Ron Goulart jokes that one of his biggest accomplishments of the past year is improving the relationship between the city manager and the city attorney in Fort Oglethorpe.

He holds both jobs – a feat that has some singing his praises and others disparaging it as a conflict of interest.

In fact, Goulart will have officially been interim city manager for exactly one year on March 26, and has for the entire time also kept his job as city attorney. He applied, along with 17 other applicants, for the city manager position.

Speaking in a more serious vein, Goulart says the accomplishment of which he is most proud is raising employee morale. During a break at a recent council meeting when Goulart was out of the room, several city employees were praising him. He’s always there when you need him, he’ll make time for you no matter what, he’ll listen, and he doesn’t micromanage, the employees said.

Mayor Ronnie Cobb said the Fort Oglethorpe City Council had narrowed the applicants down to four and would probably eliminate one more person at the next meeting on Monday, March 24.

“At that time, we can contact them and make sure they’re still interested in the job, and we can at that time let the names out,” Cobb said.

The council appointed Goulart after voting to fire then-city manager Jim Dinley more than a year ago. As city attorney, Goulart also represented the council and cross-examined Dinley during a hearing in which Dinley appealed for his job.

Council members waited until after the November election – when two new council members and a new mayor were voted into office – before they even began seriously looking for another city manager. The advertisements for the position went out in December, and the council stopped taking applications on Jan. 3.

When Goulart was appointed in the interim capacity, he originally said he had no intention of applying for the city manager job because he enjoyed practicing law so much. Asked about his change of heart recently, Goulart said he didn’t quite know what to say except that he enjoyed doing both jobs and would be happy with either one.

Yet if he were hired into the position permanently, he said, the council would probably need to hire another city attorney. If nothing else, his departure would mean the loss of two key positions rather than one, were he to keep both jobs.

Cobb said the council plans to keep the city attorney and city manager jobs separate again once members make a decision. He said having an interim city manager for a year is not unusual, although the process would have gone by more quickly had the vacancy not occurred during an election year.

“I think we’ll probably fill that city manager position within the next few weeks,” Cobb said.