Wanted: a city, town or village manager.

Apply to: any number of communities across the U.S. that are now seeking their next top staffer.

As Park City prepares to recruit someone to succeed City Manager Tom Bakaly, there are at least upward of 30 other places performing the same exercise, according to classified postings late in the week on the website of the International City/County Management Association

The group is a Washington, D.C.-based not-for-profit focused on the management of local governments, and it maintains a job board focused on executive positions and other high-level municipal openings. It is likely not an exhaustive list of the chief executive openings in the nation since individual communities differ in their recruitment practices.

Some of the postings in recent weeks include the city manager positions in Miami Beach, Fla., the Bay area community of Santa Clara, Calif., and Boulder City, Nev., sitting between Las Vegas and Lake Mead.

The recruitments elsewhere will be well underway, and possibly completed or nearly finished, by the time Park City advertises the local opening. But the postings provide a snapshot of the market for municipal executives as the Park City search nears.

Bakaly, the city manager since 2003, will leave the Marsac Building to become the city manager in Hermosa Beach, Calif. He starts there on Sept. 4. Diane Foster, the deputy city manager in Park City, will serve as the acting city manager until a permanent one is installed. She has said she will not be a candidate for the permanent position.

Park City plans to hire a firm to assist with the recruitment. The mayor and Park City Council hope a person is selected by the end of 2012.

The leader of a group that represents the interests of local communities in Utah said this week he expects the opening will receive widespread interest. Scott Harbertson, who is the mayor of Farmington and the president of the Utah League of Cities and Towns, said his city received more than 120 applications when it conducted a nationwide search for a city manager in 2011.

"You're going to have a huge response, I believe," Harbertson said.

He added City Hall could "easily" receive several hundred applications and the response will be "phenomenal." The job could be of interest to a younger municipal executive attempting to build a resume, he said.

Harbertson said both Park City and Utah are desirable places, noting that the state is prospering and has a strong economic base. He also said the city manager post in Park City is a plum position. He said the ski industry and the annual Sundance Film Festival are some of the attractions of government work in the city.

It would be an "honor and privilege to be employed there and be the key administrator there," he said.

Perhaps 10 percent of the applications could come from inside the state, he said. Others will submit applications from across the U.S. if a nationwide recruitment is conducted, as is planned, Harbertson said.

The recruitment for a successor has more intrigue than the one that was undertaken when Bakaly was hired in 2003. City Hall conducted a nationwide search at that time as well, but Bakaly was seen as the clear front-runner for the position after his unprecedented rise in the ranks to become Park City's first-ever assistant city manager.

It is not clear whether there will be internal candidates with Foster saying she will not apply.