The City of North Myrtle Beach has chosen to hire internally for its new city manager.
After eight months acting as interim city manager, Ryan Fabbri has been picked to become the next city manager of North Myrtle Beach.
“We had an opportunity to view and watch his leadership traits and his ability to communicate with staff and communicate with people and with the city council,” Mayor Marilyn Hatley said. “He has made himself available to our citizens. It’s amazing how many citizens emailed and called us and asked us to please consider Mr. Fabbri as our city manager … . He is accessible. He always calls [residents] back when they call on the phone. He’s the kind of person who instead of immediately saying ‘no, we’re not going to do that, or we can’t do that’, he’s going to look at ways to see how we can work it out. That goes a long way.”
Fabbri started with the city in February 2023 as assistant city manager. Before that, he was town administrator in Pawleys Island.
The position became open after the departure of Mike Mahaney in October where council voted to terminate his contract under an agreement that included a $126,000 payment to Mahaney for his resignation with the conditions that neither he nor the city make disparaging remarks about each other. Mahaney has since announced his intention to run for mayor in November’s election.
In February, an executive search firm was hired to lead the search for the new city manager position, and council voted Friday, June 6, to offer Fabbri the job. It was nearly an eight-month process which attracted 88 applicants.
“It’s been a long process, but I’m glad we went through it. I think it really validates that I’m qualified for this position and I’m the right person to do it,” Fabbri said. “It wasn’t always easy going through it. Took a little longer than I hoped, but I feel good about it and I’m obviously happy about the conclusion.”
Fabbri said his goals now that he’s got the job are to advance needed infrastructure projects and to focus on long-term planning to anticipate future needs of the city before they become problems.
“We’re a growing community, obviously. We have a lot of long-term needs that we haven’t really thought out or talked about yet. So I want to talk about it in terms of how we’re going to go about doing it, what our needs are, and be intentional about it instead of just kind of dealing with it as needed,” Fabbri said. “Kind of just changing the way we think about how we accomplish things in the future.”
Hatley said council will now work to write up a contract for Fabbri which she said she expects may include a pay bump for the position. Mahaney was paid $253,000 annually.
The city manager is the top administrative position in the city and oversees the hiring and management of all city departments. Fabbri already has some work cut out for him as three important jobs in the city have recently become vacant. Building official Delane Stevens and assistant building official John Hill both retired recently. Building officials are in charge of managing code enforcement for the planning and zoning department, building inspections and issuing certificates of occupancy and permit approval. Also retired is Kevin Blayton, who was public works director and city engineer.
“This is an opportunity not only for new leadership at the top, but for new leadership in many vital department-head roles,” Fabbri said. “This is going to be the catalyst to kind of revisit how we do things. Fresh eyes, and it’s a chance to be innovative and be creative. So I’m really encouraged by that and excited by the opportunity.”
