Mayor says she did not ask city manager to resign

Winchester Mayor JoEllen Reed said this week she did not ask for City Manager Bruce Manley’s res­ig­na­tion. Manley, who noti­fied the Board of Commissioners in a let­ter dur­ing the board’s Feb. 3 meet­ing, quit three days lat­er. He had been the city man­ag­er since 2024.

Former City Manager Mike Flynn, who held the job right before Manley, is the inter­im city manager.

“He felt that the city com­mis­sion did not sup­port him,” and so he thought it would be “in his best inter­ests” to give them his res­ig­na­tion and pur­sue some­thing else, Reed said.

“I think Bruce was doing a good job, but he felt that he didn’t have the sup­port,” she said.

Reed dis­missed a rumor that the city’s depart­ment heads com­plained to her about his job per­for­mance. That was “not real­ly accu­rate,” she said.

“He had some sup­port and some non-sup­port” from depart­ment lead­ers, she explained. Reed said she accept­ed his res­ig­na­tion when he ten­dered it, but did not request it.

“Unfortunately, things hap­pen, and we have to deal with them,” she said.

Manley has so far declined to dis­cuss his res­ig­na­tion with WinCity Voices and referred to a state­ment includ­ed in the let­ter to the com­mis­sion, which was also sent to local news media by the city government.

In the let­ter to the may­or and com­mis­sion, Manley said it had been “a gen­uine hon­or” to serve as city man­ag­er for 21 months, and he was proud of the progress made by the city gov­ern­ment and the com­mu­ni­ty dur­ing that time.

“Together, we strength­ened the City’s depart­ments, advanced crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture and cap­i­tal projects, improved inter­nal polices and oper­a­tional effi­cien­cy, and con­tin­ued to deliv­er reli­able, high-qual­i­ty ser­vices to the res­i­dents of Winchester,” he wrote. “I feel that I nav­i­gat­ed com­plex chal­lenges with dig­ni­ty, pro­fes­sion­al­ism, and a com­mit­ment to fair­ness, all while keep­ing the long-term inter­ests of the City at the forefront.”

Flynn, who worked with Manley dur­ing his last days on the job to ensure a good tran­si­tion, is cur­rent­ly a Republican can­di­date for 5^th District coun­ty mag­is­trate. When asked on Friday whether he would be con­sid­ered for the per­ma­nent posi­tion of city man­ag­er, Flynn said that was yet to be deter­mined because there were “many mov­ing parts.”

All Reed would say about it was that Flynn is the inter­im city manager.

“Things are run­ning smooth­ly, and we are mov­ing for­ward,” she said.

ICE agreement

On anoth­er mat­ter, Reed said that Police Chief Travis Thompson did not seek her approval or the commission’s when he entered into an agree­ment with fed­er­al Immigration and Customs Enforcement to process for depor­ta­tion ille­gal migrants already incar­cer­at­ed for oth­er crimes because he didn’t need to ask; it’s an admin­is­tra­tive decision.

However, Thompson did con­sult with City Attorney William Dykeman, she said.

“He has my full sup­port in what he’s doing,” the may­or said. “I sup­port Chief Thompson.”