BRUNSWICK

Brunswick Town Council Chairman Benet Pols said that the town manager search process, which effectively ended Monday with the decision to offer the job to interim manager John Eldridge, was an open and public process.

“I don’t think you’ll find a recent town manager search in Maine with more public input or openness,” Pols wrote in an email received on Tuesday.

The town council Monday voted 5-3 to enter into contract negotiations with Eldridge.

“Obviously, I would prefer a unanimous vote,” Eldridge said in an interview on Tuesday, adding that he was hopeful he could work with all councilors, whether or not they voted to give him the job. “My goal is to work with nine councilors, and not five. My approach is to value each councilor’s vote and each councilor’s position.”

Both Eldridge and fellow finalist Presque Isle City Manager Jim Bennett were interviewed once with the council, and both participated in question-and-answer sessions with the public.

Pols said no additional interviews were needed, because “… once a clear favorite emerged there was no humane reason to make the applicants endure anoth- er set of interviews. Mr. Bennett continues to work for the city of Presque Isle. I’m sure its council and staff are glad to have the process resolved so they can move forward. Meanwhile, Mr. Eldridge needs to transition from caretaker to fulltime manager.”

On Monday, two councilors — David Watson and Suzan Wilson — said they voted against making Eldridge manager on Monday because Councilor John Richardson wasn’t present.

Richardson on Tuesday morning said he is congratulating

Eldridge.

Richardson said he was unable to attend Monday evening’s meeting because of a scheduling conflict due to his work with the Maine Labor Relations Board. He said he was informed of the council meeting Friday afternoon, and did not have time enough to reschedule with the labor board.

“I was never told there would be a vote of the town manager,” Richardson said.

Asked whether the council ought to have held the vote, Richardson declined to comment beyond stating, “I don’t want to make this about me.”

Richardson also declined to state whether he would have supported Eldridge’s nomination, but noted that he had been in favor of making both Eldridge and Bennett finalists.

The next regular council meeting is scheduled for Oct. 6, and Pols said a delay in the vote would not have made a difference in the outcome.

Pols added that he had written to the council immediately after councilors received personality assessments of the candidates Sept. 16 announcing his intentions to schedule a meeting as soon as practical.

“Decisions made by large diverse groups are complex,” Pols wrote. “Once a majority coalesces around one outcome delay is unproductive, or even harmful. It would have been a disservice to the people of Brunswick and to the town staff to delay any further. Most important, it would have been unfair to Mr. Bennett.”

Much of the discussion over the town manager search, including total applicants, of which there were 49, was done in executive sessions that are closed to the public.

However, Pols noted that including Monday — when the council met in executive session for a half hour before entering the council chambers to vote to give the job to Eldridge — the council met one other time since the field narrowed to two finalists in order to discuss the process.

“One of the things that has been very important to me was that this process be conducted as much as possible in the light of day and not in executive session,” Pols said, in order to give the public confidence in the process and to bring “a level of scrutiny to the finalists that would not have been available in a secret process controlled by the applicants and the council.”

jswinconeck@timesrecord.com

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