Insiders in race for clerk’s job
Here’s hoping the City Council’s search for a new city clerk is smoother than City Manager Bernie Lynch’s search for a new city treasurer.
Lynch’s search, snake-bitten from the get-go, imploded with Wednesday’s news that the man he hired for the job, Greg Labrecque, quit after one week.
Labrecque’s stunner is indeed a set-back. The city’s treasury department is, for many Lowellians, the only city department they will encounter.
It’s been misfiring for years, ever since George Garabedian bid adieu for the anonymity and green pastures of the Greater Lowell Tech.
Garabedian’s replacement, second-in-command Mark Rosengard, was never up for leading the department and consequently the department suffered.
Rosengard’s replacement, David McGurl, was beginning to turn things around until he was tragically killed in an August car crash.
Which brings us to Labrecque.
No one will ever know if he was the most qualified candidate because Lynch will not release the resumes of the finalists.
The other red-flag went up even earlier in the process, when the man charged to oversee the process, city CFO Tom Moses, divulged to Lynch there’s a possible conflict of interest because he knows Labrecque and has been on the links with him. Red flag unheeded. Moses interviewed a half-dozen candidates and sent Lynch just one name for consideration: Labrecque’s.
Labrecque is back in the tiny town of Groveland and the S.S. Treasurer is taking on water.
Now, councilors are planning to interview six finalists for the city clerk’s position, the other city department most Lowellians know. The vacancy was created by the resignation of Richard Johnson, who is accused of stealing public funds.
Two interesting names top the list of finalists: Michael Geary and John Linnehan.
Geary is a former city councilor and License Commission member who is well-connected.
Linnehan is chairman of Lowell’s Board of Parks and is also well-connected. His connections, however, apparently weren’t strong enough to get him the treasurer’s job on two occasions. He was an applicant when McGurl was hired and when Labrecque was hired.
Perhaps now that Labrecque is history, Linnehan is suddenly alive for the treasurer’s job? But what would happen if he got the clerk’s job? That’s a topic for another blog post.
The other four finalists for the clerk’s job are:
— Michael Monfredo, assistant city clerk in Worcester since 2007.
— Jennifer Smith, who served as assistant city clerk in Lawrence from 1993 to 2007. Smith serves as an administrative and financial assistant in the Salisbury’s Office of Planning and Development.
— Joseph Kaplan, who served for two years as town clerk in Uxbridge and previously worked as the assistant director of the Cambridge Election Commission. He has been an active member of the Massachusetts City Clerks Association.
— Lisa Goodwin, who served as town clerk in Lincoln, Maine, for 18 years before becoming Lincoln’s town manager in 2008.
More than 100 people applied for the job. Councilors hope to hire a new clerk before the end of the yea
