CCB MEDIA PHOTO
Members of the Barnstable Town Manager Search Committee discuss hiring an outside search firm this week. Committee members include Chairman Eric Steinhilber, Vice Chair Sara Cushing, and town councilors Ann Canedy, James Crocker and Paul Hebert, along with John Crow, who is president of the Osterville Village Association, and Phyllis Miller, vice president of the Cotuit-Santuit Civic Association. Sitting at the far end of the table is Town Council Administrator Cynthia Lovell. In the audience at Tuesday’s meeting were Town Council President Jessica Rapp-Grassetti, and town councilors Jennifer Cullum and Fred Chirigotis.
HYANNIS – The Barnstable Town Manager Search Committee at its meeting Tuesday evening declined to act on a request from Barnstable Town Manager Thomas Lynch to alter meeting minutes to reflect what Lynch said was a misstatement about his actions concerning his contract.
But the committee is moving forward with hiring an outside consultant to conduct a global search for candidates for Lynch’s job. They decided to contact the Edward J. Collins Jr. Center for Public Management at the University of Massachusetts Boston to come in and meet with the committee to give information about the center’s resources.
The Collins Center is an intergovernmental agency that provides help with executive searches, among other roles.
Lynch’s contract expires June 30. Both Lynch and Assistant Town Manager Mark Ells have been invited to submit resumes and apply for Lynch’s job.
Tuesday’s meeting for the subcommittee appointed by Town Council President Jessica Rapp-Grassetti was the first meeting for the committee since a majority of the full council voted to go forward with hiring an outside search firm to help with a global town manager search.
During Tuesday’s meeting, Subcommittee Chairman Eric Steinhilber, looking frequently to Town Councilor James Crocker for guidance and affirmation, read into the record two opposing letters — one from Lynch and one from Rapp-Grassetti — about the issue of whether Lynch had asked for a contract extension.
Lynch says he telephoned Rapp-Grassetti in July in response to a question from a CapeCod.com reporter about whether he would be seeking a contract extension given that Rapp-Grassetti had formed a search committee.
Lynch says he asked to sit down with Rapp-Grassetti about the contract extension and she said she would get back to him. He says she never did.
In a letter dated Tuesday that was sent to Steinhilber in his role as chairman of the search committee, Lynch said that an error was made during the presentation by the search committee to the town council at the September 3 town council meeting. The statement made by Search Committee Vice Chair Sara Cushing that Lynch had not responded to a request for him to state his intentions about whether he wanted to renew his contract was incorrect, Lynch wrote.
“No request was ever made of me,” Lynch wrote.
Lynch’s letter was also sent to Rapp-Grassetti, Council Vice Chair Ann Canedy, Barnstable Town Clerk Ann Quirk, Town Attorney Ruth Weil and Human Resources Director William Cole.
Rapp-Grassetti has agreed Lynch telephoned her, but she says during the conversation, she asked him to send a request for a contract extension in writing to the full commission.
Back in July, when a CapeCod.com reporter asked Rapp-Grassetti about the telephone conversation with Lynch, she said only that any decision about Lynch’s contract would have to be made by the full council. She did not mention requesting a letter. She also said the search committee would take up the matter of Lynch’s contract. But in her charge for the search committee, she did not include any discussion of Lynch’s contract as part of the search committee’s charge.
Rapp-Grassetti sent out a response to Lynch’s letter on Tuesday. She stated that at an August 13 meeting, Lynch was asked to present his intentions regarding an extension to his contract in writing.
But meeting minutes for that date for the town council meeting do not mention Rapp-Grassetti’s alleged request.
Rapp-Grassetti’s letter also stated that Lynch’s contract states that notifications about his contract are to be sent by United States Postal Service or personal delivery to the town council president.
At this week’s search committee meeting, James Crocker said the matter was a case of “he said, she said,” and that the search committee could take no action one way or the other.
But Search Committee member Paul Hebert said he thought the disagreement was unfortunate and should at least be acknowledged and discussed.
After the search committee meeting, Town Councilor Jennifer Cullum, who attended the meeting along with Councilor Fred Chirigotis and Rapp-Grassetti, said she was disappointed about the lack of communication between the town manager and the town council. Cullum, along with Chirigotis, Hebert, Debra Dagwan and James Tinsley, voted against conducting a global search for a town manager. The vote was 8 to 5.
Voting in favor of the search were Rapp-Grassetti, Canedy, Steinhilber, Cushing, Crocker, John Norman, Will Crocker and Philip Wallace.
Cullum said the contentious issue is what brought her to the search committee meeting.
“That’s why I’m here today. Because I was dismayed at the discussion [at the September 3 town council meeting]. I felt like it had already been decided before the discussion was had and it disturbed me. That’s why I’m here today. That’s why I’ll be here next time,” Cullum said.
By LAURA M. RECKFORD, CapeCod.com NewsCenter
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