As a member of the hiring committee for the new Lewiston police chief, I am incredibly disappointed in the city staff and elected officials who served on the committee. City staff did not accommodate committee members’ schedules when deciding meeting times, and it appears to me that elected officials on the committee had already made up their minds before reading any of the applications. I found out that a decision about hiring had been made, not at a committee meeting, but rather at the City Council meeting on Aug. 18.

The creation of the hiring committee was a great idea. If the hiring committee had functioned as intended, with all members being able to serve in full capacity, I believe the process for hiring a new police chief would have been fair. But because some members of the committee were focused on making a quick decision, rather than a collective decision, the process was not fair to the applicants. Nor was input from all members of the committee valued equally.

I hope that the process for hiring the new city administrator doesn’t follow the same path.

No matter who ends up being the new city administrator, the process for selection must be fair, accountable and create a sense of mutual respect and cooperation. It is only through such a process that we can put negative tensions to rest and go forward as a community.

Ari Rosenberg, Lewiston