Opinion: Ex-SLT city manager on the outs in Wash.
Publisher’s note: This editorial is from the Nov. 6, 2015, Yakima Herald-Republic. Tony O’Rourke was city manager of South Lake Tahoe before leaving in 2012 for the Yakima job.
Tony O’Rourke wants out of Yakima. The city manager has put in for at least two out-of-state positions. His house is on the market. He even said so — at a City Council executive session that violated state law, the legal point having been acknowledged by the city attorney.
But then, in a huff of hubris that careened into denial, O’Rourke rescinded his resignation, a move that sparked unprecedented exasperation and anger at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting. The emotion-fraught verbal fracas fittingly corresponded with the flow of Election Night ballots for a new City Council that, apparently, will have to sort through a mess of the current council’s and city manager’s making.
We do know that the next City Council will have four new members among its crew of seven; what we don’t know is whether O’Rourke will be the city manager who reports to them.
He shouldn’t be. When Jan. 1 comes, Tony O’Rourke should be gone. If he isn’t — and the current council shows few signs of being up to the task — the new council should perform this dirty yet dutiful task.