The Board of Aldermen voted 5-0 on July 28, 2025, to enter a closed session under the Missouri Revised Statutes to review and narrow candidates for the city administrator position.

The vote came at a special meeting called by Mayor Philly. The board cited RSMo. provisions authorizing closed sessions for personnel matters when making the motion to meet in private.

The action follows an internal recruitment process that began after the interim city administrator left in May 2024. Alderman Cleave summarized the board's work: "We have been interviewing candidates since, the interim city administrator left, which was, May 2024. We received applications from 41 applicants, and we had first round interviews with 12 of those applicants, second round interviews with 7 of them, and we made offers to 3 candidates." He said negotiations with those three were not successful.

Cleave said the board set a limit on how long it would continue the search internally and decided in February 2025 to engage an outside recruiting firm. "We received 30 applications through the recruiter, and that's what we're going into closed session is to review those candidates and, come down to a semifinalist list," he said.

Alderman Cleave moved to enter closed session under Missouri Revised Statutes provisions cited during the meeting; Alderman Stewart seconded the motion. The roll-call votes recorded as "yes" were Alderman Cowley, Alderman Cleave, Alderman Stewart, Alderman Hovind, and Alderman Lesh, producing a 5-0 vote in favor of the closed session. After the vote, the board recessed to private session.

Discussion at the public portion of the meeting was limited to the recruitment timeline and prior rounds of interviews; no formal hiring decisions were made in open session. The board did not specify a public timetable for releasing any semifinalist list or for subsequent public meetings about a final appointment.

By holding a closed session under the cited sections of the Missouri Revised Statutes, the board placed review of candidate records and deliberations about particular applicants outside the public record, as allowed by state law for individually identifiable personnel matters. The board provided no additional details about candidate names, compensation terms, or expected next public actions at the time of adjournment to closed session.