Politics & Government
Search For New Worcester City Manager Goes Back To City Council
Mayor Joseph Petty rattled the city manager search process when he said he would like to forgo it to hire acting manager Eric Batista.
WORCESTER, MA — The Worcester City Council Wednesday will return to its efforts to conduct a nationwide search for a new city manager — even as influential local officials have signaled they want to end the search.
Mayor Joseph Petty shook up the search on Sept. 14 when he said he'd be in favor of ending it and hiring acting City Manager Eric Batista, who took over after Ed Augustus Jr. left the role at the end of May. Petty said at the time that he had not discussed ending the search with other councilors.
"I would probably not support the search. [Batista is] the guy for the job," Petty said.
Since the spring, At-Large Councilor Khrystian King has been leading the effort to conduct a nationwide search for Augustus' successor. The first step was finding a firm to conduct the search.
After only one firm responded to Worcester's search request earlier this summer, the city re-bid the job. But only one company responded to the request on the second try. That firm, GovHR USA, helped find Worcester Public Library Jason Homer, and also helped hire former Cambridge city manager Louis DePasquale in 2016 — Cambridge has the same Plan E form of government as Worcester. GovHR USA has also conducted municipal manager searches for Williamstown, Provincetown and Eastham.
Parallel with the hunt for a search firm, At-Large Councilor Thu Nguyen has asked the city to create an ad-hoc committee comprised of local residents to advise the search process.
King's Municipal and Legislative Operations Committee will discuss the search firm and the ad-hoc committee at a meeting set for Wednesday at 6 p.m. The committee has met six times to discuss the search process since the spring.
The desire to end the search process early has worried some in the community outside City Hall. Worcester NAACP President Fred Taylor said the Worcester School Committee provided a model for a strong, transparent search when it began looking for Maureen Binienda's replacement last year. Members of the search committee reviewed candidates for months and held a series of public meetings before picking Rachel Monárrez for the job.
Taylor said Batista may very well be the best person for the job — but the city should still conduct a nationwide search.
"I want transparency and to see some type of process," Taylor said after Petty's comments earlier this month.
Batista is a longtime City Hall staffer who started off working for former manager Michael O'Brien in 2012. He moved up to become director of the Office of Urban Innovation under Augustus, and became an assistant city manager in September 2021. He also served for several months as the city's diversity officer after Stephanie Williams resigned earlier this year.
Batista addressed the search process in a statement published on social media Thursday.
"While democracy takes its course, I will continue to do what I committed to do back in June when I was appointed acting city manager, and that is to focus on diversity and inclusion and the daily operations of government. My appointment has been an absolute blessing and I hope it provides inspiration to Worcester youth who want to serve the community," he said.
