Monday, August 22, 2011

Four Star Town Manager

Town Manager John Musante, SB Chair Stephanie O'Keeffe

Tonight the Amherst Select Board gave a sneak peak at the Town Manager's rookie year evaluation and it could not have been much better, garnering "outstanding" check marks for budget related items, high marks for media relations and mostly "commendable"--but no less than "satisfactory"--in his dealing with staff and personnel relations. Chair Stephanie O'Keeffe in her introductory remarks called his overall performance, "stellar."

A far cry from his predecessor Larry Shaffer, who suddenly retired last year under the cover of an Executive Session on the very night his evaluations were to go public. Those evaluation forms, since they were never presented in a public meeting and had to do with job performance, then became immune to a pubic documents request.

Perhaps the only discordant note would have come from Committee on Homelessness Chair Hwei-Ling Greeney, the only spectator in the audience, who came to the meeting wondering if the evaluation her committee submitted would become public. It did not.

The Committee on Homelessness is in a pitched battle for survival with the Select Board/Town Manager as town officials wish to terminate the committee over its zealous advocacy for the homeless.

Safe bet their evaluation of the Town Manager sang a starkly different song.



7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why can't the twit release her committee's report to the media?

Everyone else does...

Anonymous said...

Why can't there be a public evaluation on Hwei Ling?

Larry Kelley said...

Because she is no longer an elected public official.

Anonymous said...

"Because she is no longer an elected public official"

Thank God for that...

ModeratePoli said...

This is off-topic, but maybe Larry will allow it. I'm a frequent reader who is now writing a blog on national politics. Please check it out.

Larry Kelley said...

Well, as long as you're a "moderate"...

Anonymous said...

Look at that!

A post about our current Town Manager and no personally nasty comments about him for several days!

This must be a first.