The Hartselle Personnel Board has interviewed three candidates for the vacant public works director position.

The board, along with Mayor Don Hall and city council members, conducted interviews with Tommy Halbrooks and Mark Mizell Thursday night and Daxton Maze on Tuesday night.

Mayor Don Hall said he was pleased with the group of candidates.

“I think we have a three strong candidates for this position,” Hall said. “I think the personnel board will have a very difficult decision to make.”

While the interviews were completed before the council meeting Tuesday night, Hall didn’t expect to make a recommendation until the first council meeting in December.

Halbrooks most recently ran against Randy Vest for the Morgan County Commission in 2014. He is graduate of Brewer High School and a magna cum laude graduate of Athens State University with a degree in business. He has worked in a number of management positions during his work career.

Mizell is currently the training coordinator at Ascend Performance Materials. He has previously served on the Hartselle City Council and currently serves as the president of Hartselle Dixie Youth Baseball. He chose not to run in 2012 after his family bought a house outside the city limits.

Maze is a civil engineer at the U.S. Army Garrison. He is a graduate of the University of Alabama and has served on the Hartselle Utilities Board.

Of the three candidates, Maze is the only one who currently lives inside the city limits. Mizell and Halbrooks both live outside the city limits but are less than 10 minutes away from downtown Hartselle.

If Halbrooks or Mizell were selected, the job description for the public works director states that the he or she must move inside the city limits within a year of being hired.

Hall said he wasn’t sure if the city council could relax that restriction for candidates who live outside the city.

“We’d have to ask (city attorney) Larry Madison for clarification on that,” Hall said.