The repeat of a sewer subcommittee's review Thursday of applicants for the Little Rock Wastewater chief-executive job yielded the same results as before -- five candidates will be called in for formal interviews.

Sanitary Sewer Committee Chairman Marilyn Perryman reconvened the Executive Search Subcommittee to repeat on Thursday its April 9 meeting after the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette objected to a search-firm consultant giving her report to the committee in private at the original meeting.

Little Rock Wastewater contracted with Heidi Voorhees, president of Illinois-based firm Voorhees Associates, for $24,700 to conduct a nationwide search for CEO applicants, deliver a report recommending her top picks, and assist in the final interview and selection process. When Voorhees gave her presentation last month, utility attorney Amber Bagley advised committee members that Voorhees could attend their executive session.

Governing bodies are allowed to convene into executive sessions, which are closed to the public, to discuss personnel matters or consider applicants to the agency's top position, but the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act limits who can attend.

Arkansas Code Annotated 25-19-106 Section (c)(2) (A) and (B) state that only the head of a public agency, a job candidate, or an employee being discussed and his immediate supervisor are allowed into the closed meeting.

When the Democrat-Gazette objected at the April 9 meeting, Bagley first contended that the law allowed Voorhees' presence in the executive session. After she searched for several minutes and couldn't find a statute that allowed that, she changed her position and said Voorhees was a member of the subcommittee.

The next day, Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola said Voorhees' presence in the meeting was improper, and City Attorney Tom Carpenter said an out-of-state resident can't serve on a city committee. Also that day, Perryman announced she would have the subcommittee redo its meeting. Neither she nor utility attorneys answered questions seeking comment on the public-records violation at the April 9 meeting.

Perryman said then that while she believed the committee made "every attempt" to abide by the law, she would call for a repeat of the meeting "out of an abundance of caution."

At Thursday's replay, Voorhees gave her presentation on her top eight picks by phone to three members of the four-member subcommittee. Member Thea Hughes, manager of the Jacksonville Wastewater Utility, wasn't present. After the public presentation, the committee convened in executive session and after about 10 minutes opened the meeting back up to the public and voted to interview the following applicants:

• Craig Guth of Sherwood, a deputy commander of the Little Rock District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

• Charles Logue, a director of technical services at Renewable Water Resources in Greenville, S.C.

• Gregario Ramon, the assistant general manager at Central Arizona Project in Phoenix.

• Jesse White, a senior program manager of wastewater treatment for Dallas.

• Thomas Esqueda, a management consultant at Brown and Caldwell in Raleigh, N.C.

Search subcommittee member Lance Hines, who is also Little Rock's Ward 5 city director, suggested that the full seven-member Sanitary Sewer Committee interview the five finalists. Interim CEO of Administration and Finance John Jarratt said he hopes to schedule the interviews for May 28 and 29.

Hines also suggested hosting a public forum for the candidates the evening of May 28 so that residents and the city board would have an opportunity to meet the finalists.

During Voorhees' presentation, she listed the topics she focused on during her phone interviews with the applicants. They were: the person's experience in finance and infrastructure; the ability to make public presentations and explain complex data in layman's terms; the ability to develop relationships with other organizations and within the agency; whether the person studied best practices for the wastewater industry; experience recruiting a diverse workforce; experience with rate studies and strategic planning; and experience with administrative consent orders.

As she went through the list of her top candidates, Voorhees made clear that she'd also judged their abilities to handle contentious situations for themselves or the agency. Little Rock Wastewater's ousted CEO Reggie Corbitt came under fire from the city Board of Directors several times in his 30-year tenure at the utility. He was fired in January after newspaper articles and a police investigation revealed his approval of what a police memorandum called "questionable expenditures."

Voorhees told the search subcommittee Thursday that Esqueda inherited a food program that was criticized by North Carolina lawmakers.

"He was able to turn that around," Voorhees said. "He struck me as very smart and excellent at explaining complex issues."

Esqueda initially withdrew his name from contention but later accepted an interview request from the subcommittee.

Guth is the only local candidate selected as a finalist. He moved to the Little Rock area 3 1/2 years ago and hopes to stay here and work in the engineering field, Voorhees said. He's not directly involved in wastewater functions in his role at the Army Corps of Engineers, but he has experience with financial management, care and maintenance of waterways, public presentations, and other areas relevant to the wastewater job.

"I feel he could get up to speed with it real quickly," Voorhees said. She added that he went through public meetings and oversight when the parking lot of the Grand Ole Opry flooded with 30 feet of water, and he could interact with the public "on tough situations."

Logue has 33 years of experience in the industry. He helped develop the first watershed permit in the country, which Voorhees said spoke to the kind of creativity and vision he could bring to Little Rock. He's also had to reduce a $36 million budget to $29 million and says he has a "strong eye for getting rid of inefficiencies," she said.

Ramon has been involved with rate calculations before and said operations and maintenance, capital assets, and debt are the three factors involved in deciding rate increases. Little Rock Wastewater is currently reviewing rate proposals that it plans to seek approval for in November.

"I found [Ramon] very easy to understand in explaining technology and the environmental aspects of what his organization does," Voorhees said. "He's done a lot of innovations in Phoenix."

White is at a time in his career where he is ready to move up the ladder and feels becoming a CEO is the right fit, Voorhees said. He's dealt with management changes in his current position and had to work closely with groups of employees. He also has experience with public presentations.

All five finalists were recommended by Voorhees during the public part of Thursday's meeting when Hines asked her if she felt there were any standouts in her top tier of applicants.

"I feel like we've narrowed it down very well to a good group," Hines said at the close of the meeting.

Metro on 05/09/2014