STEUBENVILLE — City officials say they’re still working on “processes” with respect to the committee being formed to screen applications for Steubenville’s next city manager.

That five-member committee – which includes three council members and two yet-to-be-named city residents – will be tasked with bringing organization to the hiring process. Ultimately, it will be the city’s seven council representatives who will decide who succeeds current city manager, Jim Mavromatis, who plans to step down in 2026 after 10 years of service.

“We’ve been talking with the law director about it and there’s a few things we have to work out before we actually do the vote,” Councilman at large Joel Walker said. “(It could be done) within possibly the next two weeks.”

Walker, one of the three council representatives who will serve on the committee, said there’s no timetable yet, “We have to work out some of the” details.

Council members Dave Albaugh (First Ward) and Ted Gorman (Fifth Ward) also will serve.

“They will not pick the next city manager,” Walker stressed. “They will make sure all the t’s are crossed and the i’s are dotted and references are checked. Then, council as a whole will (go through them) and pick the new city manager from them.”

Councilman Royal Mayo, who didn’t make the cut for the screening committee, said in the future he thinks it’s the council members who aren’t on the panel who should choose the citizen-representatives. He said the selection process “has the possibility of being inherently unfair,” pointing out that council members were each picked by a different group of people “so that each neighborhood is represented.”

But with the screening committee, after the three council representatives were picked council as a whole was asked to submit the names of one or two members of the general public. The final two committee members will be chosen from that list of nominees.

“But if we pick three and then the rest of the group can pick two more it could be the same group of people),” he said. “It should be just like when we picked the committee for the charter review – everybody here got to put somebody on that charter review commission, so everybody is represented. That way it’s more fair representation of the city, because now you’ll have some diversity and inclusion of everybody’s voice from every ward taking part in whatever committee we’re going to put together, especially when there’s no format, we just come up with it as we go.”