Walla Walla City Hall

After two separate executive sessions at a Walla Walla City Council special work session Friday — in which the council was expected to choose five finalists from a list of eight applicants for the open city manager job — the council announced that it was scrapping the hiring plan and zeroing in on a single candidate instead.

“The council is unanimously of the opinion that of eight semi-finalists, one applicant … is from our perspective, for a variety of reasons, superior to the other applicants,” Mayor Tom Scribner said at the meeting. “We believe that if we continued with the interview process, the result would not change.”

The council voted not to choose five finalists and instead communicate further solely with the candidate they are only identifying publicly at this time as “Applicant No. 4.”

While council members did not vote to hire this candidate yet, they did opt to go forward with negotiations and background checks.

Scribner said the council hopes to be able to announce the hiring of a new city manager by Dec. 13.

Walla Walla has a council-manager system of city government — a hired city manager takes on most of the executive roles typically thought of as the domain of the mayor, while the mayor is a partially ceremonial position that is otherwise a full voting member of the City Council.

Former City Manager Nabiel Shawa stepped down from the position on Oct. 10. Deputy City Manager Elizabeth Chamberlain has taken on the responsibilities, but not the title, of interim city manager since Shawa’s departure.

Shawa originally announced that he would retire in 2024 before moving that date up several times.