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MARQUETTE -- Before the Marquette budget meeting, the commission continued to whittle away at filling the vacant city manager position.

Since January, the city has been working with a consulting firm to fill the seat left by Judy Akkala.  They started with 69 people who applied online.

This morning the commission was presented with eight of those applicants.  Although they are not releasing the names, they have--after an hour-long, closed-door session--found five people who could do the job.

"I think we're going to end up with a candidate that can hit the ground running, someone that has experience in the things that make Marquette unique.  When we put together the composite of what we were looking for, we included things like waterfront community, a northern climate city, things of that nature that were important to us," said Jon Kivela, Marquette Mayor.

The city will conduct further interviews with those candidates, and they hope to fill the position by the end of April.