The Haines Borough Assembly is starting over with the search for a new manager after Tennessee real estate investor George Zoukee turned down the job last week.

Assembly members met April 2 to discuss next steps. The meeting began with clerk and interim manager Alekka Fullerton withdrawing from consideration. Fullerton was one of four finalists selected from a pool of 31 applicants, and the only finalist, by the April 2 meeting, who hadn’t withdrawn.

“I feel like the community has become divided over this, as an issue, and I do not want that. It is antithetical to everything I stand for,” Fullerton said. “I don’t want there to be an Alekka camp. I don’t want there to be an other camp, so I am hereby withdrawing my application to be borough manager.”

Assembly members agreed to restart the hiring process immediately, rather than waiting to finalize the budget for the upcoming fiscal year. The manager’s draft budget was introduced April 1, and budget considerations will be a primary focus for assembly members through mid-June.

“I would rather start fairly soon, at least at the personnel committee level,” Mayor Douglas Olerud said. “We can take our time. It doesn’t mean we have to hire someone in the middle of the budget, but if we wait until after the budget to start the process, we’re looking at September or October before we have someone here.”

Some had suggestions for improving the next hiring process.

“I would like to see more community involvement in this. I think that the way that this process went forward, it seemed to be most of what was being done was being done in executive session, and I think the community has a right to be more of a participant,” Fullerton said, recommending the assembly solicit input from borough staff and the town as a whole.

Another area identified for improvements was the method of advertising.

“I think the end result may have been the same, but part of the process might have been just a little bit different if there had been a separate clerk in their position helping to do the ads,” assembly member Caitie Kirby said. Fullerton recused herself from the manager hiring process because she was an applicant, leaving the assembly and Mayor responsible for organizational tasks that would ordinarily fall to the clerk.

Members agreed that it would be beneficial to bring on someone to assist Fullerton with her duties as clerk and manager in the coming months.

Fullerton suggested hiring a deputy clerk.

“I think that irrespective of what happens with the interim manager’s position, the Haines Borough needs some more help anyway,” Fullerton said. “We have a staff that is already tapped out.”

Others suggested hiring an interim manager or clerk. Olerud said it would be beneficial to explore all three options.

“Before our next meeting, I will sit down with Alekka, and we will look at our options for another clerk, a deputy clerk or a manager, and have information for you guys at the next meeting of who might be available and get an idea of where there’s going to be the steepest learning curve,” he said.

Olerud instructed assembly members to write down thoughts about what went well and what didn’t to inform Personnel Committee discussion about how to proceed with the new hiring process. The Personnel Committee will meet sometime in the next few weeks to begin working on a plan.

Fullerton is coming up on her one-year anniversary as interim manager. Haines has been without a permanent manager since the assembly fired then-manager Debra Schnabel last May.