I have watched the drama unfolding in the Leader regarding the alleged misrepresentations made by John Mauro in applying for the position of City Manager and feel that I must finally take a moment to share my thoughts.

I was pleased when our former City Manger retired after a very long tenure, and equally pleased when Mauro emerged as the finalist. My impression of Mauro was positive then, and nothing in his tenure as Manager has made me believe that the selection of Mauro was a poor one.

I honestly could not care less whether Mauro, or his headhunter, padded his resume or not. I prefer to judge Mauro on his time here in PT, and by that metric, we are lucky to have him. Mauro has made it a point to engage the community and communicate in ways that I have not seen since before we hired a City Manager and instead had a strong Mayor managing our affairs. I wonder if some of the complaints regarding Mauro may be related to a fresh person coming in with different, or perhaps higher, expectations than some have grown accustomed to. I believe having an award winning City Manager speaks for itself.

I hope the Council can put this matter to rest quickly.

Bly Windstorm

Port Townsend