Should the Selectboard be more forthcoming about the renewal of the Town Manager's contract?

Other than the Selectboard, the Town Manager is the most powerful position in Norwich town government. By statute, the manager has “general supervision of the affairs of the town.”

The employment agreement with Town Manager Herb Durfee expires in about 40 days. Yet, with so little time left, the Selectboard won’t tell the public what its plans are. Why?

Would it put the Town in an adverse position for the Selectboard to tell the public that it is in the process of negotiating a new contract with Town Manager Durfee? In Open Meeting Law terms, how is the Town placed at a “substantial disadvantage” if it reveals that negotiations are ongoing.

Similarly, what is the substantial disadvantage to the Town for the Selectboard to reveal it has no plans to renew its employment agreement with Mr. Durfee? Or, that the Board has not yet decided.

I am not urging that all negotiations occur in public. But, I am troubled by the total news blackout on this topic. See related June 15 post. Neither the Town Manager nor the Selectboard Chair responded to my email on Monday.

At the last Selectboard meeting, the Board went into executive session to discuss a “contract with a town employee,” according to the draft meeting minutes for July 14. Reading between the lines suggests the town employee is Mr. Durfee and the contract is his with the Town.

Why be opaque?

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5 Replies to “Should the Selectboard be more forthcoming about the renewal of the Town Manager’s contract?”

It’s groundhog day–lack of transparency over and over again. I am especially disturbed by our current Town Manager’s role in propagating this atmosphere. I am also becoming more cynical about our lovely little town as a result.

Douglas Wilberding on July 29, 2021 at 7:58 am said:

Thx for your post. You’re not alone with those views. I’d say the majority of the town agrees with you. It’s been a sad slide for Norwich.

Here’s what the Vermont Supreme Court said in 2019 on the topic of how a board benefits itself by being transparent:
Those who govern have every bit as much of an interest in open and transparent public meetings as those who are governed. To do their job properly, officers of the government need to hear from members of the public on matters being considered by a public body. Public meetings provide the opportunity for members of the public to give their input on such matters. Without the sharing of opinions and concerns, public bodies would be less able to fully and competently serve the public and construct beneficial decisions for the people.
Members of public bodies also have a strong interest in ensuring that those they serve understand the basis for the decisions they make. Public meetings put on display the information relied upon, the course of deliberations, and the articulated rationales supporting the ultimate decision. Open meetings provide an opportunity to inform the general public about the decisions a public body makes and the execution of leadership exercised by that body. Working in the open can go a long way to creating trust in the results.

In the early 1970’s, what has come to be known as the Lewis Powell Memo, a secret letter by Mr. Powell (before he became a Supreme Court Justice) to the US Chamber of Commerce was leaked to the public. That letter warned the Chamber and anyone interested in the issue, that what the US needed was an corps of elite leaders making all the major decisions necessary for the governance of the country, and that they would be trained by elite institutions, such as Harvard, Yale, and of course, Dartmouth, among a small number of others. The leaders would be treated separately from the rabble, something like an aristocracy or oligarchy, except that the facade of democracy would continue in order to placate the masses. Not many years later, Ronald Reagan would usher in the wholesale dismantling of the New Deal and its liberal ideals, enable the neutering of the forces that created the middle class, such a unions, and quickened the ascendance of corporations and individuals with the power, money and influence to change the course of the USA.

This belief system has been thoroughly embraced by the leadership, both publicly elected and privately paid for, at all levels of government, and resulted in most recently the authoritarian administration of the last president. This same elitist, authoritarian notion of leaders that know better than the People do has been carried into our Town of Norwich. The Town Manager form of government is inherently elitist and authoritarian. It puts all the day-to-day power into the hands of one individual who is only nominally beholden to the Selectboard – the Selectboard can only terminate for cause if the cause is outlined in the Town Manager’s contract with the Town. To date, the Town has never executed a contract with a Town Manager in which cause was carefully and clearly laid out, so that the Town could never terminate the Town Manager. In our past, the only way to get rid of the Town Manager has been to wait out his contract until it terminates. So we have had Town Managers who have been insubordinate, ignored the needs and desires of the majority, and created budgets and proposals that would have financially crippled towns larger and wealthier than Norwich. (And those are just examples that quickly and easily come to mind).

It is time for the Town to start discussing eliminating the Town Manager position altogether, and replacing it with a town administrator who is answerable to the public, at least through the Selectboard, because the termination of a town administrator is not hamstrung by the poorly drafted law authorizing the town management form of government. In other words, the town manager should be just a liable for termination from the job as any other type of employee is.

I suggest that the reason that there is no public discussion regarding the position of town manager is that the flaws of the town manager form of government would need to be discussed along with the contract of the Town Manager. It is becoming clearer that there is a faction, made up of individuals and corporate entities from both within the Town and outside it, that seems to favor this elitist, authoritarian form of town government and does not want the town manager form of government altered or eliminated.

