JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (WJAC) — After more than two years without a permanent one, Johnstown City Council has named a new city manager.
At a meeting held at the Pasquerilla Conference Center Wednesday, the council confirmed that Ethan Imhoff, who's the Cambria County Planning Commission Executive Director, had been selected.
City officials unanimously approved an employment agreement with Imhoff, pending background checks, effective January 31st at a salary of $135,000 per year.
"Next generation leadership has worked very deliberately to find common ground over challenging terrain, to move the City forward," Imhoff said in a statement provided by the city. "I consider myself fortunate to be a part of this moment, and am very excited to contribute to the effort as City Manager."
The move ends a more than two-year odyssey to permanently replace George Hayfield who left the post in November 2019 after being under siege by the council for much of his year-long tenure.
In fact, the council has had a hard time keeping someone in the post, the city has had ten different permanent, interim, or acting managers since the beginning of 2014.
One issue the council felt needed to be solved to rectify this was removing a residency requirement for the job.
Voters gave council permission to get rid of that so that the city could get better candidates who would otherwise refuse to live inside the city limits of the poorest town in Pennsylvania. Imhoff lives in Hollidaysburg, according to the borough's website.
"We are excited to have Ethan join our management team," Mayor Frank Jankovic said. "He is very familiar with the issues facing the City and possesses the experience necessary to shepherded the many projects upcoming in the City."
Imhoff had been in the news in recent weeks after his comments made at a November Planning Commission meeting were published last month, saying that the civic group he’s the vice-chairman of, Vision Together 2025, had, “begun exploring the feasibility of hosting immigrants, particularly recently evacuated Afghan refugees currently living on American military bases, in Johnstown and Cambria County.”
According to the minutes, Imhoff said the topic of discussion was a possible solution to the continuing population loss in Johnstown and Cambria County.
“He explained that because other parts of the country have successfully utilized immigration as a part of a strategy to reverse population decline and employment gaps,” the minute stated.
Mike Tedesco, President and CEO of Vision 2025, later said after days of citizen and bipartisan political concern that Afghan refugees were not a part of the plan but that the board would look to bring in "vetted immigrants" to help fill the 1,000 open positions in the region.
Imhoff declined an on-camera interview since he has not begun the job yet.
"From my seat specifically, Vision Together 2025 has been exploring a plan to potentially bring five to ten legally vetted immigrant families with skills appropriate to fill some of the many jobs available in our area," Janakovic, who is part of the Vision Together 2025 board, said at the end of the meeting, "This idea has been explored along with many other ideas of potential ways to attract new residents and help our businesses find the employees they need to grow."
Council held the meeting at the Pasquerilla Conference Center as they got a tour of the facility prior to the meeting. Council is weighing how to proceed with the facility after Pasquerilla Enterprises terminated its contract between Crown Conventions Center Company and the city of Johnstown last year for the management of the center, effective the end of February 2022. The decision came after Pasquerilla sold the Holiday Inn downtown, limiting access to hire and pay that staff to service the events at the conference center.
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