After doing away with their city administrator in 2003 and losing their city secretary-administrator last August, Kenedy council members are considering turning their personnel policies completely around.

Council members voted to create a separate city secretary position during their regular meeting December 12, an action undoing their combination of the administrator and secretary positions in 2003.

City clerk Sandra Lundquist was appointed to the position.

"It needs to be separate and it is separate now," interim City Administrator Walter Hill, Jr. said. "There was no opposition. There was some discussion by one of the council members that wanted to make sure that she was qualified from an accounting standpoint. She has had two years of accounting in college, so that answered that question."

On the agenda for their next meeting is a recommendation from Hill advising the city move to a city-manager-like form of administration.

The goal of the ordinance is to allow the person in the city manager’s position to have the authority to hire, fire, resolve other personnel matters. The city manager also will be given control over the city’s finances, but still will be under the mayor’s authority.

In Kenedy’s current form of administration, all those jobs belong solely to the mayor.

Hill said a city election will not have to be called to finalize the change because the city’s form of government will remain the same.

Kenedy’s city attorney couldn’t confirm the changes could be made through a new ordinance, however.

"He mentioned that — that you could pass an ordinance," Kenedy City Attorney Acie McAda said. "I don’t know that you can do that, but I haven’t researched it. I don’t know that they’re at the point of adopting an ordinance because no one’s asked me to prepare one and I haven’t seen one."

Just last July, council members voted to take away some of those powers from their city secretary-administrator position and grant them to the mayor. The person holding that office, Loretta Thiele, resigned shortly thereafter.

"It’ll make it easier for a person coming in here – a person that’s looking and wants to get into the business – city manager looks a lot better than city administrator," Hill said of the ordinance that will create the position.

The ordinance draft also stipulates the new city manager must live within Kenedy city limits. The department heads still will report to the city council, but other than that, employment and personnel matters will be handled entirely by the city manager under the mayor’s direction if the ordinance is passed and holds up.

Council members were set to review it and make a decision during a special meeting December 19.