February 13, 2022
Donoghue Administration Ends
The Lowell City Council has chosen to move on from Eileen Donoghue as city manager. That news was a bit of a shock although it shouldn’t have been. The “Column” in the Lowell Sun just days earlier forecast it, especially if you had read between the lines (“Uncertain future for Donoghue” Feb. 6, 2022). Also, history shows a desire among new city councils to select their own city manager, particularly when the sitting manager has been there for a while, so replacing a city manager early in the term of a new city council is not a novel occurrence in Lowell.
Donoghue’s contract of four years expires on April 11 of this year. She set the parameters for any extension on Tuesday by presenting a letter to the council which stated she did not wish to negotiate a new multiyear contract but did desire to extend the current contract for one year (something the contract permitted). The council then voted 9 to 2 (Nuon and Yem opposed) to go into executive session to discuss the matter.
When the executive session ended, it was clear that a majority of the council rejected Donoghue’s offer to remain in office for another year. Since several councilors were already on record as supporting the one year extension, the council’s decision was presumably not unanimous. Whenever the minutes of the executive session are released, it will be interesting to see who supported the extension and who opposed it.
(The Open Meeting law that permits executive sessions also requires that the minutes of such sessions be made public as soon as the need for privacy no longer exists which seems in this case to be right now so hopefully the council will soon instruct the City Clerk to make the minutes public).
So what’s going on? With the huge Lowell High project hitting a particularly intense stretch over the next couple of years, there might be benefits to having the same management team overseeing the project through to completion rather than switching teams a year from now. The same rationale would apply to reviving Lowell’s downtown from the pandemic-induced malaise that has descended on it (and on almost every downtown in America).
Or perhaps a majority of councilors want a person of their own choosing as city manager which is their prerogative. As I mentioned earlier, there is a tendency for sitting city managers to leave soon after a new council takes over. In the early days of Plan E, the first vote of a new city council was to elect the mayor from its ranks; the second vote was to elect a city manager. There were no “nationwide searches” back then. In fact, one council even hired the Lowell Sun reporter who covered the council to be the new city manager.
Hiring Process: Kevin Murphy, 2014
Mayor Chau has a motion on this week’s council meeting agenda “Requesting City Council Refer To Auditor/Clerk Oversight And Personnel SC To Report And Establish Procedure And Timeline For Search And Appointment Of A New City Manager.”
When Donoghue was hired in 2018 the council followed the same process that was used in 2014 when Kevin Murphy was hired to succeed Bernie Lynch. Here’s how the Murphy hiring went:
On January 14, 2014, the council held a special meeting to establish the process. The first issue was the salary which they listed as “negotiable.” Next was whether they would offer a contract. By a 5 to 4 vote the council decided to not exclude the possibility of a contract. (In other words, four councilors wanted the ads to expressly state that no contract would be offered to the new city manager). Councilors next agreed to advertise the position in the Lowell Sun, the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, and on the websites of the Mass Municipal Association and on the city’s own website. The council set February 28, 2014, as the deadline for applications.
A few days after that application deadline, the council met again (on March 3, 2014) to discuss the next phase of the process. Councilors agreed that they would review all applicant resumes and that each councilor would submit to the city clerk their top five candidates no later than Friday, March 7. The clerk would then compile the nine sets of “top five” picks and whichever five were selected most often would be the finalists and would advance to the interview stage. During this initial screening process, the names of the applicants would be kept confidential.
The next issue was public input. Councilor Samaras favored the establishment of a committee of community members that would meet with the finalists, but most councilors preferred a public hearing at which any citizen could speak to the council about the qualities they hoped to see in the new city manager. This public hearing was set for March 12, 2014. Because that public input session would happen after councilors had already picked their top five, there was some community dissatisfaction that the councilors would be making that initial selection before they heard community input. Nevertheless, that was the process adopted.
At the March 12, 2014, public hearing, eleven residents spoke and shared their thoughts on the traits and characteristics the next city manager should have. At the close of the public hearing, the council decided on the particulars of the interview process. Each finalist would have a ten minute opening statement and a five minute closing statement. In between, each councilor would have ten minutes to question each applicant. Given the length of each interview, councilors decided to do just two interviews per night. The evenings selected for interviews were March 25, 26 and 27.
