Today is Auburn city manager John Salomone's last day at city hall. While the city council named capital improvement program director Michael Long as the interim city manager by a 4-1 vote last week, it looks clear that the process of finding a permanent manager, whether it is Long or not, is going to take a long time #- largely because Mayor Timothy Lattimore seems so entrenched in his views on what should be done.

Instead of being a consensus builder, one of the jobs of being mayor, he is trying to dictate. He seems to ignore the other members of the council, some who don't necessarily agree with him, not because they are “playing politics,” a charge he likes to hurl when his views are disagreed with, but because they may, oddly enough, have views different from his.

While Lattimore may not like getting advice from others, especially the media, as he said at last Thursday's meeting, he might want to get used to it #- or at least be mindful that the other members of the city council may want community input. If you watched any of last week's council session, it is clear that the mayor seems to have made up his mind that he not only wants someone local to be the next city manager, but from his comments, demeanor and general tone, he has the person picked out.

Councilor William Graney also agreed with the mayor's view on finding someone locally. That is well and fine. But it should not stop the process of a general search, which Lattimore seems to want to do. While councilors David Dempsey, Thomas McNabb and Matthew Smith were trying to have a valid discussion on process, Lattimore continually tried to counter them. At one point he seemed disgusted that Dempsey had more to say after an initial couple of sentences on the subject, even though Lattimore has never been known for his brevity in giving his opinion.

Lattimore, who has never been keen on the city manager form of government, went on again about the “power” of the city manager. That is all well and good, but if Lattimore wants to change the system, he should move towards convening a charter commission. But at this point, the job of the city council, whether he wants to hear it or not, is to agree, if even by a simple majority, to a process to use to find a permanent manager.

Lattimore has a special role in this process as a consensus builder and facilitator, not as a bully or a dictator. If he wants to debate every single point in the process, he might be better off relinquishing his chair, for this topic, to another member of the council (by seniority McNabb) to chair and facilitate the discussion.

Five people were elected to rule collectively, not one by royal fiat; the mayor needs to remember this.

Cosentino is a former mayor of Auburn and can be e-mailed at cozguytho@aol.com