WEST WARWICK — The town has received a thick stack of applications for the vacant posts of town manager and fire chief, according to Town Clerk David D. Clayton, who has been acting manager since Wolfgang Bauer was dismissed in December.

Thus far, Clayton said, newspaper advertisements have drawn about 10 applications to succeed Bauer and 28 to head the Fire Department, from which Charles Hall resigned in January to become deputy chief of operations and training for T.F. Green Airport’s firefighting force.

It is time, Clayton told the Town Council at its meeting Tuesday, to decide whether to appoint a panel to screen the candidates for both positions. The council will take up that idea — which Clayton favors — when it meets Feb. 19.

The Town Charter stipulates that the town manager have a master’s degree in business or public administration and at least three years’ experience in another community, or comparable qualifications.

The fire chief must have a bachelor’s degree in fire sciences, public administration or business management, in addition to at least three years in a management position.

The manager’s post — which Bauer had held for 19 years — was advertised with a salary range of $85,000 to $110,000 per year, and the fire chief’s post with a range of $65,000 to $80,000.

In other business at Tuesday’s meeting, the council adopted — for the second time — an ordinance governing the erection of power-generating windmills; it inserted a provision requiring that the measure be revisited after a year for possible amendments that might be required by expanding technologies.

The council had already adopted the ordinance, but the action was defective because of an administrative error. So the council rescinded the earlier vote, then adopted the measure again.

The council began drafting the ordinance last summer when Portsmouth Power Corporation sketched out a plan to erect three windmills on a hill near the West Warwick High School campus.

The town has heard nothing substantive from the New Hampshire company since that presentation, officials said.

tbuford@projo.com