That was what one city commission quipped when the City Commission cut short its interviews of five candidates for the job Monday because of technical problems with the connections on Skype, a telephone-video internet service.
"Maybe the Russians are involved in this," said Commissioner Roy Tyler, drawing the biggest laugh of the night from city officials frustrated with the technical problems.
Tyler referred to media stories concerning allegations the Russian government used computer hackers to interfere in this year's presidential election.
The commission went through the first four interviews despite the uneven quality of the Skype connection. The big problem was interruptions in the audio stream, resulting in words, phrases and even sentences in the candidates' answers becoming inaudible.
By the time commissioners got to the fifth interview - with Robert Francis Jr., who was speaking from his hotel room while on vacation in the Mexican resort town of Puerto Vallarta, the video image froze while the audio dropped.
Several attempts to re-establish the link and turn to a voice-only connection failed.
The commission agreed to set up a phone interview with Francis at 5:30 p.m. today before its regular 7 p.m. meeting.
But Francis told Haines City officials on Tuesday he remained concerned about the quality of the connection from Mexico and asked to delay the interview until he returns to Oregon next week, said David Johnson, assistant to the city manager.
The city's information technology staff had tested the Skype connection Friday, when it showed no problems, Johnson said.
The commission will go ahead with its 5:30 p.m. meeting to discuss whether to reschedule Francis' interview or go in another direction, Johnson said.
Before beginning Monday, Mayor Horace West had suggested each commissioner list the top two candidates from the Skype interviews for a second round of in-person interviews. If there was a consensus, the commission would go forward with two or possibly three in-person interviews, he said.
West and Vice Mayor Don Mason declined to comment on whether they would choose or eliminate any candidate based on the Skye interviews.
The candidates interviewed, in order of appearance, were:
- Sarah Hannah-Spurlock, former assistant city manager of the City of Key West from 2014 to July.
- Deric Feacher, former Winter Haven city manager who was fired in September on a controversial 3-2 vote after three years on the job.
- Ted Lakey, county administrator in Jackson County from 2003 to 2015.
- John Shepherd, manager of North Huntingdon Township, Pa., since 1998 except for a two-year interval beginning 1998.
- Francis, who is executive director of the Mid-Columbia Council of Governments in Dalles, Ore.
To insure consistency and fairness, the commission conducted all interviews by Skype, even local candidate Feacher, whose connection worked the best.
The five semi-finalists were chosen from a list of eight candidates recommended last month by a screening committee of retired city and county managers. Two candidates were eliminated after failing to provide additional information requested and a third took another job since his application.
West said the commission would keep the option of rejecting all five candidates and offering the job to Acting City Manager Rick Sloan.
Sloan has served in the job since Aug. 15 following former City Manager Jonathan Evans' resignation to become assistant county administrator in Sarasota County. Sloan joined the city in November 2009 as police chief and later became public safety director in 2014, overseeing both the Police and Fire departments. He has expressed an interest in the city manager job but did not submit an application.
©2016 The Ledger (Lakeland, Fla.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
