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June 28, 2006
Headed for Disaster?
After watching Tuesday night's City Council meeting, it became clearer than ever that the search for a new city manager is in the bag. The process to find a professional to lead Lowell "to the next level" has been anything but professional from the beginning. When Rodney Elliott's motion to expand the search to seven candidates was roundly dismissed by a 6-3 vote, I was convinced that the council had already made up its mind. The next city manager will definitely come from the planning and development ranks. That means either Diana Prideaux-Brune or Frank Keefe will get the job on Friday morning, when the council deliberates.
ON one hand, we've got a candidate who says she can't afford to live in the city, even though she bought a McMansion in Dracut. And on the other, we've got a former Dukakis clone who said in his interview he hasn't "learned anything new since leaving Lowell." And that was nearly 15 years ago.
Why the rush to pick John Cox's successor? One would think the council wanted to launch the city's new era in government with a July Fourth bang. I think the anti-Cox councilors just wants to get this thing behind them, believing the more space they put between Cox's departure and the next citywide election the more people will forget about this bamboozle of a process. Personally, I don't think they've got the right strategy. They had a chance to rehabilitate themselves and make the process a valid one. They didn't even come close. This could turn out to be a disaster. I think panic is setting in.
But I could be wrong. I've been wrong before. Maybe there is a real city manager in the mix. I will wait until the final interviews tonight and cast my own ballot tomorrow.
The more I think of it, however, Paul Cohen seems like the little manager that could. Someone said to me he's young, but so was the Red Sox whiz GM Theo Epstein, who led the Bostonians to the World Series title two years ago. Couldn't Cohen be our Theo?
Posted by JimC at June 28, 2006 8:48 AM
Comments
This entire process is a farce. We all know Eileen Donoghue is now running the city. Do away with the rest of the b.s. and let's get down to the business of the next election. Till then nothing constructive will get done because of the added animosity created by this bag job of a search.
Posted by: Bag Job at June 28, 2006 12:43 PM
DAMN Jim! You sure have alot of negativity considering that you were COMPLETELY WRONG about what the final decision was: Lynch.
You sure love to slam everybody and everything with your wierd analysis... but end up being wrong alot, eh?
Maybe you should wait and consider what they do before slamming people for what you THINK they might do. Naw, you are a Lowell Sun editor, so you'll never do that. It wouldn't sell enough papers. If it bleeds, it leads!
Posted by: Dr. No at July 6, 2006 3:45 AM
