ELLSWORTH – Over the past three months, the number of applicants for the city’s vacant city manager position had been reduced from 45 to two, with a few applicants dropping out of the selection process on their own accord.

This week, with the withdrawals of the final two candidates, that number has been reduced to zero.

The city now will re-interview some of the candidates it already had passed over for the post, which has been vacant since former manager Tim King left at the end of June.

Ellsworth City Council Chairman Lee Beal, who until this week had been serving as acting city manager, said Thursday that one of the two finalists had decided to take a job elsewhere and the other decided to stay with his current job. The candidate from out of state who took a different job would have taken a pay cut to come to Ellsworth, he said, while the one from another Maine municipality turned down a pay increase to remain in his current position.

“We would have been pleased with either candidate,” Beal said. “It is frustrating.”

The salary and benefits Ellsworth offered to each candidate was “a very good package for this area,” according to Beal.

On Monday, Beal had said that of three finalists for the position, only one had withdrawn from consideration.

Beal admitted Thursday that the information he gave out Monday was incorrect. He said he had just found out the final two candidates had withdrawn when he was asked by a reporter how the search was going.

“I didn’t know what to say at that point,” Beal said. “I didn’t mean to give [out] inaccurate information.”

Beal, a former local high school principal, said he has dealt with withdrawn applications before but not in such a high-profile situation as a city manager search.

“Over the years it happened to me a number of times in the school system, but this is on a more public stage,” he said.

Beal said the council met Monday night in executive session to discuss the setback and how to address the issue with the media.

Michelle Beal, the city’s finance director who took over Monday as acting city manager, said Thursday that it could take a new city manager up to two months to begin work in Ellsworth after accepting the job. The finance director, who is not related to Lee Beal, said she does not know how long it might take to find a person to fill the position.

Michelle Beal said the city would not pay for more advertising or pay Maine Municipal Association any more to help with the search. The council hired MMA in July at a cost of $4,500 to assist in the search and set aside an additional $5,000 to pay for advertising for the position, city officials have said.

Former City Manager King, who was hired as Ellsworth’s city manager in 1990, left the position after four of Ellsworth’s seven city councilors voted in April to support a preliminary resolution not to renew his contract. King agreed to leave the post in June – before the council voted on a final resolution about renewing his contract – in exchange for a severance package estimated to be worth $58,800.

Lee Beal said the controversy was discussed with the applicants during the first round of interviews, but did not think it was an issue for people who decided to withdraw their applications.

“Ellsworth is not a community that changes city managers very often,” he said.

The City Council chairman said MMA has sent the 45 original applications less those withdrawn back to the city for further consideration. He said the council would wait until Nov. 12, after local City Council races have been decided, to go through the applications again and to try to set up more interviews.

“We decided to wait and to take a step back,” he said.

Beal said he decided to step down as acting city manager because he is not seeking reappointment as chairman of the council after the November elections. Beal’s seat on the City Council does not come up for re-election until 2004.