The six finalists for the city manager’s job were:
Greg Balukonis who had been the administrator of North Reading, Massachusetts since 2005. Mr. Balukonis was also a finalist for the position of Dracut Town Manager.
Robert Bruner who was the former city manager of Birmingham, Michigan. He held that job for three years.
Peter Graczykowski who was the former City Manager of East Providence, Rhode Island. He held that job for two years.
Daniel Keyes who had been the administrator of Blackstone, Massachusetts since 2011.
Kevin Murphy who had represented the Highlands and Acre neighborhoods of Lowell as a State Representative since 1997. He also worked for Lowell as an Assistant City Solicitor for 13 years.
George Ramirez who was the Administrator of Devens, the former U.S. Army base in Ayer, Massachusetts, which had been developed as a residential and business zone. He was also an attorney who served on the Lowell City Council in 2006 and 2007.
The interviews were completed as scheduled and at a special meeting on Monday, March 31, 2014, the council elected Kevin Murphy to be city manager by an 8 to 1 vote with Mayor Rodney Elliott and Councilors Ed Kennedy, Bill Martin, Rita Mercier, Jim Milinazzo, Dan Rourke, Bill Samaras and Corey Belanger voting for Murphy. Councilor John Leahy voted for George Ramirez.
From the date that City Manager Bernie Lynch announced his resignation (January 7, 2014) until the date Kevin Murphy was hired to succeed him (March 31, 2014), exactly twelve weeks had passed.
Hiring Process: Eileen Donoghue, 2018
As mentioned above, when Kevin Murphy announced his retirement in February 2018, the council agreed to hire his successor by following the same procedure it had used to hire Murphy. This council consisted of Karen Cirillo, Dave Conway, Rodney Elliott, John Leahy, Ed Kennedy, Rita Mercier, Jim Milinazzo, Vesna Nuon, and Bill Samaras.
Advertisements were placed, resumes received, and each councilor voted for their top candidates. This time, there were only three finalists to be interviewed. The interviews were all to be held on Tuesday, March 20, 2018, beginning at 5 p.m. and continue until finished even if the start of that evening’s council meeting was delayed.
The city manager applicants being interviewed were:
Eileen Donoghue of Lowell
Linda Milsap of North Carolina
James White of Marshfield, Massachusetts.
Before the interviews began, Councilor Rita Mercier lodged an objection to the process. According to the notes I typed that evening while watching the meeting, here is what she said:
Councilor Mercier asks how everyone can sit there with a straight face “and go through this charade.” This is a waste of time. Why should we keep deceiving the public? The only requirement we have is to advertise which we have done. She says we’re wasting everyone’s time and the taxpayer’s money. Says she will not be involved in this charade. She says she’s being perfectly honest and wishes others would be honest.
The charade, in Councilor Mercier’s view, was that since councilors had already decided to vote for Eileen Donoghue, conducting the interviews was unnecessary. Several councilors countered Mercier’s argument by saying it was important to follow the process and, as then Councilor Ed Kennedy added, “the only reason everyone thinks Senator Donoghue is assured the job is because of the Lowell Sun and the radio station.” He closed by saying, “We owe it to the voters to interview the candidates and let them make their case.”
The interviews were conducted and at the March 28, 2018, council meeting, Eileen Donoghue was elected city manager on a 9 to 0 vote.
I agreed with Ed Kennedy’s position on interviews (and still do). I recall at least once with the hiring of a city manager and again with a school superintendent, that the person who everyone expected to get the job performed poorly in their interview and ended up not getting the position. And in the case of both Kevin Murphy in 2014 and Eileen Donoghue in 2018, their interviews demonstrated their mastery of the issues facing the city and their ability to communicate effectively to the council and the public. Even if the majority of councilors were already inclined to vote for the two, the strong interviews ratified their choices in the eyes of anyone paying attention.
The downside of having a clear favorite at the start of the process is that it suppresses applications. The kind of person you would want to hire would investigate the position before deciding to apply. If doing that disclosed that a local applicant had an apparent lock on the job, the outside candidate would not apply since the mere act of applying caries potentially negative consequences in that applicant’s own orbit.
