No interest in Texas job, Portsmouth city manager says

PORTSMOUTH

City Manager Kenneth Chandler has withdrawn his name from a list of finalists for a job in Texas that he said he didn't know he was even being considered for.

Chandler's was one of five names on a shortlist for the city manager's position in Plano, an affluent city of about 265,000 people near Dallas. The news surprised Portsmouth City Council members, who suddenly faced the prospect of losing their chief administrator in the middle of another difficult budget season.

But by noon Friday, Chandler had told them he was not a candidate. He said in an interview that he had not applied for the position, had not spoken to anybody in Plano about the job and was surprised to hear the City Council there had chosen him as a finalist in its search.

Chandler said he has spoken to headhunters "all the time" over his career and that those connections must be how his name was submitted.

Plano Mayor Phil Dyer said his City Council used the consulting firm Affion Public to develop a list of names, and on Monday the council considered seven of them. Council members, who have yet to interview the potential candidates, narrowed the list to Chandler and four others, including two deputy city managers in Plano, a deputy city manager from Las Vegas and an assistant city manager from Denton, Texas.

Dyer said Chandler had not spoken to him or any other city officials there. If he talked to anyone, it would have been with Scott Reilly, the chief executive officer at Affion, Dyer said. Dyer said Reilly called him Friday to tell him Chandler had withdrawn his name.

Reilly said by e-mail only that Chandler was no longer a potential candidate in Plano. Reilly, who said he was out of the office and traveling, did not respond to a follow-up question asking if Chandler's name had been submitted without his knowledge.

Portsmouth Mayor Kenny Wright said he had spoken with Chandler, and while he wouldn't discuss specifics, he described it as a good conversation and one that left him confident Chandler was not moving.

"We're keeping our city manager," Wright said. "And he believes in this mayor and this council, and I'm tickled to death about it."

Chandler was hired in Portsmouth in summer 2007. He has overseen a tightening of the city's financial policies, improvements in its bond rating and, most recently, a $12.8 million surplus at the end of the last fiscal year.

He came to Portsmouth from Dallas, where he had worked for a year supervising economic development projects as the city's executive general manager. Before that he spent about two decades in local government administrative posts across Virginia, including Richmond and Arlington County.

The Plano mayor said he liked Chandler's experience across different departments and his work on Portsmouth's budget.

"He had a very strong and diverse background," Dyer said. "I think Portsmouth's fortunate to have him."

Dave Forster, (757) 446-2627, dave.forster@pilotonline.com