Eric Batista Hired As New Worcester City Manager

WORCESTER, MA — The Worcester City Council Tuesday voted to hire Eric Batista to become the next city manager, completing a process that began when Ed Augustus stepped down from the job more than six months ago.

Tuesday's 8-3 vote came after councilors appeared ready to look outside Worcester for a new city manager — an unelected job that carries the same political weight and responsibilities in Worcester as mayors in large local cities like Boston and Providence.

"I look forward to sharing my thoughts, ideas, my vision and what the city is moving toward in the next two to three years," Batista said after getting hired. "It's an honor and privilege for me to take this role."

Councilors in the spring voted 10-1 to do a nationwide search for a new manager following Ed Augustus' resignation. A council committee led by At-Large Councilor Khrystian King led the search effort, identifying a search firm over the summer. In September, Mayor Joseph Petty Jr. signaled he wanted to scuttle the search and hire Batista. The issue stalled in council over the last few months, with some councilors trying to get the nationwide search back on track.

Petty on Tuesday said that the 39-year-old is already well known around the city, and is well-qualified.

"I don't think we're going to find anyone better; you've earned it," Petty said of Batista.

At-Large Councilor Kate Toomey said the nationwide search could take months, and might end up identifying Batista as the prime candidate anyway. She also said he wouldn't face a learning curve like someone from outside Worcester.

"There's been no backroom deals as there has been alleged," she said. "We've all been pretty public about how we feel."

The councilors who voted against hiring Batista, including King, District 5 Councilor Etel Haxhiaj, and At-Large Councilor Thu Nguyen, all said Batista is qualified for the job — but that going through a formal process would be an exercise in transparency.

"If we're voting for process, somehow that is interpreted as an anti-Eric Batista vote, and that is very erroneous," District 4 Councilor Sarai Rivera said while praising Batista's work inside city hall over the past decade. "What we're trying to do is be consistent."

Batista began working inside Worcester City Hall in 2012 under former manager Michael O’Brien, two years before Augustus got the job. Batista started off as a project manager in O'Brien's office, and later served as the director of the Office of Urban Innovation under Augustus. He was promoted in September 2021 to become an assistant city manager along with Nicole Valentine, and had also served as the interim chief diversity officer.

Nguyen sought to delay Batista's hiring for one more week, saying the process had moved "zero to 100" since September, when Petty said on the Talk of the Commonwealth radio show that he supported ending the search. That motion failed when it did not get the four votes required to pass.

"I am going to advocate to have a community voice in this," Nguyen said. "If we can't even start that, I don't even know what we're representing."

King said he'd still like Batista to go through some type of hiring process before the council finalizes his contract.

"It's important for us to have that process, national search or not. The expectation is that we do our due diligence. This is our job; we're oversight for the city manager, we're oversight for this city," King said.

King asked for Batista to do a series of meetings with local stakeholders — groups like the homeless and housing advocates, high school students, small business owners, the disabled community and others — to talk about his priorities and policies. The council voted in favor of that ahead of expected closed-session contract negotiations with Batista starting next week.

District 3 Councilor George Russell has been the lone councilor to have been in favor of hiring Batista from the start. He voted against doing a nationwide search following Batista's appointment as acting city manager in April.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the vote count from Tuesday's hiring of Eric Batista.