DURHAM - After more than four hours of closed-door meetings Thursday, members of the City Council still aren't ready to offer the city manager's job to one of three finalists.

"We're still deliberating," Mayor Bill Bell said Thursday night.

"Would we have liked to have come to a consensus before now? Sure, fine. But we're not there yet for reasons I'm comfortable with."

Bell wouldn't go into detail about those reasons.

He said in an interview before the first round of council deliberations last week that he had the finalists ranked Nos. 1, 2 and 3. "I suspect the rest of the council does, too," he said then.

He wouldn't say Thursday night whether his No. 1 matched that of the majority of council members.

Bell also has said that there's no guarantee the new manager would come from the slate of finalists, whose names were announced last week.

He also would not say whether the council would consider reopening the search.

Bell noted that Patrick Baker, current city manager, is not planning to leave office until July 1.

"We have the luxury of not having to rush a decision," Bell said, though he added he didn't want to string along the three finalists longer than necessary.

The council has scheduled another closed session meeting for Wednesday.

The three finalists are George Kolb, former city manager in Wichita, Kan., Charles Oliver, former city manager in Peoria, Ill., and Patrick Salerno, former city manager in Sunrise, Fla. All left their jobs after disagreements with their respective city councils.