Eyewitness News has been told the city council is also eyeing a pool of applicants with hopes of making a decision soon.
On Wednesday, Durham's city council huddled inside the mayor's office for yet another closed meeting, with still no decision on who should manage the Bull City.
"We're continuing the search, we have some homework to do," Durham Mayor Bill Bell said.
When the three finalists visited Durham three weeks ago, the hope was to find the best candidate quickly.
George Kolb, Randy Oliver and Pat Salerno left their manager jobs after disagreements with their previous cities. But that's par for the course to some Durham leaders and hardly reasons enough to hold up the search for city manager.
"It's not an issue for me; I knew that when we selected them so it wasn't a surprise," Bell said.
"We've seen it in Durham a number of times both on the city and county side … so it doesn't concern me that much as long as those candidates have the skills we're looking for," Durham City Council Mike Woodard said.
The finalists are still in the running and the search is not starting over. But the pool of potential candidates may be widening.
"We've had conversations with our consultants who have recommended a pool of candidates and we're going to consider the pool of candidates who've been recommended to us," Woodard said.
City leaders keeping quiet on the details, while sticking to their original plan of naming a new city manager as early as the end of this month.
"I would rather us make a quality selection than a hasty decision," Woodard said.
The issue is still up for discussion. Durham city leaders will meet again in another closed meeting on Monday.
