Doucet: Manager selection topic Monday
Published 6:00 am Wednesday, April 10, 2019
A “workshop” or special meeting next week will determine how the Port Arthur City Council will go forward in selecting a new city manager, one councilman suggested Tuesday.
And Interim City Manager Harvey Robinson, who has held the position on a temporary basis for some 16 months, likely will return to retirement, perhaps as early as Monday.
City Councilmembers met in executive session for more than two hours following Tuesday’s regularly scheduled meeting, apparently to iron out differences that linger after they altered their schedule for choosing a permanent city manager.
The city has been without a permanent city manager since November 2017, when Brian McDougal stepped down. Robinson, who’d been retired as an assistant city manager for nine years, returned to City Hall the next month to serve on an interim basis; at the time, it was believed to be a six-month move.
“Harvey really wants to go,” Doucet said. “He let us know today; he’s out.”
But the City Council delayed its search for a permanent replacement until last December, when they posted the position in a host of publications. The search was supposed to culminate in a hire by March 19, but did not.
Councilmembers split March 27 in seeking a permanent replacement for Robinson, failing to choose from among four finalists. Three councilmembers voted for Hani Tohme, former director of public services; three voted for Natasha Henderson, former city manager in Flint, Michigan. The city then readvertised for new applicants and will accept new candidates until April 17.
Robinson has remained aboard, but insisted his time was short, in that he has wanted to return to retirement. A dispute over the March 27 vote resurfaced at Tuesday’s meeting; two councilmembers insisted that the board, using a point system during their executive session, had chosen Tohme; others disagreed.
Doucet said that at Monday’s 10 a.m. workshop councilmembers would “lay everything out” about how the council would make its final selection, including a schedule and an agenda.
“We will conduct the workshop, and citizens can watch as we progress through the process. This is not about politics anymore,” Doucet said. “We don’t do business like that. If we establish a procedure, let’s follow it.”
Doucet said councilmembers “do not need division.”
“We should not have the dissension we have,” he said.