Bill Sweeden gets acting/interim city manager nod

The Pawhuska City Council, by a vote of 5-0, on Thursday evening, May 25, appointed Bill Sweeden to be acting/interim city manager. The Council spent more than two and a half hours in an executive session Thursday, talking with several candidates for the appointment, before emerging and approving Sweeden.

Sweeden said he anticipated starting work on Friday, May 26. Mayor Mark Buchanan said the Council would continue its search activities, with a view toward making a long-term hire for the city manager position. The position became vacant at the end of April, when Interim City Manager Laura Teague resigned. She had been the interim manager for about 10 months.

There has been steady turnover for several years now in the Pawhuska city manager job and someone in the meeting room at the Community Center jokingly called out "Condolences" to Sweeden after the Council chose him.

Sweeden served two terms as an Osage County commissioner in the 1980s and 1990s. Recently, he has been serving on the Osage County Tourism Oversight Committee, the board of the Osage County Industrial Trust Authority, and the Pawhuska Planning Commission.