![\"J.J.](\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Murphy-JJ-336x259.jpg\")
Courtesy photo<\/p>
J.J. Murphy<\/p><\/div>\n
That search firm, The Mercer Group, officially notified Murphy that he\u00a0had been “selected as a finalist for the Las Cruces City Manager position,” according to\u00a0an April 11 email<\/a>\u00a0made public by Murphy.\u00a0In the email,\u00a0Catherine Burton, a senior associate with the company, wrote that\u00a0she was notifying\u00a0Murphy “on behalf of The Mercer Group and the city of Las Cruces, New Mexico.”<\/p>\n Murphy included the email in another recent\u00a0application for the open city manager job in Port St. Lucie, Fla., where he is currently a finalist<\/a>. Port St. Lucie\u00a0posted Murphy’s application online<\/a>, which is\u00a0how the\u00a0email became public.<\/p>\n The April 11 email adds to the confusion that has surrounded the\u00a0city manager search and questions about transparency. In recent weeks there have been conflicting statements from the city about\u00a0the number of finalists for the job<\/a>\u00a0and whether the City Council had made\u00a0a final decision<\/a> about who to hire. A battle over whether some job applications\u00a0are public records<\/a> has also colored the search.<\/p>\n What’s certain is that councilors don’t currently consider Murphy a finalist for the job. Councilors recently\u00a0named\u00a0two finalists for the job<\/a>\u00a0— Stuart Ed, who most recently was\u00a0president and chief executive officer of Goodwill Industries of El Paso, and\u00a0Dan Biles, deputy county manager of infrastructure for Jefferson County, Ala.<\/p>\n Councilors decided two weeks ago\u00a0to offer the job to Ed and negotiate terms with him. They’re scheduled to meet publicly on Monday<\/a> to select a new manager<\/a>.<\/p>\n Back in April, before Ed and Biles applied, Las Cruces\u00a0was considering other candidates, including Murphy.\u00a0The Mercer Group’s email to Murphy came 13 days after the company\u00a0gave officials in Las Cruces\u00a011 candidates’ applications<\/a> for consideration, including Murphy’s. On April 29, city councilors interviewed three of the candidates — not including Murphy.\u00a0Instead of naming finalists or making a hire, they then opted to continue their search.<\/p>\n Burton’s email references the April 29 interviews,\u00a0asking Murphy if he was\u00a0available on that day.<\/p>\n NMPolitics.net first raised the\u00a0issue of whether Murphy was\u00a0a finalist in July<\/a>. When applying for another city manager job — that one in\u00a0Dunedin, Fla. — Murphy claimed he was a finalist for the Las Cruces job. At the time Murphy refused to comment to NMPolitics.net and didn’t mention the April 11 email.<\/p>\n But Las Cruces Mayor Ken Miyagishima said at the time\u00a0that the city had not named finalists.\u00a0The mayor said he had \u201cnever met with, spoken to or interviewed Mr. Murphy ever.\u201d<\/p>\n Miyagishima reaffirmed those comments\u00a0on Wednesday. “That’s correct — I never spoke to him, nor interviewed him,” Miyagishima\u00a0said.<\/p>\n So did\u00a0Mayor Pro Tem Gregory Z. Smith. “As far as the candidates in April\/May, I don’t believe we referred to any of them as finalists, and we did not interview Mr. Murphy,” he said. “I am not privy to what Mr. Mercer might have said to him.”<\/p>\n Smith\u00a0was referring to James L. Mercer, The Mercer Group official who ran\u00a0the Las Cruces search. Mercer and another official with the company haven’t\u00a0respond to emails sent Wednesday seeking comment.<\/p>\n Asked about the April 11 email he received from The Mercer Group, Murphy said Wednesday he was “being 100 percent honest” when he claimed to be\u00a0a finalist for the Las Cruces job.<\/p>\n “I will not comment on what others interpreted or how my character may have been questioned,” he said. “Beyond that, I will have no further comment at this time.”<\/p>\n Miyagishima’s statements have caused at least some of the confusion surrounding the search. Last\u00a0month, he\u00a0said there were four finalists for the job. In addition to Ed and Biles, he was quoted by the Las Cruces Sun-News<\/a> as saying the city’s two assistant managers were finalists.<\/p>\n One of those assistant managers, Daniel Avila, quickly said he wasn’t interested in the job. The Council declined to name the other, David Dollahon, as a finalist. Miyagishima later clarified that\u00a0he\u00a0wanted the Council to name\u00a0four finalists, but\u00a0councilors named only two<\/a>.<\/p>\n Then two weeks ago, the city stated\u00a0in a news release<\/a> that the Council had selected Ed to be its next manager. But the Council never voted publicly<\/a> to make that decision, and the N.M. Foundation for Open Government said such an action in private would violate the state’s Open Meetings Act.<\/p>\n Three councilors later said the news release was inaccurate<\/a> and they were still considering both finalists. How the news release that communicated a different message came about\u00a0still isn’t clear.<\/p>\n The city’s manager search has also included\u00a0a battle over whether certain records are public.\u00a0Though the city has released 13 applications for the job, it has withheld dozens of others from the public.<\/p>\n The state\u2019s Inspection of Public Records Act<\/a>\u00a0makes applications for high-profile government jobs like city manager public.\u00a0But the city contends that\u00a0applications The Mercer Group\u00a0hasn\u2019t turned over to the city\u00a0aren\u2019t public records. NMPolitics.net\u00a0has sued<\/a>, seeking release of all applications. The case is pending<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Las Cruces City Council never publicly named J.J. Murphy a finalist for its open city manager job, but the private company running the city’s search appears to have told Murphy he was a finalist earlier this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":167748,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[885,145,3295,706],"class_list":["post-190818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-hobbs","tag-las-cruces","tag-las-cruces-city-manager-search","tag-transparency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}