By KEITH GRANT
Would I go back? No, says Harold Porr, the city's new top administrator. Porr spent most of the last nine years as the city manager of Newburgh, N.Y. But after his selection from a field of 23 candidates, Porr says his heart and shoes are buried in Long Beach sand. Left behind, he says, is a city where political battles tended to hinder progress and which twice forced him from his office.
I'm tired of councils that fight amongst themselves, Porr said recently seated in the office that will become his next Monday. It's so exhausting. I don't need that kind of headache anymore. I'm committed to Long Beach for the long term.
Though lasting far longer in the city manager's chair than his predecessors in Newburgh, Porr never quite managed to lose the tag of former Republican leader during his worked in City Hall. He resigned that position, along with his committeeship in Newburgh's local GOP, when he was hired as city manager in 1992. But because of that and his 1989 bid for Orange County Executive, others, he says, would never let him completely escape the label.
Because of that history, every time my name was mentioned as city manager, it was always
