The search continues to fill the upcoming vacancy for the City of Elizabethton’s top administrative role.

Officials from City Hall recently confirmed to the Elizabethton Star that nine individuals have sent in their resumes to be in the running for the position of city manager. The deadline for candidates to submit a resume is April 4.

Applications for the role are being accepted following City Manager Jerome Kitchens’ recent announcement that he will retire from the post April 6.

Kitchens has served in the role as the city’s administrative leader since 2013 but announced in March that he will retire from the post to spend more time with his family.

During the March City Council meeting, Mayor Curt Alexander presented Kitchens with a plaque from the rest of the Council to thank him for his service and to commemorate his time at the position during his last Council meeting.

In the wake of Kitchens’ announcement, Council voted to appoint City Planning and Development Director Jon Hartman, who has worked with the city for over the past five years, as the interim city manager as the selection process gets underway.

Councilman Richard Tester made the motion of Hartman to be nominated for the position. Two other nominations that came from Council included former City Manager Fred Edens — from Sam Shipley — and City Attorney Roger Day — from Kim Birchfield.

Tester, Alexander, Bill Carter, Wes Frazier and Jeff Treadway voted in favor for Hartman while Shipley and Birchfield voted for their respective nominees.

The process to select a city manager will be discussed in the coming weeks. In previous selection processes, Council will typically sort through all the final applications and decide who to interview from there. The interviews would then be arranged in a workshop-style meeting with a final vote being taken at a future Council meeting.

Updates on the selection process will appear in future editions of the Elizabethton Star.