Amarillo City Council is set to offer Grayson Path the role of Amarillo's next city manager.

While the council will not take any formal action until later this summer, they reached a consensus during a special meeting held on Wednesday following a lengthy executive session. The next steps forward will be for the city to negotiate an offer with Path. Should Path accept an offer, Mayor Cole Stanley noted he would like to target no later than August 19th for Path to take office.

Path, who currently serves as the city manager of Paris, Texas, was one of two finalists. The other finalist, Matt Allen, currently serves as the city manager of Garden City, Kansas.

“I can make great cases for both of them,” said Mayor Cole Stanley. “I would want to proceed with putting an offer out to Grayson Path.”

Stanley also noted that, in response to concerns regarding the fact that both Paris and Garden City are smaller than Amarillo, he was looking for a leader, not just a manager.

Councilman Les Simpson, who took a leading role in the search process, echoed those sentiments. In particular, he drew parallels between this search and the search that led to former city manager John Stiff being hired. According to Simpson, Garland, where Stiff worked previous to being hired by Amarillo, had a similarly small population compared to Amarillo at the time he was brought on board. “If we had said well, they need to have a similar type experience in a similar city, we would have never gotten a city manager here that we thought so much of to name a park,” said Simpson.

Simpson also noted that he felt strongly about both finalists and even said that he went into today’s meeting without a preference. “I felt that, when we were talking about the finalists, we should feel happy about any candidate.”

The council also hopes to avoid a similar situation in Amarillo College’s recent failed search for a new college president. Shortly after picking two finalists, one of the two finalists backed out. The Amarillo College Board, instead of moving forward with the other finalists, put the search on hold before essentially restarting the process.

With the City Manager search, Stanley noted that, at this point, Path and Allen are “our number one and our number two.” Simpson similarly noted that his confidence in both finalists would leave him comfortable with Allen should the city not reach a deal with Path.

The search for a new city manager began after the council accepted a separation agreement with former city manager Jared Miller last August. At the time of the separation agreement, Miller had an annual base salary of $313,000, not including benefits.

Grayson Path has a Master of Public Administration degree from Arkansas State University. Path also has an Associate of Science in Physics from Northeast Community College in Norfolk, Nebraska, as well as a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. According to a records request from The Amarillo Pioneer, he currently earns an annual base salary of $178,000, not including benefits.