Middletown New City Manager Search

Journal has been reporting the on-going search for a city manager. The search is down to four after a sizable number had submitted resumes. Quick eliminations so far from the original number. Wonder what the criteria was to eliminate most entries so quickly. I can see it now. 1st question was "Will you support our downtown area and make it your number one priority?" If they hesitated only for a second, they were gone.

My hope is that council and the people in charge of this search will take their time and select a decent candidate. We see, after the fact, that in so many cases, they selected a poor candidate who harmed the city more so than helped it during their tenure. Judy Gilleland comes to mind here. She really damaged this city and now has moved on to Germantown. Wonder if they are happy with her. From a school superintendent standpoint, Elizabeth Lolli is remembered, unfavorable, for her time in the Middletown schools and in Monroe, the negativity she caused before moving to the Dayton city schools. Both Gilleland and Lolli certainly were two examples of poor choices.

Council needs to visit the potential city manager's communities and get input from the people in the candidate's community about the quality, performance and any problems they caused before actually hiring them for Middletown. Send a group of people to the city where the potential city manager is from and ask the people what kind of job they did for them. I wouldn't ask the leaders of the city because they will only give positive responses and is a waste of time because they never will identify weaknesses or problems they caused. If they don't ask the questions before hiring time, the city may end up with another Gilleland or Lolli fiasco. We have enough problems running the city correctly that we don't need an immediate problem with the new hire city manager out of the gate. And, if the only criteria is that the new hire will support the dam downtown area, we the people are doomed once again as to receiving a decent city manager. We don't need/want a downtown lapdog who ignores the entire city and only does the bidding of the downtown influences.

There needs to be a list of city manager and superintendents for public viewing, who are frequent job changers and input needs to be provided concerning their performances. Some of these people seem to rotate districts and towns quite often. These positions are public servants who are funded by taxpayers and the public should be allowed to scrutinize their performance background along with school districts and cities so that they may see what they are considering in hiring. They should be rated as to performance on this site as well and any discipline or job failures should be reported IMO. There should be no secrecy in the public job domain unlike the private sector that is not funded by taxpayers. Don't like it? Move to a private sector job. JMO

Then again—a new face and a new start
We could use a good spark throughout the town
Timing couldn’t be better or most appropriate
New mayor new city manager new economic development new police chief
New era
Vet should be on board!
Bring it on!

Mr.Laubach operates the brewery downtown. We should support him whenever he re-opens. He gave it a shot in his younger years, and now is a businessman and solid family man. Maybe he should give it another round on Council?