There is a great book entitled “Politics of Local Government” by Barry Truchil (9/2019 release). This book covers everything from development, housing, green energy, budgets/financing, and above all corruption in small town governing. This book should be a mandatory read for the SB and new TM. Note that “corruption” isn’t just what you would think. It isn’t taking or losing money, but involves things like conflicts of interest, biased governing, transparency etc…. Sound familiar ?

Jan Scheiner on July 23, 2021 at 4:54 am said:

It’s groundhog day–lack of transparency over and over again. I am especially disturbed by our current Town Manager’s role in propagating this atmosphere. I am also becoming more cynical about our lovely little town as a result.
- Douglas Wilberding on July 29, 2021 at 7:58 am said:
  
  Thx for your post. You’re not alone with those views. I’d say the majority of the town agrees with you. It’s been a sad slide for Norwich.
CTK on July 23, 2021 at 3:09 pm said:

Here’s what the Vermont Supreme Court said in 2019 on the topic of how a board benefits itself by being transparent:
Those who govern have every bit as much of an interest in open and transparent public meetings as those who are governed. To do their job properly, officers of the government need to hear from members of the public on matters being considered by a public body. Public meetings provide the opportunity for members of the public to give their input on such matters. Without the sharing of opinions and concerns, public bodies would be less able to fully and competently serve the public and construct beneficial decisions for the people.
Members of public bodies also have a strong interest in ensuring that those they serve understand the basis for the decisions they make. Public meetings put on display the information relied upon, the course of deliberations, and the articulated rationales supporting the ultimate decision. Open meetings provide an opportunity to inform the general public about the decisions a public body makes and the execution of leadership exercised by that body. Working in the open can go a long way to creating trust in the results.
Ernie Ciccotelli on July 23, 2021 at 11:20 pm said:

In the early 1970’s, what has come to be known as the Lewis Powell Memo, a secret letter by Mr. Powell (before he became a Supreme Court Justice) to the US Chamber of Commerce was leaked to the public. That letter warned the Chamber and anyone interested in the issue, that what the US needed was an corps of elite leaders making all the major decisions necessary for the governance of the country, and that they would be trained by elite institutions, such as Harvard, Yale, and of course, Dartmouth, among a small number of others. The leaders would be treated separately from the rabble, something like an aristocracy or oligarchy, except that the facade of democracy would continue in order to placate the masses. Not many years later, Ronald Reagan would usher in the wholesale dismantling of the New Deal and its liberal ideals, enable the neutering of the forces that created the middle class, such a unions, and quickened the ascendance of corporations and individuals with the power, money and influence to change the course of the USA.

This belief system has been thoroughly embraced by the leadership, both publicly elected and privately paid for, at all levels of government, and resulted in most recently the authoritarian administration of the last president. This same elitist, authoritarian notion of leaders that know better than the People do has been carried into our Town of Norwich. The Town Manager form of government is inherently elitist and authoritarian. It puts all the day-to-day power into the hands of one individual who is only nominally beholden to the Selectboard – the Selectboard can only terminate for cause if the cause is outlined in the Town Manager’s contract with the Town. To date, the Town has never executed a contract with a Town Manager in which cause was carefully and clearly laid out, so that the Town could never terminate the Town Manager. In our past, the only way to get rid of the Town Manager has been to wait out his contract until it terminates. So we have had Town Managers who have been insubordinate, ignored the needs and desires of the majority, and created budgets and proposals that would have financially crippled towns larger and wealthier than Norwich. (And those are just examples that quickly and easily come to mind).

It is time for the Town to start discussing eliminating the Town Manager position altogether, and replacing it with a town administrator who is answerable to the public, at least through the Selectboard, because the termination of a town administrator is not hamstrung by the poorly drafted law authorizing the town management form of government. In other words, the town manager should be just a liable for termination from the job as any other type of employee is.

I suggest that the reason that there is no public discussion regarding the position of town manager is that the flaws of the town manager form of government would need to be discussed along with the contract of the Town Manager. It is becoming clearer that there is a faction, made up of individuals and corporate entities from both within the Town and outside it, that seems to favor this elitist, authoritarian form of town government and does not want the town manager form of government altered or eliminated.
Doug Wilberding on July 29, 2021 at 9:07 am said:

There is a great book entitled “Politics of Local Government” by Barry Truchil (9/2019 release). This book covers everything from development, housing, green energy, budgets/financing, and above all corruption in small town governing. This book should be a mandatory read for the SB and new TM. Note that “corruption” isn’t just what you would think. It isn’t taking or losing money, but involves things like conflicts of interest, biased governing, transparency etc…. Sound familiar ?