By Katie Northcott, News Director
In an audio clip obtained by Peterson Media Group, Former Water and Sewer Director Jeff Perry can be heard advising Manchester Mayor Joey Hobbs that current Water and Sewer Director Lonnie Foley did not have the experience for the Water and Sewer Assistant Director position.
A second audio clip obtained by Peterson Media Group documents Foley informing Perry that Hobbs had reached out to Foley without Perry’s knowledge.
The Manchester Board of Mayor and Alderman’s (BOMA’s) recent decision to appoint Lonnie Foley as Director of the Water and Sewer Department came under scrutiny by the water and sewer commission on Thursday, Jan. 8. These recordings add new context to the board’s recent appointment of Foley as director.
The first audio clip is from Monday, Aug. 18, 2025. In the clip, Perry can be heard saying to Hobbs that Foley, who had served in the assistant director position since April 2025, did not have the experience for the role. He instead suggested then Water and Wastewater Operations Manager, Dana Douglas, be hired for the assistant director role.
“The way I’m going with this, nothing against Lonnie, I want Dana in that role because of his institutional knowledge, and because of his background,” Perry said to Hobbs. “I knew that his knowledge of this place would have been very beneficial to me and the city.”
According to his LinkedIn profile, Douglas served as Distribution Manager for Manchester’s Water and Sewer Department from April 2004 until January 2022. He then moved up to Assistant Director in January 2022. After Brian Pennington resigned from his position as Director in July 2022, Douglas essentially filled the interim director role, though he was not formally appointed to the position by BOMA until Sept. 2022.
Douglas left the department in October 2022 and moved to the private sector, working for ClearWater Solutions from December 2022 until December 2024. Douglas returned to Manchester’s Water and Sewer Department as Water and Wastewater Operations Manager in March 2025.
On the recording, Hobbs said there was “no way” Douglas would be offered the assistant director position “with what had happened two years before.”
“You’re trying to set Lonnie on the shelf so that we can move him around and get Dana,” Hobbs said in the obtained audio. “Look, for three more years, Dana’s going to have to figure it out. I told you from the beginning he’s not going to be assistant director.”
The second audio clip obtained by Peterson Media Group indicates that around the same time as this conversation, Hobbs had called Foley instead of going to Perry with some of his concerns.
The audio is from Tuesday, Aug. 19, the day after Perry advised Hobbs that he would prefer to have Douglas in the assistant director position. In this audio, Foley informed Perry of a phone call that he had with Hobbs over the weekend. Foley said Hobbs was asking what to do about an issue that is not clear from the audio.
“I said, ‘I think you need to be talking to Jeff. Only reason I say that is because if I was in his shoes and the way this looks,’” Foley said in the audio. “[Hobbs] said, ‘This conversation is between me and you.’”
In the audio, Foley said his wife asked him why the mayor was calling him.
“I said, ‘Right, well, I’m not supposed to tell Jeff that we had this conversation,’” Foley said he replied to his wife. “What kind of team building is that? … That’s not how I operate.”
In the audio, Foley said he wished he’d said something along the lines of the following to Hobbs.
“[Perry’s] on your side. He just needs you [Hobbs] to be on ours! Now, if you don’t agree with what he’s doing, then you can say that: ‘Hey, listen Jeff, you’re running the show. You work for me. I’m the boss. You don’t make decisions.’ [Perry] will probably say f*** you. … But you have to say that.”
A timeline of the building tension at the Water and Sewer Department is published below.
At the April 3, 2025, meeting of the Manchester Water and Sewer Commission, Perry introduced Foley as assistant director. He said Foley had an extensive background in the utility field, particularly in inflow and infiltration (I & I).
In August 2025, Perry advised Hobbs that in his opinion, Foley was not qualified to continue in the role. During that same month, Hobbs seems to have begun going to Foley behind Perry’s back. Perry resigned from his position in September 2025, citing concerns about the ethicality of practices within the department. After Perry’s resignation, Hobbs appointed Foley as interim director.
In January 2026, BOMA voted unanimously to promote Foley to director. The position was never posted and did not come with a recommendation from the Water and Sewer Commission.
That decision came under scrutiny at the Jan. 8, 2026, meeting of the Water and Sewer Commission. Commission Chairman Mike Anderson said BOMA had circumvented the commission with its decision. He said BOMA’s appointment would be null and void, and Foley should continue as Interim Director.
City Attorney Craig Johnson overruled Anderson, saying that BOMA didn’t require a recommendation from the commission before hiring a new Water and Sewer Director. Johnson said the position was never vacant because Hobbs appointed Foley as interim director.
Find that story here.
On Tuesday, Jan. 13, Anderson and Water and Sewer Commission Vice Chairman Nelson Watson resigned from the commission.
Find that story here.
The line was busy when Peterson Media Group called Manchester City Hall multiple times to request a comment from Hobbs. Peterson Media Group sent an email request for comment but has not received a response at the time of this article.
The post Audio Clips Shed Light on Manchester Water and Sewer Tensions appeared first on Thunder Radio.
