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PETERSBURG, AK Petersburg’s city council will be conducting its first round of interviews with three candidates for city manager.
The short list includes Karl Hagerman, the city’s public works director and soon-to-be-acting city manager after Scott Hahn leaves the job at the end of this month. In a work session Thursday, councilors also decided to interview two out-of-town candidates. They are Stephen Geisbrecht, a manager in Electra Texas and Mark Hoppen a former manager in Gig Harbor, Washington. Geisbrecht initially asked to withdraw his name from consideration last month but the city council convinced him to remain in the running. He’s been the city administrator in Electra since 2003 and has degrees from the University of Phoenix and St. Mary’s College in California. Before he became a government administrator, he worked for a rental car company, a home security company and in real estate information.
Hoppen graduated from the University of Washington and taught high school classes and coached basketball in the 1970s before working for 15 years as administrator in Gig Harbor. He has also worked for the city of Puyallup, Washington, and has served on Washington State’s public works board. He currently works as a consultant focusing on non-profit management.
Karl Hagerman has been Petersburg’s public works director for a decade and started work in the city’s water and waste water departments in 1992. He grew up in Petersburg, graduated Petersburg High School in 1985 and attended the University of Alaska and Northern Arizona University. Hagerman lists three current and former city managers as his references and writes that he will continue as public works director for the city if he is not selected as manager.
Former city councilor John Havrilek withdrew his name from consideration a week ago. The council hopes to video-conference the interviews with the two out-of-town candidates and conduct a similar interview with Hagerman sometime in the next week. The next step would be face-to-face interviews for the finalists.