Former City Manager Marc Ott Credit: Photo by John Anderson

City Council is expected today, April 13, to create a City Manager Search Advisory Task Force, 11 Council appointees charged with developing a “preferred profile” for potential candidates to replace Marc Ott and his interim successor Elaine Hart. Council has asked search firm Russell Reynolds Associates to cast a wide net – public and private sector – and tentatively accepted the firm’s recommendation to maintain confidentiality until a finalist is announced, though the details remain unconfirmed. Among the names floated for today’s task force nominees: former Assistant City Manager Laura Huffman, longtime city advocate and activist Saundra Kirk, NAACP attorney Gary Bledsoe, local search maven Jan Lehman … we’ll hear the full list today. For more on the search and the Council’s view, see “Managing Secrets,” April 10.

This article appears in April 14 • 2017.

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Contributing writer and former news editor Michael King has reported on city and state politics for the Chronicle since 2000. He was educated at Indiana University and Yale, and from 1977 to 1985 taught at UT-Austin. He has been the editor of the Houston Press and The Texas Observer, and has reported and written widely on education, politics, and cultural subjects.