'Incredibly Frustrating': Worcester Councilors Delay City Manager Search Again

WORCESTER, MA — For the second time in two weeks, Worcester City Councilors voted Wednesday to delay the next step in searching for a new permanent city manager — frustrating some councilors who have been working on the search for close to six months.

District 1 Councilor Sean Rose asked to hold two items related to the search because Rose was absent and unable to attend the meeting virtually. Rose's request forced the council to vote on tabling the items, and those passed in 7-3 and 7-4 votes.

Mayor Joseph Petty held those same two items — including one that would lead to the hiring of a search firm to find city manager candidates — at the Sept. 29 council meeting. Petty also prevented councilors from speaking about the items at the meeting.

Since councilors voted 10-1 in April to do a full nationwide search for a replacement for former manager Ed Augustus Jr., the attitude toward doing a search has changed.

Petty said in early September he's in favor of ending the search and giving acting City Manager Eric Batista a three-year contract.

Meanwhile, At-Large Councilor Khrystian King has been leading the city manager search process in the Municipal and Legislative Operations Committee, including issuing a bid for search firms. Only one executive search firm, GovHR USA, has submitted a bid to do the search. King said the firm could return candidates in about 90 days — if the city can move ahead with hiring the firm.

"It's about doing our job and saying what we're going to do," he said.

King also challenged other councilors to simply nominate Batista for the job if they didn't want to move ahead with the nationwide search. That would be preferable to delaying the search, he said.

"If folks want to make a motion to appoint a city manager now, do it," he said. "Move this forward or not."

Councilors Etel Haxhiaj and Thu Nguyen backed King, questioning why the search process continued to be held — and now won't be up for a discussion again until the next council meeting at the end of October.

"Delaying these things further is incredibly frustrating and disrespectful to Mr. Batista," Haxhiaj said.