The man who the Sioux City Council agreed last week to hire as the next city manager , has declined the city's offer, so city officials will resume the search.
In a Thursday release, the city announced that Craig Clark “has declined the city’s offer.”
At the City Council meeting on August 4, the members selected Clark, who currently serves as Executive Director of the City of Austin Port Authority in Minnesota.
The council authorized city staff to begin negotiating an employment contract with Clark, which would go to the council for approval at a later date.
The new release says the city “will continue its search for a qualified candidate to serve as city manager.”
The council is seeking to get a successor for former longtime city manager Bob Padmore, who retired in April. More than 50 candidates applied for the position, and Clark was among three finalists interviewed in late July.
The other finalists were Eric Swanson, of Phoenix, Oregon, and Andrew Barden, of Winterset, Iowa.
*A ribbon-cutting event was held Wednesday for a chicken meat production facility located in Sioux City’s south industrial area off Interstate 29.
The Perdue Premium Meat Company plant cost $60 million to construct, and will soon have 300 employees. Among those at the ribbon cutting were Perdue official Gary Malenke and Sioux City Mayor Bob Scott.
The Sioux City Chamber of Commerce reports that Perdue chicken production has been in business for more than 100 years, covering four generations of family ownership.
The chamber said the chickens come from family farms committed to animal welfare. That summary said “The Perdue family and company leaders conduct business based on how each decision will not only affect the next quarter, but the next generation of consumers.”
*Additionally, about 200 refugees are now self-sufficient, thanks to donations from Iowans across the state.
The federal government ordered resettlement agencies to stop work in January and pulled all their funding. That left the nonprofit Lutheran Services in Iowa, or L-S-I, without the resources they needed to provide support such as housing and employment for people who had just arrived.
LSI is holding events across Iowa to thank supporters for their donations. CEO Renee Hardman told a gathering in Des Moines their donations helped refugees become stable.
“Through your treasure, that got us through, and I get emotional because we could not have done it without you,” Hardman said.
LSI received donations from almost 600 people. The donations filled the gap left behind by the stop work order.
