City Manager? What City Manager?

Waycross is still in the market for a City Manager.

The City Commission rejected a motion Tuesday night to hire Joey Cason as successor to Tonya Parrish. The motion by Commissioner Henry Strickland to name Cason was seconded by Diane Hopkins.

Those two were the lone affirmative votes when Mayor Michael-Angelo James called for a vote on the motion after there was no discussion by the group. Commissioners Norman Davis, Sheinita Bennett and Katrena Felder each voted no.

James then called for a roll call vote of the five in the order of their districts with Davis, Bennett and Felder in District 1 through 3, respectively, again offering no to kill the motion, which was the first agenda item on the commission’s bi-monthly meeting at City Hall.

Cason, County Manager in White County according to his resume, was one of three finalists named for the post. The others were Patrick Simmons, Executive Director of the Waycross Convention and Visitors Bureau and Chandler Williamson Chief Executive Officer of Penguin 1 & Associates, an independent and public relations firm.

After the roll-call vote, James waited to give the panel an opportunity to make another motion, but none came from the group.

The trio of finalists were named in a legal advertisement released Thursday, June 2, with the commission’s meeting Tuesday, June 21, as the date to act on the group.

The three have emerged from a group of 47 candidates for the job that opened when Parrish resigned December 2 to become the City Manager in Flowery Branch, Ga.

Community Improvement Director Marc Hawkins currently is serving as Acting City Manager. He succeeded Fire Chief David Eddins, whose six-month term following Parrish’s resignation ended June 15.

Read more in Saturday’s edition of The Journal-Herald.