Richmond, California
A civic pamphlet. Not a newspaper. No ads. Nothing for sale.
Publius
28 August 2026.
A closed session has a sound. Out in the hallway you hear the murmur through the door, a laugh now and then, a chair scraping. Somebody brings in a tray. Then nothing for an hour. The public waits on benches, or more often does not wait at all, because there is nothing to wait for. When the door opens, a lawyer reads one sentence.
On August 11 the Council held a special meeting. It opened at 6:00 p.m., heard one public comment, and went into closed session on a public employee appointment: city manager. It came out at 7:48. The Interim City Attorney reported that “no final decisions were made.” The Council then approved, 7–0, a second amendment to its recruitment contract with Bob Murray and Associates, raising the limit by $100,000 to $168,000 and extending it through June 2027. The meeting adjourned at 8:03.
On August 26 it did it again. A special open session at 6:00, a closed session on three items, the interim city manager recruitment, the city manager recruitment, and the city manager’s performance evaluation, and a report at 7:28 that no final decisions were made. Councilmembers Bana and Brown were absent for the entire meeting. Adjournment at 7:29.
I have no complaint about the law here. Personnel matters belong in closed session. Candidates deserve confidentiality; a public evaluation of a sitting manager would be cruel and probably unlawful. The Brown Act draws this line on purpose, and it is the right line.
But consider what a resident could learn from the public record in August about the most important appointment the City makes. That there is a recruitment. That it now costs up to $168,000 in search fees. That there is also an interim recruitment, which implies a vacancy, or one on the way. That the sitting manager is being evaluated. And that, twice, no final decisions were made.
That is all. Not why the City needs an interim. Not when the vacancy begins. Not what the Council wants in the next manager, or what it thought of the last one, or how it will choose. The public would learn on September 15 that staff had been authorized to negotiate with a candidate for interim, and on September 22 the candidate’s name and hourly rate.
There is a way to run a search that respects the closed door and still tells the public something. You publish the job profile before the search starts. You say, in open session, what qualities the Council wants. You announce the timeline. You name the finalists, if they consent, before the vote. None of that requires breaking confidence. All of it requires a Council willing to say, in public, what it is looking for.
In August the Richmond Council said nothing of the kind. It met twice behind a door, came out twice to report nothing, and raised the recruiter’s budget in between. The door, in fairness, did exactly what doors do.
The next regular meeting of the City Council is Tuesday, September 15, 2026.
— Publius