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June 16, 2006

Council Picks Were Predictable

Is anyone really surprised that the City Council's nationwide search for city manager candidates extended as far south as to Boston and as far west as to Harvard — the town that is?
Forget the global position satellite. This hunt needed only a searchlight.
The selections were fairly predictable too. Five applicants who had a connection to the Mill City, whether through birth, a job, or college degree, became a finalist.
Here they are:

1. Chelmsford Town Manager Bernie Lynch, who owns a political science degree from UMass Lowell;
2. Frank Keefe of Boston, a developer and president of the Keefe Company who served briefly as a consultant on the Tsongas Arena project after holding several cabinet posts in the Dukakis administration;
3. Diane Prideaux-Brune of Dracut, who is vice chancellor of facilities at UMass Lowell and formerly served as Lowell's chief planner (19994-96);
4. Paul Cohen, who grew up in the Highlands and has served as the Town of Harvard's town administrator since 2001.
5. Edward Kennedy of Lowell, who is a former city councilor and county commissioner and presently owns Madison Copp Appraisals in Lowell.

In my view, the council shortchanged itself and the citizens of Lowell by limiting the search for John Cox's successor to one cut and five candidate finalists. There are at least four also-rans who deserved an interview, based on their qualifications and government experience. But councilors, for some reason, are desperately in a hurry to push this thing through to a conclusion.
It's telling that only one woman is a finalist — Diane Prideaux-Brune — when there was a better, more qualified candidate in the resume pile — Monica Lamboy of Washington, D.C.
Of the five councilors who disclosed their picks to the public — Bud Caulfield, Armand Mercier, Kevin Broderick, Rodney Elliott, Jim Milanazzo — not one had Lamboy on their list.
So who is she?
Since 2004, she's been the chief operating officer of the Washington, D.C., Department of Health, which has a $280 million annual budget and 1,300 employs. As director, Lamboy is responsible for all purchasing, labor negotiations and policies her department. Previously, she was chief planner of Oakland, Calif., and was eventually promoted to chief administrative officer of community and economicy development. She also served as assistant to the city manager in Oakland. Lamboy holds a master's degree in city and regional planning from the University of California at Berkely and a BSE in civil engineering with certificate in architecture from Princeton University. She also held government leadership posts in Concord, Calif., and Mt. Olive, N.J.
When matched with all other finalists, Lamboy sticks out with Lynch, and possibly Cohen, as having the necessary leadership skills and government experience to work professionally as a city manager.
While Keefe deserves an interview, and makes my own list of potential finalists, he seems overly qualified for the job. Here's a guy who has been brushing shoulders with economic titans the past decade while putting together multi-million dollar development deals in Boston. Why does he want back in in government, at a measly $125,000 a year no less? Is Lowell his way of getting a state pension boost? Hmmm.
As for Ed Kennedy and Diane Prideaux-Brune, they can be happy they've got "sponsors" in this race because they don't stack up against Monica Lamboy on paper. And that's it's too bad. Because this was supposed to be a nationwide search, in which all candidates would be considered equal. Fat chance.
The City Council has made it clear: Lowell is a destination city for some more than others — and that includes city manager candidates.

Jim Campanini' makes his finalist selections:

1. Monica Lamboy: There is no equal among the other candidates based on her resume.

2. Ronald Massey, assistant city manager, Corpus Christi, Texas: He has diverse experience and the range of his municipal disciplines is extensive.

3. Bernard Lynch: His 20-year experience in Chelmsford and knowledge of Lowell is his outstanding strength.

4. Thaddeus Jankowski : He is the Assistant City Manager in Worcester, a city that has always had a city manager form of government and is appreciated by knowledgeable people as being well run.

5. Paul Edward Cohen: He is educationally and intellectually qualified with 16 years experience in municipal government, mostly in smaller towns.

6. Thomas Moses: He has extensive municipal experience, with his strongest professional asset being the five years he served as Assistant Finance Director in the City of Cambridge.

7. Frank Keefe: He has extensive private and governmental experience and would be an exceptional candidate to head up the Department of Planning and Development, but city manager might be a stretch..

8. David Owen of Bedford: He has 26 years of municipal administration as either town manager or executive secretary and is well educated.

What are your thoughts?

Posted by JimC at June 16, 2006 8:37 PM

Comments

Posted by: Osvaldo Lamboy at June 26, 2007 1:13 AM