimpse of his management style.
Though the assembly’s interview of Sosa will be public, discussion of how the interview went and assembly members’ impressions of Sosa will be discussed behind closed doors at the regular assembly meeting on Dec. 10. “They will discuss him in executive session,” Cozzi said.
Sosa’s wife and daughter will accompany him to Haines, though the assembly only agreed to compensate expenses for Sosa and his wife.
The status of Susan Jensen, the only other candidate for manager at this point, is still ambiguous.
Scott, executive assistant to the manager Darsie Culbeck and assembly members Diana Lapham and George Campbell met with Jensen at the Alaska Municipal League conference in Anchorage last week.
The assembly seemed largely unimpressed with Jensen’s performance during a recent Skype interview and directed the group to feel Jensen out a bit more at AML to see if she was worth pursuing as a candidate.
Scott said she would not comment on the group’s impressions of Jensen, but will give a report to the assembly at its Dec. 10 meeting. “We may very well have a recommendation,” she said.