The Washington quagmire - City Council meets on management crisis | Eastern NC Now

Washington's City Council met yesterday on its city manager crisis.  Most of the meeting was in executive session, so citizens are in the dark about much of what happened on its latest crisis over its city manager.

This crisis began after the last election when then city manager Jonathan Russell indicated he wanted to leave, apparently because he did not like the election result.  The city council held an executive session in December, took no public action after the executive session, but later said they had fired the manager.  Such an action to be legal must be done in public session but if a firing took place it was not done in public session.   Later, a new council member was told that in the executive session, the manager said he was going to resign, and it was a city council member who said they should fire him so he could get a massive severance package.

The new city council hired retired former city manager Bobby Roberson as interim city manager until they could hire a permanent replacement.  Roberson began uncovering questionable things that occurred during the previous regime, and some in the new regime wanted him gone as a result.   That led to a quick process to hire a new city manager, with minimal background checking.  Their new city manager, John Rorie, was also aparantly hired without the required public vote of the council.

Friction developed between Rorie and the council, and he was fired by a 4 to 0 vote.  He says he will sue the city over it. That has left the Finance Director, who also wears the hat of deputy city manager as the Acting Manager.

The city now needs to find an interim city manager to hold the position for several months until they can hire a permanent city manager.  Given the recent experience of hiring career bureaucrats as city managers, it might be a good idea to look for someone with management experience in the private sector instead.