WORCESTER, Mass. - Worcester's City Council is once again evaluating the work being done by City Manager Eric Batista as he leads the heart of the Commonwealth.

City Manager Batista's second annual evaluation from the City Council went a lot like his first, with Batista receiving positive notes from the councilors overall.

In Tuesday night's meeting, city councilors brought up many of the issues the city is currently facing and spoke about working with the city manager to move Worcester forward. Many of them praised how communicative and open he's been in working with them.

"The one thing I know, mister chairman, is that the integrity and honesty of our city manager is something that I've never questioned," Councilor and Vice Chairman Khrystian King said. "On the Council floor, he may be doing a dance. There may be times where I don't like his answers or I don't think he's answering; and if I want to push I will and if I don't then I'll discuss it. But in terms of integrity, that's not something that I question."

Councilor George Russell added he is willing to continue to work with the city manager's administration during his portion of the evaluation, but believes the city's charter needs to be readressed to give the council more legislative power to address local issues.

"There's no reason why we spend meeting after meeting, marathon meeting after marathon meeting, on a process where we don't have the authority to change anything," Russell said. "We don't have the authority as a City Council to change anything on the budget. We can make recomendations, we can make suggestions, but we don't have the authority as other city governments do to say 'this line is not right and we want to move it over to this department.'"

In his reaction to the Council as a whole, Batista highlighted the work department heads and thousands of city employees are doing to better Worcester, and the city manager is thankful to the Council.

"I want to thank the Council, again, for the confidence you have in me to lead the city and be partners with you to achieve - to achieve the impossible, because doing this work is extremely hard for all of us," Batista said. "And so, I want to thank all of you for that. And thank you for your words today, not only for the positive but also for the critique; that's part of the evaluation process."

Batista said he is proud of the foundation Worcester has built in the last year and he is just as, if not more, optimistic as he was in 2023 about the city's future.

Batista is also up for contract renewal at the end of this year. He was promoted to city manager in December 2022 after having served as acting city manager for six months.