Congratulations to Mayor-elect Steve Horton on his decisive victory Tuesday.

Horton brings nearly 36 years of experience to the new role of mayor, having served as city manager, assistant city manager, public works director and police chief.

In short, he’s about done it all.

Now it’s time to bring that experience to bear for the citizens again.

We’re eager to see the direction Horton has for Covington. When he qualified, he told the newspaper he wasn’t ready to discuss his platform. It was much the same Tuesday night.

“First things first, I want to get a little better feel of what the public wants from this point on and how we start that road, but we have to work with these other council people to know what they want to do,” he said. “For me, I want to know what direction the city wants to go into, and the local businesses and what they have to say.”

That collaborative approach will serve the new mayor well. But, the time is coming where Horton will have to lay out his vision for Covington. We look forward to hearing it. After all, he did great things for the city as its CEO.

Obviously voters trusted him. He got 60% of the vote in a three-way race that included a two-term incumbent.

Voters also turned to another familiar face, retired fire Chief Don Floyd, for a City Council seat. It’s clear Covington voters want people they know and trust to lead them into the future. We’re eager to see how these experiences help as the city faces the challenges a dawning new decade brings.

City manager

Although there is certainly no legal requirement for the council to do so, we hope Horton gets a seat at the table on Nov. 20 when leaders sit down to decide the next city manager.

This is an important job. The city manager has oversight of more than 300 employees and a huge budget — one funded by our tax dollars.

The mayor and council have selected two finalists: the city’s electric director, Freddy Morgan, and Smyrna Assistant City Manager Scott Andrews.

Mayor Ronnie Johnston had told us the six semifinalists were all highly qualified, but now that it’s down to two — and Johnston is on his way out — it’s time to expand the pool of people making the choice.

The current mayor and council obviously get the votes. The citizens chose them for terms that run through the end of this year, and they have all rights and responsibilities pertaining to that, but collaboration with the people chosen for the future should be a priority.

The tenure of the next city manager will get off to a better start if he knows his next slate of bosses at least had a chance to say grace over the hire.

Our View is the opinion of The Covington News’ editorial board.