City Manager

James M. White, a self-employed Montgomery County businessman, has announced he will not accept the city manager post.White, 44, a business consultant who lives in Olney, was chosen from a field of 80 candidates by the City Council last month to succeed longtime City Manager Neal W. Powell, who plans to retire.The Cleveland native, who was expected to assume the post this month, informed the council by letter that he had been in his hometown area the past several days because of "a variety of complex issues concerning private family matters."

Taneytown officials don't expect to hire a new town manager to replace Charles P. "Chip" Boyles until next year. Although the city has received resumes from more than a dozen applicants, it doesn't expect to begin screening applicants until mid- to late December, and then hire next year, said Mayor Henry C. Heine Jr. "We probably won't have anybody until February," Heine said. Boyles, Taneytown's city manager for the past five years, resigned last month. The 37-year-old left Taneytown to return to his home state of South Carolina, where his mother and two sisters reside.

After two years of running a small but growing town in rural South Carolina, Charles Boyles will do the same thing in Taneytown, where he begins work Monday as the town's city manager.Mayor W. Robert Flickinger offered the position to Mr. Boyles yesterday, after a six-month search for a city manager.Mr. Boyles, 33, and known as Chip, will be responsible for overseeing day-to-day operations in the city of 4,500.He comes to the northwest Carroll town from Hardeesville, S.C., a town of 2,000, located between Hilton Head Island, S.C., and Savannah, Ga. Mr. Boyles held the position of city manager there for two years.

Taneytown officials have not selected a city manager yet -- but they're getting close.Mayor Henry I. Reindollar Jr. said last week that he and the City Council were about to interview two candidates. A third candidate is also being considered."We advertised again, and these candidates are from the second set of applications," Mr. Reindollar said. "We're calling in one of the people from the last set to come in for another interview."City officials advertised for a new city manager in municipal publications shortly after Joseph A. Mangini Jr. was fired in August by the mayor and council for unspecified reasons.

Annapolis lawmakers got their first look last night at proposals that could change the way City Hall operates. City council member Sheila Finlayson wants to create a commission to study alternative forms of government for the city, including strong and weak mayoral systems and a city manager-style of government. Over the years, Finlayson said, three or four city-appointed groups have studied management options without reaching a conclusion. Under a plan to be introduced by council members Samuel E. Shropshire and Ross Arnett, voters would have to approve a change in the City Charter to scrap the city administrator system in favor of having a city manager.

Just as Westminster's new city manager took office last week, Mount Airy voted to hire its former planner as the town's first administrator. These day-to-day administrators come on board as Carroll County's two most populated municipalities struggle to balance residential development with limited water resources. Margaret "Marge" Wolf, the deputy housing secretary under former Gov. Parris N. Glendening, started as Westminster's new manager on Monday. She managed the borough of Kennett Square, Pa., and also previously served as Hyattsville's city administrator.

A newly appointed commission will study the advisability of revising the 1708 Annapolis city charter to grant the mayor greater power over the government.The five-member panel, selected last week by Mayor Alfred A. Hopkins, will examine whether the mayor's authority should be expanded or whether that power should be vested in a city manager, said Roger "Pip" Moyer, who was mayor of Annapolis in the 1960s.Mr. Moyer will lead the commission. The other members are Ward 7 Alderman M. Theresa DeGraff, City Administrator Michael D. Mallinoff and residents Hillard Donner and Harvey Ennis.

THE TOWN'S MAYOR has just been arrested and charged with perjury, insurance fraud and theft. The city manager has been asked by the local council to resign for costing the community money by missing grant-application deadlines. Crisfield should be in turmoil. Instead, folks in that isolated crabbing town on the lower Eastern Shore are blase about the whole thing.Yet Mayor Donald W. Gerald has been charged with serious crimes. And City Manager Harry T. Phoebus may have been inexcusably remiss in applying for state grants.

The city manager of an Arizona resort town is competing with his counterparts in a Michigan college town and a New Jersey suburb to head the Columbia Association, one of the country's largest homeowners associations. The Columbia Association announced yesterday the names of three finalists for the job of Columbia Association president, although one candidate's name had surfaced in the news media last week. The candidates are: Gregory C. Fehrenbach, administrator for the township of Piscataway, N.J.; Michael D. Letcher, city manager of Sedona, Ariz.

RESIDENTS OF Taneytown certainly hope they have at last found the right city manager, the fifth person to serve in that capacity in less than four years. Charles P. Boyles II, who formerly served as city administrator in rural Hardeeville, South Carolina, took the job this month, replacing interim manager Henry Reindollar Jr., the former four-term mayor.Mr. Reindollar took over the assignment in March, after former Army officer John A. Kendall left to take a job in Frederick city government.