Unable to come to a decision this Tuesday at City Hall, councilmembers will convene this coming Tuesday to try to finalize the decision of who the next city manager for Port Arthur will be.

With Interim City Manager Harvey Robinson ready to call it a day, it’s no surprise councilmembers did not start over after the interview process. We can confidently guess that the new city manager will be one of the final four.

So who will it be? One of the two that are currently in litigation with their former employers, the one that lasted only a year in his last job, or the one that is a currently a city manager over a city that is roughly 14 percent of the size of Port Arthur?

The future of our city is dependent upon a good, sound decisions being made by our City Council. The fact that they were unable to come to a decision last Tuesday makes me think there must be some difficult discussions going on. And that is a good thing.

We don’t just want someone for the sheer need that a decision must be made. We want someone that is going to lead our city for the coming years and be pivotal in creating our future.

Unfortunately, the final four are not overly impressive. They derived from a list of 18 applicants. This is not saying much about the candidate pool.

Insiders around City Hall state it is not easy to attract talented and/or upper scale management to Port Arthur for this position. With the turmoil and changes in administration positions over the years, this is understandable.

Most likely that’s the reason the final four interviewed were not the cream of the crop. And it’s also the reason councilmembers should take the time to make the right decision. No matter how long it takes.

With the 2020 election only a year away, we will see a majority of council seats up for grabs. In some districts there are councilmembers that will be terming out or not run for re-election all together.

Why is this important? Whatever decision is made, those councilmembers only have to live with this decision for a year. But for the rest of us, we are affected by this decision for much, much longer.

If one of these final four is not exactly what we need, then the process needs to start over. If it doesn’t, we will be right back here two years from now, having the same conversations.

But hey, those making this decision that won’t be on council anymore, so they will not have to worry about it. The rest of us will.

Rich Macke is publisher of The Port Arthur News.