Laurinburg City Council said this week that it plans to take a hands-on approach to hiring a new city manager.

The city is looking to replace City Manager Craig Honeycutt, who is leaving Laurinburg to serve as county manager in Alamance County this month.

Bob Bell, human resource director for the city, reviewed the last two city manager hires with the council.

He said that for former City Manager Joe Huffman the process included a search team, then with a committee consisting of two council members and the mayor. Bell said Honeycutt's hiring was handled more narrowly. Bell sat down with then-mayor Ann Slaughter.

Council members decided that they should all be involved in the process, with Bell being responsible for keeping up with the applications.

Council member Herbert Rainer asked to take copies of the resumes home, but was quickly denied because of confidentiality concerns.

The board agreed, for the sake of expedience, that they should all be able to visit Bell in his office to look over the applications before discussing them at length.

The council is expected to discuss the applications at an April 14 meeting.

Earlier, council member Curtis Leak questioned why the council was having the meeting.

"Didn't we discuss this at the last meeting?" Leak said.

Mayor Matthew Block pointed out how the council had not decided on the hiring process - they merely heard some ideas about the process.

City council also met in closed session to discuss qualifications for the position of city manager and to review the applications that have already been received.

The city has received 51 applications for the position so far. They will continue to be accepted until the position is filled, officials said.

In other business, council approved the lowest bidder to construct the Scotland County campus of RCC. The bid, one of 17 for the project, came in at $2.4 million.

The company has a lot of experience with similar projects, according to Bill Riemer, director of administration and development.

"We have gotten some very good comments from other community colleges," Riemer said.

Riemer said that many of the bids were below the estimated cost for the project because of the economy.

"They may be bidding this pretty close to cost to keep people busy," he said.