LIVE OAK, Fla. — And then there were three.

At Tuesday’s meeting, the Suwannee County Board of County Commissioners scheduled the interviews for the county’s open economic development director position with three candidates. The fourth candidate out of the original seven applicants that was chosen for the interview portion of the process withdrew when the board declined to conduct a Skype interview.

The interviews are set for Dec. 12 at Live Oak City Hall, starting at 9 a.m.

Each candidate will have a 30-minute interview period.

Mark Yarick will start the interviews at 9 a.m., followed by Jimmy Norris at 9:30 a.m. with Lacey Ekberg interviewing at 10 a.m.

Teresa Campo, the community development director in Monroe, N.C., who has also worked in community development in Wilmington, N.C., was originally slated to wrap up the interviews at 10:30 a.m. However, Campo told Suwannee County officials that unless a Skype call or other video conference interview would suffice for the initial interview, she would have to decline the interview due to financial reasons.

The board was in agreement at Tuesday’s meeting that an in-person interview was required.

“Me, personally, I don’t want to do a Skype interview or a video, I would prefer an in-person interview,” Chairman Ricky Gamble said. “A position like this, I want an in-person interview.”

Added Len Stapleton: “After reading her letter, I think she probably knew how the board was going to feel with the statement that she made that she would just withdraw.”

During the interviews, each of the five commissioners will have two questions for each candidate, with follow-ups or clarifications if needed, in order to keep the interview from dragging on.

The commissioners will then grade the candidate following the interview using a point scale system with the scores being turned into the clerk to total.

When the interviews are completed, the totals will determine the board’s top candidate and negotiations will begin there and move down the list, if necessary.

“As soon as we, as a board, could settle on a ranking of 1-2-3, we started negotiating with the first one,” Gamble said. “That’s what we did last time. The first one accepted and then withdrew, so we entered into negotiations with the second one.”

That candidate in 2014 was Alvin Jackson, who served as the county’s first economic development director before leaving for a city manager position in Bunnell at the end of September. He turned in his resignation Aug. 27.

Since Jackson’s departure, Norris has been serving as interim economic development director in addition to being the executive director of the Suwannee County Chamber of Commerce, a position he took over in 2016 after previously serving on the Chamber’s board.

Yarick is a consultant at the University of North Florida’s Florida Small Business Development Center office in Suwannee County.

Ekberg’s prior experience includes serving as executive directors of various Chambers of Commerces previously, most recently in DeLand. She currently is the executive director of the Switzerland County Tourism in Vevay, Ind.