Published: February 25, 2009 07:51 pm      

Ewart chosen as new PH city administrator

After a closed session Tuesday evening, the Pinehurst city council chose Robert Ewart as their new city administrator.

Ewart who served as LaMarque city administrator for the past three years until his recent retirement, will be starting his new job on Monday.

Ewart has also worked with other cities including Dayton, Sour Lake and Vidor.

For Ewart it will be somewhat of a homecoming to Southeast Texas since he has family members in the area.

The position became available after Dan Robertson, former police chief/city administrator, retired after 19 years with the city of Pinehurst.

The positions became available in November. Since then Fred Hanauer has served as interim police chief, while Mayor T.W. Permenter has served as interim city administrator.

“I’m glad to have somebody take over and make sure the city goes forward in the right direction,” Permenter said. “I think he’ll do a great job.”

It was up to a hiring committee to decide if they would split the positions into two different jobs or hire one person for both openings.

City officials received about 25 applications for the city administrator job, but the council approved Ewart for the position. According to Permenter during a previous interview, they had received applications from all over the area and some out-of-state applications as well.

Now, the next hiring phase will be for the position of Pinehurst Police Chief.

In other city business, Shawn Saddaruddin, owner of Video Paradise located at 2500 MacArthur Drive, appeared before the city council again. Council members have been working with Saddaruddin over the course of the last seven years to repair the structure. Since then he has made recent strides in following the council’s request. However, during the meeting he informed the council he would report back to them in about a month to tell them of plans to sell the building or have the front repaired as well.

Council members approved a contract with the Pinehurst Police Association for fiscal year ending Sept. 30. According to interim police chief, Fred Hanauer, the contract does not have any big changes with the exception of a two percent raise which will go into effect April 1.

Council members adopted an amended ordinance to permit third party ambulance service providers during periods of mandatory evacuations. The city originally passed in agreement in 2006 with Acadian to allow them to be the only ambulance provider in the Orange area. However, it came to light following the need to evacuate a large quantity of people, that other ambulance providers could assist during a critical time period. As a result, the contract was amended to allow ambulance contractors in the area in the event of a evacuation or disaster.

Council members decided to table action on granting a permit to Alan Lucia to open a mobile home and RV park at 1601 24th Street. They wanted to look into the matter further before proceeding.



Debby Schamber is a reporter for the Orange Leader. She can be reached at 409-883-3571 ext. 2603 or at dschamber@orangeleader.com.