Wrangell Sentinel -

The borough assembly voted 7-0 Tuesday night to select Jeff Jabusch for the borough manager position.

The vote means Jabusch will enter into contract negotiations with assembly members Donald Blake and James Stough, as well as Mayor David Jack, in the coming weeks. The assembly had been looking for a new manager since the resignation of former administrator Tim Rooney in August. Assembly members had reduced a list of 15 candidates to four, prior to Tuesday's vote.

Jabsuch said he was happy with the outcome.

"Obviously, when you apply for a job and you're selected to that, you're pleased of that," he said.

Council members selected Jabusch over Christie Jamieson, the borough's long-time municipal clerk and a worker for the state government, Jon Erickson, a planner with the state Commission on Aging and one-time city administrator in Thorne Bay, and Kyle McCain, a veteran city administrator from Texas.

Jabusch's current official title is Finance Director, in addition to interim borough manager. With his promotion, the position of finance director opens. Jabusch listed filling the finance director position as his top immediate priority for city governance.

"I think that will help to start that process and get somebody on board for that," he said.

Replenishing the city staff would be critical, Jabusch said.

"We lost our city administrator in August, we lost our main accounting officer in June," he said.

Jabusch enjoyed his tenure as interim manager, though now he'll likely have to shift to the manager's office.

"I think here I've been available to people," he said. "You can't resolve everything you can't solve everyone's problem. But I certainly tried to at least listen to people. When it's something you can help on, you're happy to do that. Sometimes there's conflicts between a person and a company, and the good of the whole community. We're caretakers of the citizens and their money and property and we've gotta be good stewards of that."

The search for a new Finance Director would begin immediately, Jabusch said. He anticipated a stiff competition for the position.

"I know right now there's been – in the last four or five months – a lot of cities looking for finance directors," he said. "Whoever it is, it's gotta be a good fit. Finance directors in bigger places, they have a lot of staff and they don't do a lot of the grunt work. Here you've gotta do all of that."

Jabusch also listed long-term planning as part of his goals for the position.

"I would like to do some longer-term planning with everything from vehicle replacement schedules, maintenance on building schedules," he said. "We used to have kind of a tiered thing. At least people then know where they stand."

Jabusch has been the borough's Finance Director for 36 years, since 1977. He graduated from Wrangell high school in 1971, and twice served as interim manager in the 1990s. He holds a bachelors degree in Business Administration & Accounting from Seattle University.