And she is more experienced that any clerk, administrator or manager in any town in this county. And she has tremendous respect and rapport with those she deals with in Raleigh. One of the problems if Locust replaces Lisenby with a newcomer is that it risks entering a revolving door of managers who come in, gain a little experience, and move on to larger cities and better pay. In Lisenby the city has experience at a critical time in its history. We are sure she would be content to remain in Locust.
City managers have the authority to hire, fire, and promote employees.
Ironically, this is exactly the authority Lisenby had last year, and she exercised it by demoting the police chief and advertising for a new chief. Earlier this year the council was split over this action against Lisenby. We doubt that any prospective city manager would, or should, take the job knowing these circumstances. Nor do we think that he or she would take the job knowing that the council changed its charter without careful study. The council-manager form of government dates in this state back to the early 1900's when an effort was made to bring professionalism to the management of local government.