The City of Evanston announced this afternoon that Carol Mitten won’t be Evanston’s next city manager.
The announcement says that, “After continued conversations, the Evanston City Council and Urbana City Administrator Carol Mitten have decided that Ms. Mitten is not the right fit for the Evanston City Manager position and will not be moving forward as a candidate.”
The city now has gone through three rounds of trying to find a new manager without any success. Mitten was the only finalist identified in the third round.
The city’s announcement says the council “is currently in discussions with Interim City Manager Luke Stowe to determine next steps for the City.”
Last Thursday, shortly before a town hall forum for Mitten at the Civic Center, Ald. Devon Reid (8th) said he was not happy with having only one finalist, and would like Stowe to at least be considered as well.
Is not being able to find a good candidate a coincidence? I think not. To me, this is very concerning. I am not sure who is running this town.
Looks to be “that man behind the curtain” is Ald. Devon Reid…
I am originally from Chicago, just started following local Evanston politics, but *man*, he is “something else”…
Wow.
Was there new information since city council presented Ms. Mitten to the public, or did they put her out there knowing that they were not going to hire her?
I expect that will be the question any outside city manager applicant will have in the near future.
I would like to think that some members of city council were undecided and that Ms. Mitten knew that she might not get the job. This really does not look good.
So how exactly is this city run? A loud minority gets behind closed doors with decision makers and shames them into making decisions they want? We can blame the loud minority if we want to but where in gods name are the moderates demanding value and a functioning local government for the crazy high taxes we pay to live here? All this city does is spend , misappropriate, scare talent and business away.
At this point you really have to question the judgement of anyone wanting this job, with the whole history of what they would be walking into available online. For a rational person to want this job, the applicant would have to see this job as a huge promotion or likely they are some desperate person running from something in their current job or lack of job.
With that said, maybe we need to consider the interim manager if there is not a good reason not to. We would know who we are getting, and they would know what they would be dealing with.
Socialist mayor wants to change the rules and the communist on city council is loving it.
STP (same 30 people) got their way again. It’s really unfortunate but it also should be a warning/reminder to the rest of us (population 78,000+) that if we continue to be complacent and let the tiny loud group kick and scream to get their way, they will get it.
I’m hoping/praying that implementing ranked choice voting (RCV) might help with some of the STP issues
My property taxes have increased almost 100% over a ten year period. For what? What are we financing? We’re getting robbed blind. How about we delete the budget entirely and start over with a very basic government and cut taxes?
The most ridiculous thing about the Same Thirty People is just how transparent their NIMBYism is. These were the same folks who did not want Erika Storlie (long time employee) to be manager event though the other two candidates who were brought in were really subpar in terms of qualifications. One was from some small town in Virginia and the other from a rural county in Arizona. Storlie was heads above in terms of experience.
Then the first search to replace Storlie, they didn’t like the more experienced candidate with Chicago ties and experience in a good sized city.
Then in the next search, again, they liked the inexperienced candidate and found some slim thing to complain about with regard to Fourier.
Finally with Mitten, they take critiques from some random Urbana blog by someone with a grudge against the city to malign Mitten. And then they say they want Luke Stowe to stay on–an experienced guy with long connections to the city.
The problem with the group is that it is entirely grievance-based, they have no real articulated position regarding what qualifications a candidate should have, and they are operating purely in an oppositional mode without any modicum of pragmatism. It is telling that the board of directors of the “Community Alliance for Better Government” includes at least one disgruntled former city employee and a couple of failed political candidates.
It is the Evanston version of MAGA: a lot of fury and outrage with little substance.