This morning the Rockville City Council appointed Barack Matite as Acting City Manager effective May 24, 2024 in a unanimous decision with no discussion. The resolution to appoint a new City Manager was introduced at the beginning of the meeting and was not listed on yesterday’s public agenda:

Mayor Monique Ashton: Good morning Rockville, today is Friday, May 24th and we are going to move into meeting number 13-24. We have an agenda item focused on the Moderately Priced Dwelling Unit Rental Program Agreement for phase one of Twinbrook Quarter development. We would like to add another agenda item focused on a resolution for the Acting City Manager.…[vote on MPDU Agreement with no discussion]

Mayor Monique Ashton: Alright, so we have our second agenda item focused on the resolution to appoint the Deputy City Manager to service Acting City Manager. Do we have a motion?

Councilmember (unidentified): I move to adopt a resolution appointing Deputy City Manager Barack Matite to serve as the Acting City Manager effective today, May 24th, 2024 until such time as the Mayor and Council shall appoint a permanent City Manager.

Mayor Monique Ashton: Thank you, the motion has been made and seconded, all those in favor please raise your hand and say aye. I want to thank our new Acting City Manager Barack Matite for stepping into this role to support the City. We really appreciate it. Thank you all staff and I want to also send a few thanks to Craig Simoneau who has done an outstanding job in terms of supporting the operations in the City. We appreciate the leadership of the staff and supporting and making sure Rockville is the best place to live, work and play. Thank you very much.

Evidently this change in administration was in the works because the staff report and resolution are the missing pages 3-4 mentioned earlier and the staff report states that, “This is the second time this item has come before the Mayor and Council.” Watch the meeting for yourself (it takes less than four minutes!).

Barack Matite was appointed Acting City Manager in August 2023, when Rob DiSpirito resigned under murky circumstances. A few months later, Matite also resigned under murky circumstances and as one of their last acts, the outgoing Mayor and Council appointed Craig Simoneau as Acting City Manager on November 15, 2024. Depending on how you count, that’s four city managers in the last year?!? Despite the larger city council, it doesn’t look like leadership has improved.

As of 4:30 pm, no official announcement on the city website.