Council needn't rush this decision

The Baker City Council should allow itself more time to find a new city manager.

We suggest councilors extend the application deadline from Aug. 7, the date they set during a special meeting Friday, to Oct. 7.

This is a singularly bad time to rush such an important decision.

The Council is divided, both numerically and philosophically, in a way we have not seen in at least a decade.

Four councilors voted last week to fire City Manager Steve Brocato.

The three other councilors voted against that motion.

Brocato’s dismissal resulted in Councilor Milo Pope, one of the dissenters, vowing to sue his four colleagues for allegedly violating Oregon’s public meetings law.

Another councilor who opposed the firing, Andrew Bryan, described the Council as “incompetent.”

We think “dysfunctional” is the more accurate adjective, but we take Bryan’s point.

Under the circumstances, we’re not confident that the Council will be ready, by early August, to have cordial conversations about the candidates to replace Brocato.

During Friday’s meeting, Bryan said: “I will not participate in the decision-making process for hiring a new city manager until we address the unprofessional way with which we fired the city manager.”

Pope said he is “dead set against the process.”

The Council needed just four votes to fire Brocato, of course, and it needs the same number to hire his successor.

But we doubt many qualified candidates would take a job which could end if one of seven bosses changed his or her mind.

Consider, for instance, that three councilors believe Brocato’s management qualities are desirable, while four concluded that those qualities were so detrimental that Brocato deserved to lose his job.

That looks to us like a formula for yet more discord when councilors discuss the merits of applicants.

There has also been discussion among critics of Brocato’s firing of trying to recall some or all of the four councilors. If the recall campaign comes to pass, proponents could be gathering signatures when the city manager application deadline arrives on Aug. 7.

Again, that is hardly an ideal situation in which to try to pick a city manager.

We’ll concede there’s no guarantee that two more months is enough time for the Council to heal its fractures.

That might never happen.

But we think it’s more likely that the Council will be closer to reconciliation in early October than it will be in early August.

Besides which, councilors needn’t worry overmuch about City Hall in the interim.

Last week they hired Tim Collins as interim manager. Collins was the city’s attorney for more than 30 years, as well as serving as public works director, before he retired in 2006.

More important, Collins has worked as interim city manager before. And his first stint, after Gordon Zimmerman resigned at the council’s request in March 2003, lasted seven months.

Bottom line: City councilors have ample time to mend their internal strife and make the right choice on behalf of their constituents.