“Likely Candidates”
There’s a lot of buzz about State Representative Tom Golden being a candidate for city manager this time. Golden won a vacant House seat in 1994 and has been reelected every two years since. In the 1994 Democratic primary he defeated Bernie Lemoine (a city councilor), Regina Faticanti (a school committee member), Gail Bartlett, Robert Finn, and John Zagarella. Although the records show that Golden had no Republican opponent in the general election, there was a Republican candidate in the race. However, that candidate failed to obtain enough valid nomination signatures to appear on the ballot. The name of that Republican candidate was Corey Lewandowski who went on to manage (for a time) Donald Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign and who was recently hired as an advisor to Geoff Diehl, a Republican candidate for governor in this year’s state election.
In the intervening 13 elections, Golden has faced only token opposition and often has run unopposed for reelection. There is no indication of that changing this year or in the future should he not become city manager.
Because one of the joys of Lowell politics is layering speculation atop speculation, I wonder how many possible candidates for state representative are mobilizing their campaigns in the hope that Golden is hired as city manager and the legislative seat he now holds becomes vacant? Given the likely timeline of the city manager hiring process and the looming state primary election on September 20, 2022, there probably would not be a special election to fill any vacancy. Nomination papers for that seat and other offices appearing on this fall’s state election ballot should be available this coming week and are due to the city election office by 5 p.m. on May 3, 2022.
Another name mentioned as a possible city manager candidate is State Senator Ed Kennedy although he’s quoted in a recent Lowell Sun article as slamming the door – “I’m not considering it at all” - on that possibility. (“City will need new manager” February 10, 2022). Kennedy was elected to the State Senate in 2018 where he succeeded Donoghue. He served on the city council and as mayor before that, however, he had also applied to be city manager at least once, perhaps in 2006 when Bernie Lynch was hired or maybe on an earlier occasion.
Paul Cohen, the Town Manager of Chelmsford, has also been mentioned as a possible candidate but like Ed Kennedy, he is quoted in the Sun as saying he is happy doing what he is doing now. Cohen had also applied to be Lowell manager, I believe when Bernie Lynch was hired. Cohen then replaced Lynch in Chelmsford.
Politics in Cambodia and in Lowell
Anyone who follows Lowell politics closely is aware that friction exists within Lowell’s Cambodian community and that the cause of it is grounded in the history and politics of Cambodia. An important story in the Boston Globe this past week explored this conflict (“Cambodian rise in Lowell politics shadowed by dark history in homeland” by Stephanie Ebbert, February 6, 2022) and is well worth reading.
This conflict is not new. It was very much evident back in 2016 when a Cambodian government dignitary proposed donating a statue to the city of Lowell. Members of Lowell’s Cambodian community petitioned the city council and spoke passionately about the issue at the March 29, 2016, city council meeting with some supporting the gift but more opposing it. That night, the council voted to refuse the gift and to revoke a meeting invitation previously extended to the dignitary.
In the aftermath of that council meeting, I thought it important to try to understand the roots of the conflict. Based on my research, I wrote a brief article on (my understanding of) Cambodian history. In light of the recent Globe article, I decided to repost that story today on richardhowe.com.
Elinor Lipman Award
We all know about Jack Kerouac and his upcoming 100th birthday but Kerouac is not the only famous writer from Lowell. A competitor for the title of greatest writer from Lowell would be Elinor Lipman, Lowell High Class of 1968.
Lipman was enshrined as a Distinguished Alumni of Lowell High in 2005. Here’s her nomination writeup:
Elinor Lipman ’68 – Graduate of Simmons College. She has taught at Simmons, Smith, and Hampshire colleges and is a columnist for the Boston Globe Magazine. She authored seven critically acclaimed novels including The Inn at Lake Devine and most recently The Pursuit of Alice Thrift. Four of her novels are in development as movies. The New England Booksellers Association awarded her its 2001 fiction award for a body of work.
Now, in honor of Ms. Lipman’s accomplishments, the Pollard Memorial Library Foundation has created the Elinor Lipman Award for Writing. A cash prize of $1,000 will be awarded for a work of fiction or creative nonfiction written by a Lowell-based author. The deadline for applying is May 20, 2022. For more information, see the library’s website.