ROCKLAND – In its agenda setting meeting May 1 at Rockland City Hall, the City Council got updates on its search for a new city manager. Councilor Adam Ackor said the field has been narrowed down to five candidates. Interviews for the candidates were scheduled to begin Tuesday, May 2, at the Farnsworth Art Museum.

Ackor said the names of the five finalists have not been made public. The interviews will reduce the field of candidates to two finalists. Those names will be released to the council and Ackor said at that time the names might be made public if the council decides to do so.

Two rounds of interviews are scheduled, one on Tuesday and another later in the week, Ackor said..

"The committee has been working well, functioning perfectly," he said. "Mr. Barrett with Maine Municipal Association has been helpful and I think the whole process is moving forward exactly as it should."

Ackor said it will be up to the council to choose the candidate for the job.

"There are other processes we need to work out as councilors in terms of public interaction," he said. "Our purpose is to come up with two semifinalists."

Mayor Will Clayton asked if a timeline had been set up for the search committee. Councilor Ackor said that no timeline had been set up, but that the committee has been moving forward at a pretty efficient pace in his view.

Councilor Valli Geiger said the council would need to decide if they would interview the finalists once or twice. Twice was her opinion as she said it would give them better insight into the candidate.

Geiger then asked if it was the council's intent to wait for a fifth member before a decision was made. A fifth councilor would not be seated until after the June 13 special election.

The two candidates for the vacant seat are Amelia Magjik and Steve Carroll. Both were in attendance at the agenda setting meeting.

Councilor Ed Glaser said his only problem with a fifth councilor is that he or she would not have been part of the interview process.

Geiger said they either wait for the fifth councilor for the interviews, which would leave the candidates hanging. The city can't be voting on people it never interviewed, she said.

Clayton said he didn't think the search committee should be pressured into a time.

"I think the process so far has been great and quiet, which is nice," he said. "I'm extremely happy with the way it is and wish it to continue."

In other business, the council added to its agenda for its May 8 meeting the matter of writing off $215,111 in uncollectible debt.

At its April 21 meeting the accounting firm of James Wadman, CPA, of Ellsworth delivered a financial audit to the city.

Wadman said at that time that Rockland had a lot of old debt on its books, money owed to the city that was not going to be collected and needed to be addressed. Specifically, there is block of receivables for the transfer station and EMS fund.

Tom Luttrell, Rockland's finance director, said during that meeting that the balances need to be written off.

"These balances are basically due to companies that went out of business," he said "They went out of business and left money on the books," he said. "With EMS, Camden First Aid went belly up years ago and we're still carrying all those balances that were never collected."

If the bills are not collected it requires an act of council to write them off.

Council is set to eliminate that debt next Wednesday.