HOPE – Hope Town Council members will be asked Tuesday to approve a search effort for a new town manager.
According to the agenda, the proposal will be brought up near the end of Tuesday’s 5:30 p.m. meeting by council President Jerry Bragg.
Like a mayor, a town manager is essentially the chief administrative officer of community government. But unlike a mayor, the manager is a municipal employee who serves at the pleasure of the town council.
The northeast Bartholomew County community of 2,200 residents has been without a town manager since Dec. 18, 2018. That was when the five-member town council voted 3-2 not to renew J.T. Doane’s contract after he spent nearly two-and-a-half years overseeing and managing the town’s day-to-day operations.
In January, 2019, two of the five council members stated they didn’t want a successor for Doane. Instead, Ohmer Miller proposed that an administrative assistant be hired instead, while Nellie Meek suggested an office clerk as an alternative.
While council member Ed Johnson said he was willing to discuss the hiring of a town manager at a later date, the matter was never placed on the council’s agenda nor brought up during a public meeting – until now.
Although Bragg and council member Clyde Compton have long supported hiring another town manager, they never brought up the matter because they knew they didn’t have the votes, Compton said.
But the balance of power was changed when Republican John Walstad defeated Meek in November. Now, three of the five council members support hiring a town manager, which provided council president Bragg the incentive to put the matter on Tuesday’s agenda, Compton said.
For more on this story, see Monday’s Republic.
