Claremont
Committee member Bethany Yurek, who served on the committee that selected Santagate in 2001 and was elected as a co-chairwoman of the committee along with former City Councilor Kyle Messier, was the first to raise the issue.
“I have reliable sources who told me that the City Council has already selected a candidate,” Yurek told Lovett.
She said one city councilor, who she did not identify, questioned why there was even a need for a selection committee because the council had already made up its mind.
Santagate is scheduled to leave his position on Dec. 31. The City Council has hired Municipal Resources Inc. to sift through the pool of candidates and recommend a handful of finalists to the search committee.
The committee will recommend one of those finalists to the City Council, which ultimately will choose the new city manager.
Yurek said she has heard council’s preferred candidate has made the “first cut,” meaning he or she is among the top 16 that have been selected from the original candidate pool of 36 candidates.
“I need to know this isn’t in the satchel and we will have an open process,” said Yurek.
Committee members Deb Matteau, Brian Rapp and Messier said they had heard similar rumors.
“I think we need to be a transparent as possible,” Matteau said. “The rumors are out there.”
Lovett was succinct in her response.
“Where is the proof?” she asked several times. “I ask you to document it and I will take it from there.”
Lovett said she was not interested in potentially derailing the process of hiring someone by dealing in “unsubstantiated rumors.”
Committee member Marty Davis said if the rumors are coming from a councilor, it is a serious issue that needs to be addressed in a closed-door council meeting.
“It needs to be open to the public,” committee member Cheryl Jones declared immediately after Davis spoke. “We need to flush this out.”
Lovett assured the committee its role was legitimate and said her only knowledge about the process is what she’s been told by Alan Gould of Municipal Resources Inc.
He has told her nothing more than that 36 candidates from 17 states have expressed interest, she said.
“I don’t even know the names of the candidates.”
On Wednesday, Lovett said she will bring the committee members’ concerns to the City Council at its Oct. 12 meeting.
“But if they are being made without evidence, then we have a different problem,” Lovett said,
Yurek, who works as an aide for U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., said Wednesday it is the process, not who this candidate could be, that she wants to focus on.
“What I want is assurances from the council that this is going to be a legitimate process that is clean and transparent and is going to count for something,” Yurek said. “Not just in vain with the perception of openness.”
Yurek said the council has the prerogative to hire whomever it wants and she has no objections to that approach.
“But they can’t have it both ways by appointing a committee to make it look open when the decision has already been made.”
Lovett said Wednesday she had sent an email to the eight other councilors reminding them they are not to interfere with the committee’s role.
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.
