The search for a new Eureka Springs Parks and Recreation Director is well underway.

Members of the search committee — or the “hiring committee” as they call themselves — picked to facilitate the process of replacing Scott Miskiel gave an update at the Oct. 18 parks and recreation commission meeting at The Auditorium.

The position is listed on the city’s website, among other sites, with a Nov. 9 application deadline.

Commission chair Ruth Hager said there has been a lot of talk in the community about the position and she discussed with commissioners the challenges of possibly knowing people who are interested in the role.

“It’s a small town,” Hager said. “I know some people who have applied. We all know some people who have applied, who might be applying. Let’s make sure we’re mindful of the fact that talking to people who are applying, or we think might be applying, or will be applying … it can seem like back-door politics campaigning a little bit. … I think this search right now is just causing a lot of conversation that probably should be more, you know, more measured … And it is hard when they’re friends.”

Hager then discussed how the search committee, which consists of commissioners Laurie Crammond, Sue Hubbard and Mark Ingram, will handle the confidentiality of applications that are received for the city position.

“When you receive the resumes, receive the applications, how we want to store them, receive them, keep them confidential or not,” Hager said. “We know that you’ll take your findings, you’ll triage the information. You’re not hiring anybody. I’m having lots of public, people ask me, are they hiring? No, y’all aren’t doing the hiring. We know that. … We know that there’s a search committee and the information is being gathered. And when they’re ready to present to the whole commission, that’s when decisions to be made.” “We’ve actually been calling ourselves the hiring committee,” Hubbard later said.

After Hubbard gave an overview on the progress the search committee has made, Hager returned to the topic of keeping the applicants of the position confidential, at least until the date the position is closed.

“I’ve had some questions for Kim [Stryker] in anticipation of the fact that if there’s any FOIA situations that go on and hopefully I’ll talk to her in the next day or so to find out, because we do realize these resumes and applications are public,” Hager said. “But when Scott and I were talking, the [applications] are like bids, you know, we have an open and a close date for receiving [the applications]. … They are still confidentially being gathered and kept. Once [the closing date], then they’ll all be open.”

Ingram said all applications or resumes, when released to the public must be redacted, according to Jerry King, the city’s human resource director.

“Jerry told me yesterday and said it’s very, very important that each candidate is referred to by candidate number, not name,” Ingram said. “I mean they do have privacy … emails and telephone numbers and addresses or anything like that. So, it’s candidate one, candidate two. [King] said., until you actually offer, and they accept the job, it’s always candidates is how they’re referred by.”

Ingram later said, “nobody’s looking at [the applicants], I guess, really, until it’s closed.”

Scott Loftis, managing editor for the Lovely County Citizen, filed an open-records request on Oct. 19 for applications submitted for the position. Stryker, administrative assistant to Mayor Butch Berry, made the records available on Oct. 20, but the names of the two applicants had been redacted.

The Arkansas Freedom of Information Act provides no exemption for names of applicants for employment with public entities, Loftis said.

“After consulting with the attorney for the state press association, I believe that redacting the names was a FOIA violation,” Loftis said. “I’ll be contacting the prosecuting attorney to lodge a criminal complaint. This continues a long, repeated pattern of FOIA violations by Eureka Springs city commissions, and we will not stop protesting every single time.”

Committee members said their next meeting hadn’t been organized, but it was mentioned that the group has been, or will be, communicating by other means.

“Because you can do some of your stuff by emailing each other anyway, can’t you, and text and calls?” Hager said. “A lot of it can be.”

“That also would be a FOIA violation,” Loftis said. “I don’t understand why the parks commission can’t simply follow the law and conduct public business in public.”