City Council Chooses a New Manager But Won't Talk About It

The East Providence City Council selected a new city manager on Wednesday but it’s not saying anything about who it is.

City councilors met behind closed doors Wednesday evening, voted to negotiate a contract with one person, and then sealed the minutes of their meeting and are refusing to talk about it.

"A new city manager was selected," Mayor Bruce Rogers said Thursday night. "We have not proposed to him or her the contract that we would negotiate."

The former city manager, Richard Brown, was fired without cause days after the current city council took office in 2010.

Asked why Wednesday's meeting was closed to the public, Rogers said, "there was no reason for the meeting to be open. It was involving personnel." Rogers said it was important to protect the privacy of applicants.

He did say that the "final cut" of candidates included five people, and the selection process to arrive at a final cut took two months. A search committee whittled the original pool of applicants down to the five finalists. They also flew in some candidates from out of state, which added time to the process.

Asked if the council ever considered holding public interviews for the vacant manager position, Rogers said he doesn't see what a public interview would have accomplished. Asked if the council would bring the decision before the public before it is finalized, Rogers said: "no."

Councilman William Conley Jr. sees things differently. He does not like the idea of conducting the entire city manager selection process behind doors.

Speaking by telephone Thursday morning from his law office, Conley shared concerns about the city manager selection process being off-limits to the public. "I would very much like to get an open session on the council on this issue," Conley said. "Transparency is important to the process." Keeping it behind closed doors is a "disservice to the city."

Conley said Mayor Rogers wanted the meeting in closed session.

The next step in the process is to have the council vote on the official hiring of the city manager in an open council meeting. Rogers said the selection of the candidate "probably” will be made public at next month's council meeting.