“It is critical that we address the vacuum of leadership at city hall,” Third Ward councilmember Zach Ackerman said late last year. “That has to be one of our priorities for the new year,” agreed his Third Ward colleague, Julie Grand.

It was quite a vacuum: at the time, the city was without a city administrator, a police chief, a community services area administrator, a building official, and a head planner. Nor were councilmembers’ worries allayed when Detroit assistant police chief James White took the Ann Arbor police job in November–then gave it back in December to stay in Detroit.

The city plugged two holes in February: council gave acting AAPD chief (and former deputy chief) Jim Baird the top job permanently, and hired Derek Delacourt from Ferndale as community services administrator. Delacourt now oversees planning and development plus community development and parks and recreation. HR head Robyn Wilkerson emails that interviews for a building official are tentatively scheduled for this month, but Delacourt will wait a bit before filling the planning opening: “He would like time to learn about our processes and our current planning staff.”

That still leaves the most important job of all: city administrator. The position was posted in late November, and applications closed in early February. “The tentative plan is to have our pool of candidates [winnowed down by] the third week of March,” writes Wilkerson.

“We have no established timeline,” says mayor Christopher Taylor. “It is important that we find the best candidate, and so we are going to make sure we do the job right.” Are we talking weeks, months, or years? “Not years,” Taylor replies. “We’re talking months but not too many seasons.”