In that meeting, Councilman, Eric Newman, called on mayor Harris to either take his elected seat at the meeting to vote for himself, as the new manager and break the tie, or to withdraw his name from consideration.

May need to review the actions to this point.

• The former city manager resigned.
• Loudon mayor/realtor, Jeff Harris and the council began the process to hire a new manager.
• They established the qualifications they wanted any manager candidate to have to apply for the job.
• The mayor and the council then hired a search firm to do a nation wide search for a new manager. The cost for the search firm was $22,000.00 +.
• Some time after the search process began, Loudon mayor/realtor, Jeff Harris, decided he wanted to apply for the job.

Many other candidates applied for the job. The search firm narrowed the list down, then the council narrowed the list farther. Ultimately, Harris did not make the final cut to be interviewed for the job. End of the story? No way.

Apparently, not satisfied with being left out of the final list, Harris continued to press for the job, not withstanding the fact he didn't meet even the most basic qualifications he and the council had established for any candidate to be considered.

Now the process has settled into a 2-2 split vote. Councilmen Bear Webb and Tim Dixon voting for Harris to be manager and councilmen Eric Newman and John Cardwell voting against Harris. This has continued for several weeks now.  

So, now with councilman Newman's challenge to end the stalemate, it will be up to Harris to make a decision. Will he vote for himself to be manager with a big salary or will he decide to be the mayor he was elected to be?

As a side note, I did speak with councilman/vice mayor Tim Dixon last week. He did say if Harris is hired as city manager, he (Dixon) will assume the mayor's position as required in the city charter. I guess the short of it is, councilman Dixon isn't only voting for Harris to be city manager, he's also voting for himself to be mayor? If Harris is hired as city manager and Dixon moves to mayor, it will be up the the same four mayor/council members to appoint someone to fill Dixon's vacant council seat. Think these same four could agree on a new council member?

Mayor/realtor Harris has sure thrown a monkey wrench into what could have been a smooth transition process. I think councilman Newman referred to him as a roadblock. At the last meeting, while again pressing for the manager job from the bleachers, he even insinuated that there were some rumors pertaining to the other candidate for the job. After a brief discussion, no one could verify any validity to Harris' accusations.

Mayor/realtor Harris has caused a lot of dissention in Loudon by his desire to "do more for the city" has he calls it. Will he really take his mayor seat an vote for himself and a big fat salary? Guess we'll find out on the 25th.