Earth to Cyberspace

Ed, Bouquets to you. I wish I could have summed it up so well. Thanks.

"Boquets to you Ed"? Renee Batti must be kidding.

It is not the job of the Almanac News to come to the defense of the Town Administration. Rather it is the job of the Almanac News to cast a critical eye to what is going on at Town hall.

Gruber gave 30 days notice when he resigned. That was plenty of time for an orderly succession. The Almanac News should have, but did not inquire as to why the City extended the closing date of its recruitment for an interim City manager until a full week after Gruber was to depart.

The Almanac News didn't appear to be curious enough to ask what the Town's plans were to fill the slot between October 24th and November 8th after it extended the closing date for the recruitment.

Yes, Wilkerson's resignation was a surprise. However Wilkderson's resignation seems to have been little more than a ploy to strong arm the Council into providing her with a substantial raise in exchange for serving as a temporary caretaker.

It was also evident that Wilkerson wasn't a candidate for the City Manager position. The lack of interest amongst the City Council in Wilkerson as a replacement for Gruber makes the City's decision to have extended the closing date all the more perplexing.

Whether or not the City Council rejected this strong arm tactic we do not know, nor will we know until tomorrow evening.

I have submitted a public records request for the names of people who expressed an interest in serving as the "transitional" city manager as well as the "short list" of candidates.

I will poste the names of the individuals if and when this information is provided.

John, You read far too much into my post. I was thanking Ed for his concise and comprehensible summary of the complicated city manager appointment matter. As you can see by the numerous posts on this site, the fact that the council is searching for people to fill three separate positions has caused great confusion. Any other take on my comment is over-interpretation.

Dear Renee

I don't think I'm reading too much into your posts or articles. If anything I'm reading too little.

You haven't asked or raised some of the most fundamental questions or issues in this matter. Instead you have acted as though you were a parrot, repeating without any critical thinking the party line.

For example, you haven't asked whether the "transitional" city manager will be precluded from serving as interim city manager. You haven't asked whether the interim city manager will be precluded from consideration as the permanent city manager.

You haven't asked why Wilkerson's resignation prompted the need to search for a "transitional" city manager when it did not appear as though Wilkerson was being considered as an immediate replacement for Gruber.

You haven't asked the toughest and most fundamental question of them all: Why is it that the City Attorney is the custodian of all applications for the interim City Manager slot yet she has been excluded from the process of selecting a "transitional" City Manager.

You haven't asked whether McKeithen and Dobbie hope to install someone who is of their liking with the hope of making this person a permanent replacement in the event this duo gets a third member of the new council to be a part of their junta.

The selection process for an interim is a source of intrigue, it is a raw power struggle playing out in Town. Yet you have left it up to the readers of this post to ask the tough questions.

This is most surprising since you are the one who gets paid to be a journalist.

And you Mr Johns,
What are you paid to do? Are your posting part of your paid work for Mr Buckheit? Are you now opposed to McKeithen's "junta" because she did not want you or Mr Buckheit to be part of the Town's administration?

I can not imagine why.

What re you paid to do exactly?

Renee Batti states:"The point of confusion is that Atherton is looking for two temporary managers. The one the council hopes to appoint tomorrow is intended to be on the job very briefly, maybe three weeks, until a longer-term, but still temporary, manager is chosen. It might be helpful to think of the one appointed this week as the "bridge" city manager, and the one appointed in early November as the interim manager. The interim manager will be appointed to serve until a permanent manager is recruited and begins work, which is likely to be months from now."

If that is in fact the case then the Council has, intentionally or otherwise, misled the public by stating on their published agenda that they would be discussing in closed session the " Transitional appointment of Interim City (sic) Manager". Why cannot the Council be honest about what it is doing?????

Incompetence or duplicity - which is worse?

Relax everybody: The winner of the "Queen for a Day" contest won't matter much unless they get too comfortable and refuse to vacate the throne. Hopefully the council has picked someone who does not really even want the job. Possibly an important criteria for all city managers-you could end up with someone who actually cares enough to do it anyway.

This all has me so confused:

[Portion removed; stick to the topic]

A city Council meeting in secret to reveal an as yet to be named draft pick without acknowleding that anyone has been selected.

Where will all of this intrigue lead us?

To another round of lawsuits probably.