![\"Brian](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Brian-Potts.cropped.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nIn Major League Baseball, it\u2019s generally accepted that managers are hired to be fired.<\/p>\n
When a team falls short of expectations, as the Philadelphia Phillies did over their first 27 games, it\u2019s far easier to replace the manager than half the roster.<\/p>\n
Most managers depart with at least a year left on their guaranteed contracts \u2014 lending credence to the opener of this column.<\/p>\n
In municipal government, the dynamic isn\u2019t all that different. A manager serves at the will of an elected board \u2014 a many\u2011headed boss \u2014 and a shift in political composition can mean an administrator is suddenly on the outs. The abrupt departures of longtime managers in Cumru Township and Wyomissing underscore the point.<\/p>\n
But not all municipal managers exit under pressure. Some actually get to retire on their own terms.<\/p>\n
Two veteran administrators \u2014 Bern Township\u2019s Brian Potts and Sinking Spring\u2019s Michael Hart \u2014 have informed their respective boards that they will retire at year\u2019s end.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
STEVEN HENSHAW-READING EAGLE<\/p>\n
Brian Potts will retire at the end of the year after 20 years as Bern Township manager. (STEVEN HENSHAW-READING EAGLE)<\/p>\n
Potts has served as manager for 20 years (for 16 of those years he also served as road crew foreman), bringing a construction\u2011industry project management background to the job.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I took the job,\u201d he told me this week, \u201cI felt it was appealing because I would work for the people and not put money in a couple of owners\u2019 pockets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over two decades, Potts helped modernize communication with residents, strengthened long\u2011term financial and road\u2011improvement planning, oversaw major infrastructure fixes, improved communication with residents, guided the municipal building and police department renovation, and improved emergency readiness.<\/p>\n
His successor is already in place. The township supervisors hired Jessica Seiders, Schuylkill Haven\u2019s borough administrator for the past five years. She starts Monday, giving the township a four\u2011month transition before Potts\u2019 final day.<\/p>\n
Hart, meanwhile, has been Sinking Spring\u2019s manager for 10 years but has logged more than a half\u2011century in municipal service, most of it in West Reading. It began in the early 1970s when, at 13, he volunteered to help clean streets after Tropical Storm Agnes. That led to part\u2011time work, then full\u2011time work, and eventually the public works director\u2019s job.<\/p>\n
He was hired as Sinking Spring\u2019s manager in 2016 after the borough council fired his predecessor. During his tenure, Hart has shepherded the borough\u2019s four\u2011phase Penn Avenue revitalization plan, a massive undertaking centered on realigning the Route 422 corridor\u2019s two major intersections to improve traffic flow. Just this week, he met with PennDOT engineers to review Phase 3 \u2014 overhauling the intersection with Shillington Road\/Mull Avenue.<\/p>\n
As with Potts, Hart said he\u2019s leaving on good terms.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re actually very upset that I\u2019m leaving,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s one of the best councils I have worked for. They let me do my job.\u201d<\/p>\n
Council has only recently begun its search for his replacement, sorting through more than a dozen applications received since the job posting went live.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully we can settle on somebody at the tail end of next month, \u201d he said, \u201cbecause there\u2019s going to be a lot of transition \u2026 that person is going to have a lot to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Major League Baseball, it\u2019s generally accepted that managers are hired to be fired. When a team falls…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,2567,182,1559,1560,28,128,130,129,16420,706],"class_list":["post-274050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-bern-township","tag-local-news","tag-opinion","tag-opinion-columnists","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-sinking-spring","tag-top-stories-reg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}