Coming on the heels of Mayor George Proto opting out of the upcoming Mayoral race, Town Manager Brent Manuel has announced his resignation from his position with the town. His resignation is effective April 6, 2018. Mr. Manuel began his position as town manager on April 6, 2015 after spending 13 years with the town of Woodstock.
Assistant Town Manager Bob Panek will be the interim town manager effective April 6th.
At a work session this Thursday, town council began the process of finding a replacement for Mr. Manuel.
The majority of the discussion revolved around the approach the town will take, whether to hire an outside recruiting firm, or to handle the hiring in-house. Council members Natali and Buchholz favored the in-house approach. Bennett and Bannon, while not against hiring in-house, voiced concerns that the amount of work involved may be over council’s head. Mayor Proto acknowledged those concerns, but given the cost involved in using a professional recruiter, was willing to sign onto the in-house approach. However, Proto still wants a formal RFP for the recruiting service. Bannon and Natali disagreed, noting that an RFP would take too long, and they would rather “get to the meat” of the process.
A local ‘Head Hunter’ has also volunteered services to help with the search, free of charge.
Council formally created a search committee made up of Mayor Proto, Councilwoman Natali, Clerk Libby Hume, and assistant town manager Bob Panek.
Immediate tasks for the committee are:
- Create an advertisement to be placed with organizations such as the VML, ICMA and VACO.
- Create and release an RFP for recruiters
- Contact ANPDC to see if they could help
- Contact local head hunter to see if their services could be useful
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Gee I wonder why Brent decided to leave? Probably because he is too smart and too honest to put up with the shenanigans that go on!
does Cape Charles really need an “assistant” Town Manager?
No they don’t! It’s absolutely ridiculous for this tiny little town to have a town manager and an assistant Town manager. Bob Panek wormed his way in and now for some reason the town thinks they need him. My husband was raised in Cape Charles and we lived there for the last 10 years. Bob Panek is the worst thing to ever happen to Cape Charles. The town is so far in debt they will never crawl out of the hole. We recently sold our home and moved out to Seaview on 5 acres. Now we have wonderful drinking water, no double taxes and could not possibly be happier. All the town of Cape Charles is worried about is tourism. They do absolutely nothing for the people that actually live there. I cannot imagine why anyone would want to live in that town!
Mrs. Bender, you couldn’t have said it any better !!!