Carrboro Hires Firm to Find New Town Manager; Brough Voted as Interim

At a special meeting Tuesday, the Carrboro Board of Aldermen approved the Mercer Group Inc. as the search firm Carrboro will use to find a new town manager.

The board decided to use a search firm in December when former Carrboro Town Manager Robert Morgan left his post of more than 18 years to take the job of assistant town manager in Greensboro.

The board chose Mike Brough, Carrboro's attorney for the past 26 years, to serve as interim town manager from Dec. 30 until it completes the search.

"I think it was the fact that I know the town and know the people," Brough said. "The best choice would have been to have (Morgan) stay on, but we didn't have that choice."

The board chose not to bring in an outsider to the position and not to place the responsibility on department heads.

"We're a small town," Brough said. "The difficulty of elevating department heads is that you leave a big gap in the service line."

Alderman Joal Broun said the board's priorities for the next six months will be the search for a new town manager and coordinating the budget.

"These are the things we should be putting at the front of our minds," she said. "I want us to stay on task for the process."

Brough said Assistant Town Manager and Finance Director Bing Roenigk primarily will direct the 2003-04 budget. "(Being interim manager) is sort of being a liaison between the departments that are going to be getting things done," Brough said.

Bob Crowder of the N.C. League of Municipalities, who advised the board about the process of finding a new town manager at a November meeting, predicted the search process would take at least six months.

The board expects the new town manager to begin next fiscal year, which begins July 1. Board members will discuss the timeline the Mercer Group proposed for the search process at their Tuesday meeting.

The Mercer Group will work with the board this month to discuss the criteria with which board members -- and possibly citizens -- would like to judge candidates and to create recruitment brochures.

A steering committee made up of Mayor Mike Nelson and Aldermen Broun and Jacquelyn Gist, chose the group from a pool of four search firms.

Nelson said he favored the Mercer Group because it has worked elsewhere in North Carolina, including Raleigh, Charlotte, Wilmington, Fayetteville and Greensboro.

Gist said the Mercer Group was the only firm of the four interviewed that did not put a limit on the amount of time it would spend working with the board.

The committee also appreciated the experience the firm had working with other university towns such as College Park, Md.

"I think Mercer would be an excellent firm," Broun said. "I felt very comfortable with (Mercer) and with (its) experience."

The City Editor can be reached at citydesk@unc.edu.