'Needs Improvement Overall': See Council Reviews Of City Manager Eric Batista
WORCESTER, MA — Worcester City Manager Eric Batista has been at the helm at City Hall for about two years, but he only completed his first full calendar year on the job in 2023.
This week, city councilors provided their first reviews of Batista’s first year on the job after hiring him in 2022 to succeed Ed Augustus. Many councilors in 2022 enthusiastically backed Batista’s hiring, voting 8 to 3 in November 2022 to give him a $275,000, two-year contract without performing a wider search for candidates.
Some of the councilors who backed his 2022 hiring, however, were among his harshest critics during this year’s reviews. District 3 Councilor George Russell — who was the only councilor in spring 2022 to vote against doing a nationwide search for a new city manager, wanting to hire Batista on the spot — said Batista’s overall performance has fallen short.
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“The city manager needs improvement overall in my opinion,” Russell wrote in his review. “It’s no secret that I was the first councilor to push for a full two-year contract and bypass the national search. However, recently, some actions over the last year have not benefited the residents of District 3. Of course, there has been much good work done by many of his departments and staff.”
Russell went on to describe some of his disappointments, like that federal stimulus money set aside to repair a little league snack shack on Vernon Hill were moved, and a lack of progress installing sidewalks along Sunderland Road.
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Under the city charter, the council’s main job is to hire and fire the city manager, and evaluate his job performance. Some councilors feel the review process needs to be changed to one where they set goals for the manager at the beginning of each year. Councilors provide reviews looking back at a year under the current format.
In Cambridge, which is the largest city outside Worcester to use the “Plan E” form of government, councilors provide specific goals for their manager to complete at the beginning of each year.
Worcester councilors also don’t have to provide specifics in their reviews. Only five of the 11 councilors — Russell, Mayor Joseph Petty, At-Large Councilors Kate Toomey and Thu Nguyen and District 5 Councilor Etel Haxhiaj — provided detailed narratives alongside general reviews (“exceeds expectations,” “meets expectations,” “needs improvement”) across four leadership categories. At-Large Councilor Moe Bergman hand wrote notes in the margins of his review. Some councilors also added details during speeches at Tuesday’s meeting.
At-Large Councilor Khrystian King was the only councilor to fail to turn in a written review by the 4 p.m. deadline on Tuesday. It was still not available as of Wednesday morning.
Looking at just the evaluation grades made by councilors, only five out of 11 said Batista exceeded his performance in some areas. Russell, Nguyen and Haxhiaj were the only councilors to give Batista “needs improvement” grades.
Petty and District 4 Councilor Luis Ojeda gave Batista the highest marks, each saying he exceeded expectations in three out of the four rating categories.
“Overall, I am pleased to have been part of the council who hired you and believe you are meeting expectations. I look forward to negotiating your contract, and I look forward to great things to come. Thank you and all of your city departments for the incredible work they have done this past year,” Petty wrote in a four-page evaluation.
(Ojeda and District 1 Councilor Jenny Pacillo were not councilors when Batista was hired in 2022.)
Batista, 40, has years of experience inside Worcester City Hall. He began working as a project manager in 2012 under former manager Michael O’Brien, two years before Augustus took the helm. He later served as the director of the Office of Urban Innovation under Augustus. He was promoted in September 2021 to become an assistant city manager along with Nicole Valentine, and had also served as the interim chief diversity officer.
Since Batista took over in 2022, he’s overseen major changes in Worcester government, including the creation of the 311 system, the creation of the Department of Transportation and Mobility, a rearrangement of the city’s human rights and equity systems, brokering new emergency homeless shelters, appointing a new interim police chief, and shepherding new legislation through council, like the specialized stretch code for new buildings and the rental property registry.
You can read each councilor’s review of Batista’s first full year here:
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