With the deadline passed to apply for the available fire chief position in the city of McMinnville, the process of weeding through the dozens of applications received and narrowing the field has begun.
By the Dec. 29 deadline, 69 applications were received.
“There are some extremely qualified individuals in the group,” said city administrator David Rutherford. “We did get some who were more qualified than others.”
When it comes to minimum qualifications, more than half of those who applied had what was necessary.
“We had between 40-45 who were qualified for the position,” Rutherford said. “The remaining did not meet the minimum requirements.”
The process to narrow the number down began with the establishment of three piles — those who do not meet the minimum requirements, those who just barely met all the requirements, and exceptional candidates.
When asked if the last pile will be under consideration first, Rutherford replied, “Of course. We will start there and work our way back.”
A meeting will be held between Rutherford, McMinnville Police Chief and interim Fire Chief Bryan Denton and human resource administrator Jennifer Rigsby to go through the exceptional pile of applicants.
“It’s not going to be easy,” said Rigsby, who was the first to review the applications as they were submitted. “There are some highly educated and highly trained individuals who have applied.”
 Rutherford says he is not going into interviews with a set idea of who he would like to see get the position. However, he does plan on a speedy process in order to move onto hiring for other open positions in the city.
“I want to move as fast as we can and get someone into the position,” he said. “We need to start looking for a new Parks and Recreation director. There are also some frozen positions in the city we need to take a look at and fill if necessary.”
When the applications are narrowed down to a few promising candidates, those names will be announced.