The City Council appointed Ned Keefe, the current Interim City Manager, to a term not to exceed two years as Chelsea’s new City Manager.
However, the removal of the interim tag from Keefe’s job title is more of an administrative matter, as the council is still taking steps to seek a long-term city manager to replace former manager Thomas Ambrosino.
Due to the language in the city charter, an interim city manager cannot serve for more than six months, and Keefe was approaching that time limit.
Also in play is an expected move to extend the city manager search process and adjust language on the compensation package for the position. A council subcommittee on conference was expected to meet to address those issues.
It is expected that Keefe will serve as city manager until the council moves forward with an appointment as a result of the search process.
“The charter is very specific about how you appoint the city manager,” said City Solicitor Cheryl Watson Fisher. “I believe that Mr. Keefe is aware that in reality, his appointment is until you find a new city manager.”
Councilor-at-Large Damali Vidot said she wanted to make sure residents realized that the city was not abandoning the city manager search process, but that Keefe’s appointment was necessitated by the charter language.
Earlier in the evening, Mary Aicardi from the Collins Center at UMass Boston, which is helping conduct the search, addressed the Collins Center’s request to extend the timeline for the search and to adjust the compensation language in order to bring in more qualified candidates.
“We have received candidates, many who are exceptionally educated and experienced individuals,” said Aicardi. “But not enough meet your qualifications in accordance with your profile and the charter provisions. What we would like to do is extend the deadline and do a little bit more work to do some recruitment.”
In doing outreach about the position, Aicardi said many people are saying that the salary as listed, at $200,000 per year, is insufficient to make them move from their current jobs.
“Rather than put in a specific pay, we would like to put language in the profile to say ‘a competitive employment package will be entered into with the city council depending on qualifications,’” said Aicardi. “That way, you don’t have to choose the amount right now without having any idea of the experience of the candidates the screening committee is moving forward.”
Vidot said the compensation package and deadline extension could be discussed further in subcommittee.