The city manager’s office in Claremont has a revolving door. What it needs instead is one that opens, and shuts.
Nancy Bates, the current manager, announced her resignation earlier this month, although remaining on the job for 60 to 90 days to aid in the transition. Bates is the fourth person to hold the job in the past 10 years. Two of her predecessors — Ryan McNutt and Yoshi Manale — were fired. The other, Ed Morris, left to become town manager in Enfield, where Bates will soon join him as the town’s new finance director.
What all four shared was a short tenure. This constant churn makes an unhappy contrast with the administration of Guy Santagate, who served as city manager for 15 years, from 2001 to 2016. Santagate got a lot done; he is rightly credited with skillfully steering Claremont toward a brighter future than the one he inherited.
The same cannot be said of his successors. A main reason is that continuity counts in any leadership position. We have noted before that it takes five years or so just to get a sure grip on such a job and at least another five to put one’s stamp on it. Increasingly, however, that is not the way of the world; the evidence is all around us in the Upper Valley as municipal and school district leadership turns over at a dizzying pace.
The main question for the Claremont City Council as it begins the search for yet another manager is why the previous four city managers had such short tenures. Flawed hiring decisions? A failure to set clear expectations? Conflict with the council itself or individual councilors?
Bates has not elaborated on her decision to leave, but her resignation letter contains some clues. She cited the toll exacted by an intense work load, no doubt resulting in part from having to continue to oversee the city’s finance department, of which she was formerly director, while also performing the manager’s duties; the problems of recruitment and retention of staff; and “the constant shift in focus.”
Indeed it’s hard for any administrator to succeed if he or she is stretched too thin and doesn’t have clear and consistent policy direction from the council.
Councilor Chris Irish, who was also in office during Santagate’s tenure, had a blunter explanation for the high turnover rate: meddling by councilors in matters that under the city charter are directly within the purview of the manager.
“Whether it’s council overreach, council interference, lack of support for leadership and staff or the condescending attitude toward the city manager at times, the council continues to set each city manager up for failure,” he said. “And that environment will continue until the council decides to respect the charter and stop trying to get involved with the day-to-day operations of the city.”
Santagate was successful, Irish wrote in an email to our colleague Patrick O’Grady, because he did not countenance interference with his prerogatives. If a councilor tried to meddle, Irish wrote, he “would throw them out of his office.”
The city charter provides that the “city manager shall be the chief executive and administrative officer of the city government” and includes an explicit prohibition on the kind of conduct to which Irish alluded. Under a subsection titled “Non-interference by the Council,” it declares that, “Neither the council nor any of its members shall direct or request the appointment of any person to office or employment, or his removal therefrom, by the manager or any of the administrative offices.”
Moreover it prohibits the council or any member from giving orders “to any of the administrative officers either publicly or privately.”
A couple of councilors bristled at the indictment brought by Irish, but it has the ring of truth to us. Claremont is far from the only Upper Valley community that has suffered over the years from councilors’ or selectboard members’ inability to refrain from intruding in day-to-day operations that properly belong to the city or town manager.
On top of that, politics is, and long has been, a contact sport in Claremont, so the temptation for elected officials to intrude when they hear from unhappy constituents is strong. But it should be resisted if the city wants to hire another Guy Santagate.
And while whoever is hired for the job needs to keep the door open to hear what councilors have to say, he or she needs to have, like Santagate, the good judgment and strength of character to know when to shut it.