Durham’s brief interim era got off to a relatively quiet start Tuesday night, as acting City Manager Patrick Baker helped preside over his first City Council meeting. Mayor Bill Bell still ran the show, but for the first time in three years the seat to his right was not set aside for the much maligned former City Manager Marcia Conner, who stepped down last month.
The agenda and the atmosphere were much more low-key compared to the past several months, when concerns about a proposed downtown theater and Conner’s future dominated the docket. Instead, Durham’s main legislative body got back down to basics—housing, highways and holdover tidbits.
But Councilman John Best, Jr., changed the mood midway through, challenging the council and Baker, who served as assistant city attorney for the past seven years, to explain an engineering study involving Durham Public Schools.
“I am aware vaguely of this particular issue,” Baker replied, “but not with its authorization.”
Bell went on to spell out the background on the issue, which was Conner’s final project before she left her post amid a firestorm of criticism for allegedly playing favorites with municipal contracts, botching a police chief search and pushing the housing department to the point of major job losses. And when the mayor said paying an independent engineering firm nearly $6,000 to look into a more sanitary sewer system affecting schools near Farrington Road was “a net win for the city,” Baker followed his lead in looking toward positive solutions for the future.
But Best, who was a leading advocate for Conner’s departure, pushed back. “In the future, I would suggest that there’s a formal vote put to the City Council and City Manager,” he said, “just to make sure that everything is done on the table rather than under the table.”
Cutting him off across the room, Bell began a loud back-and-forth with Best. “There wasn’t anything under the table about this,” he declared, going on to make only a quick allusion to Conner. The motion to pay the firm then passed, 4-3—by far the tightest vote of the evening—with Best one of those against.
Much of the early part of Tuesday’s meeting concerned eminent domain expenses for three property owners frustrated with the construction of turning lanes for Highway 98.
Homeowners cited a gap as high as $47,000 between what the city-appointed appraiser and another independent assessor had determined that the highway developer Ganyard Farm, LLC, owed one of the affected locals.
Although the City Council voted 7-0 to table a resolution until it had a concrete second appraisal to consider at Thursday’s work session, Bell made clear his compassion for the homeowners.
“Someone’s property’s going to be taken by this,” the mayor said of the highway widening. “If it were my property, I’d certainly want to know how my property’s going to be damaged and compensated for.”
Baker, for his part, is trying to mend fences while the City Council tries to finalize a search firm for a permanent replacement, a job Baker has not decided if he wants or not.
Councilman Howard Clement was the only one to mention the job vacancy directly at Tuesday’s meeting. While handing out trinkets from a recent trip to each City Council member, he paused before giving Bell a framed picture of Mount Rushmore with the mayor’s face included.
“I want to thank the City Council for not appointing a city manager before I got back,” he said, prompting a hearty—if interim—round of laughter around the chambers.
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