The City of Merritt is still at least a month away from hiring to fill its vacant CAO job.

Mayor Linda Brown says the city has hired an executive search team and says about 40 applications have come in for the position.

“Within a week, they’ll go through them and get back to us,” she said. “A couple of weeks from now we’ll set up interviews.”

“So, two to three weeks from now we’ll be doing interviews on five or six of those 40 and narrow it down to who we want to be here in the city.”

The good news, Brown adds, is that there’s been plenty of interest.

“I think the word is out that we’re changing the way we’re doing things and that we’re looking forward and trying to move into that next level of service,” she said. “Hopefully, we find somebody who moves along with us.”

The city manager job in Merritt has been vacant since the city fired Shawn Boven two-and-a-half months ago.