RFP Staff
♦ Over the past week we reviewed Salisbury City Council videos and area news reports about what several city council members said publically about the “mutually terminated” former city Manager Doug Paris. We were taken back by several city council members assessments of their former colleague. In contrasting the new city manager with the former city manager, clearly Doug took a mean-spirited pasting. It appears Mayor Pro-Tem Maggie Blackwell and Mayor Paul Woodson burned bridges between themselves and their former “friend” and may be in breach of the “mutual termination contract” by trashing Doug’s performance in the news media. The ugliness grew even more pronounced when they paraded an associate professor for the UNC School of Government (where Doug attended) to the local print media for an interview that appeared professionally damaging to the former City Manager.
By contrast, the Former City Manager has kept up his end of the agreement and we have yet to hear him cast one disparaging word about the misdeeds of those who belittled his legacy. Is hammering Doug Paris part of a re-election strategy to make themselves appear distant from whatever took place during the former City Manager’s 2-year stint in City Hall?
Is it possible for that the “mutually terminated” Doug Paris may have legal recourse against the Mayor and the Mayor Pro Tem for their potential breach of terms of the “mutual termination”? Surely their statements about the former City Manager likely damaged his ability to find employment. And has the verbal back-stabbing not so accidently revealed the reasons for the young man’s “mutual termination”?
Words attributed to both Paul Woodson and Maggie Blackwell concerning the former City Manager:
-Said they want to know when an employee receives raises
-Said City Council needs more oversight over the City Manager
Words attributed to Maggie Blackwell:
-Said that City Council needs to review the City Manager’s contract and include checks and balances “to avoid being in this situation again”
-Said City Council was not consulted regarding her (Hasselmann) severance
-Said “Based on the circumstances, it’s time to review any contract that we might use for a future City Manager”
-Said “it’s incumbent upon us to put in some sort of checks and balances so we can be made aware of significant increases in an employees’ salary or other irregularities in order to avoid being in this situation again”
Words attributed to Woodson:
-Said elected officials need more control over the City Manager and “a lot more knowledge from any new City Manager we hire about people’s salaries
-Said he (Woodson) had nothing to do with Hasselmann’s severance
-Said Hasselmann’s severance was negotiated with interim City Manager John Sofley and Assistant City Manager Zach Kyle
-City Council needs to determine how to implement more cross checks when hiring a future City Manager
-While City Council has a right to hire only the City Manager, “we need a little more control. Said he is hearing from many upset residents and he understands their concerns
Expert opinion from Dr. Kimberly Nelson, an associate Professor at the at the UNC School of Government
-Salisbury should keep the form of government the city has had for decades
-City Council can find ways to increase oversight of the next City Manager
-“I hope people are not scared away from the council-manager form”
-“…I don’t think a bad experience with a single manager should discourage a community from continuing to use that form of government”
-City Managers answer not only to city councils, but to the oaths they take.
-“Ultimately, their code of ethics tells them that they work from city council, and they do not work independently of the council.”
