Dear Mayor Glover and Members of Council,

Many of us who who watched last week’s city council meeting were distressed to have witnessed what transpired: a person with no governmental management experience, no postsecondary education, and who had never shown interest publicly in the job, was proposed for appointment as our new city manager! How do we list the number of reasons we oppose Mr. Meeks for the position and reject the way Council handled this?  We wrote to each of you before last week’s meeting, outlining some of the myriad problems with his appointment. But then to see council members move forward nonetheless and all but hire this individual, totally ignoring the multitude of applications for the job already received AND the detailed published job requirements AND the fact that this person is singularly unqualified to run the city was very disturbing. How could council justify ignoring the many legitimate applicants who had shown interest and capabilities?  How could council simply refuse to honor their contractual arrangement with the consultants paid by Portsmouth citizens to assure precisely what you wanted to eliminate: an open and transparent process for hiring the best individual for the highest position in the city government?This does not portend well for our city. Mr. Mayor, we are proud of how strongly you stood by the process established to fill the city manager’s position. We are grateful for the strength and the integrity you demonstrated in your actions that evening. But several other council members, in our opinion, did not act responsibly, and it was both an embarrassment and a warning sign that alliances have clearly been formed which seek to disrupt our legitimate city government.

Transparency is critical to a government that the citizens can support. That is why most of council’s business is to be carried out in open session. If some of you are making arrangements and promises behind the scenes about how you plan to work against the mayor instead of with him, then you have seriously misjudged your constituency and why we elected you. We want our new mayor, with council’s help, to be successful in leading our city forward. Your job is to work with him to make much-needed progress for our city. It is not to be obstructionist or to seek to undermine his authority or success.  That was clearly evident last week and was quite a blow to those of us witnessing the first meeting of our council with several brand-new members.

The previous council established specific job requirements and desires for the post of city manager and tasked consultants to handle the applications. In order to be fair to the candidates and to maintain an open process, we believe that these guidelines should be followed. We believe that last year’s council drew up reasoned as well as reasonable requirements in their posted job description and can see no need to revise the job description at this time. This would add needless delays to the process of hiring the city’s most senior executive.

The citizens of Portsmouth expect each of you conscientiously and carefully to evaluate the city manager candidates and select the most capable  person to head our administrative government. Danny Meeks is not a suitable candidate and council should hold itself and the position to a higher standard. We will continue to observe council deliberations, and truly hope to see the council acting fairly and collaboratively to do the work of the people.

Sincerely yours,
John and Carole Duckett