Luzerne County Council still stalled on manager hiring plans

Luzerne County Councilwoman LeeAnn McDermott expressed frustration Tuesday over the top manager selection process.

McDermott said she had expected County Acting Manager Romilda Crocamo’s Monday withdrawal of her application for the permanent position would prompt at least one of Crocamo’s five council supporters to provide the seventh vote needed to hire finalist Randy Robertson at council’s next meeting April 12.

However, all five council members — John Lombardo, Tim McGinley, Chris Perry, Robert Schnee and Chairwoman Kendra Radle — said Monday and Tuesday they won’t be supporting Robertson if there is a call for another vote on April 12, with some expressing concerns about Robertson’s level of commitment to stay here and his lack of county government experience.

All five said they would support McDermott’s alternate proposal to ask the citizen manager search committee to seek new advertisements for the position to determine if there are other qualified applicants.

Radle said she would consider voting for Robertson if he remains the top finalist after an additional search.

But McDermott said she was hasty in suggesting extending the search because she now believes another search would take longer than she envisioned.

She had proposed reopening the application process and completing committee recommendations and council interviews by May 23 if there are new finalists, with the goal of a May 24 vote on the council hiring.

McDermott said her follow-up research with a search committee member made her realize most of the committee members would no longer be in a position to continue volunteering their time and that such a swift turnaround was too aggressive. She also is not overly optimistic it will yield new applicants more qualified than Robertson.

“I am not in support of that now,” she said of a new search.

In addition to McDermott, five council members supported Robertson: Carl Bienias III, Kevin Lescavage, Brian Thornton, Stephen J. Urban and Gregory Wolovich Jr.

Other moves possible?

Even though the manager hiring requires seven votes under the county’s home rule charter, the six supporting Robertson have enough votes to take other actions if they stick together.

For example, there’s chatter other moves could be in play attempting to force movement in securing a seventh vote, such as the possible replacement of Radle as chairwoman and Lombardo as vice chair.

The six also can control Schnee’s council replacement if he is certified as the 116th Legislative District state representative winner in Tuesday’s special election.

Replacing Crocamo as acting manager is another option, although identifying someone else from the executive branch to fill that role as specified in the county’s home rule charter may be a challenge.

McDermott repeated a description from citizens and fellow council members that the manager selection has become “like a game of chess.”

“He’s a good candidate. We have to pick someone,” McDermott said of Robertson.

‘I’ll give the county my best’

McDermott does not agree with a main concern raised about Robertson, that he may not be committed to staying here for an extended period, saying it is not the norm for managers to remain in place for many years.

Robertson said Tuesday he recalls a statistic that the average tenure of a county/municipal manager was around four years.

“I have exceeded that in some cases and had less than that in others,” Robertson said.

He said he and his wife were considering the position here could be his “concluding assignment” if it is a “good fit” for him and supported by council and the community.

Robertson said he couldn’t predict if he would be here 18 months or a matter of years because nobody knows what is in store.

“I’ll give the county my best. That might be many, many years,” he said. “I have certainly not looked at this as a short-fused kind of thing.”

While there are exceptions that have seen government managers in place for decades, Robertson said “that is not the career pattern most adhere to” and “not necessarily the best thing for a community long-term.”

Managers with a series of positions can bring a “breadth of experience” and new ideas from other places to a community, he said.

He related it to the organizational structure he experienced in the military, which does not not “let people homestead for eight to 10 to 15 years.”

“You come in and make an impact for three to four years,” Robertson said, noting this applies to military leaders excelling in their positions.

He compared it to the county charter’s requirement to hold council elections for five or six members every two years.

“I’m not looking to come to Luzerne County and leave in a year or two in any stretch, but I also reserve that right if it’s not working out,” he said. “If it worked out and made this my last job, I could be there eight to 10 years, but I don’t go into positions with preconceived notions of a prescribed time.”

Past positions

Currently contracted to perform a special project in Durango, Colorado which should wrap up by the end of May or early June, Robertson previously worked as city manager of Dover, Delaware, from February to June 2021. He said that short departure was an anomaly because he had to assist his mother after she had a serious fall.

Prior to that, he worked as city manager of Aberdeen, Maryland, from July 2016 to January 2021. He also worked as city manager in the following locations: Cordova, Alaska, August 2013 to June 2016; Vestavia Hills, Alabama, December 2011 to April 2013; Mount Juliet, Tennessee, September 2007 to December 2011; and Ashland, Kentucky, August 2006 to April 2007.

A retired U.S. Army officer, he was a chief of staff for a signal brigade in the U.S. European Command from September 2001 to January 2005 and chief of staff for the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico from January 2005 to June 2006.

He has three master’s degrees in public service from Western Kentucky University, in urban studies from Johns Hopkins University and in strategic planning from the U.S. Army War College.

Raised in Kentucky, Robertson said he applied for the position here because it is a “tremendous opportunity.”

It would be a step up from his city management work and more similar to his last two experiences in the military, he has said.