Tilting at windmills is fruitless, but it’s good exercise. So we’ll take another tilt at local governments that shroud in secrecy the hiring of their town managers.

Selma is the latest windmill, but it is just one of many. In fact, we cannot think of a single Johnston County town that has ever allowed its citizens to weigh in on the hiring of its chief executive.

The excuse for secrecy is now as familiar as the nursery rhymes we learned as children: The best candidates will not come forward if they know the media will announce who they are.

So what about the best candidates? In Selma, Stan Farmer was a good town manager, but he left before he had the chance to wear a path in the carpet in his office. The manager before that? Well, let’s just say the Town Council asked him to leave amid a government spending spree that sapped Selma’s savings.

So let’s everyone concede that Selma’s record of hiring in secrecy has produced mixed results. And Selma leaders should concede that even the good hires shrouded in secrecy will stay only until a better offer comes along. In the case of Mr. Farmer, he had the chance to move closer to family in Texas. In the case of Bruce Radford, another good Selma manager, he stayed until a bigger town offered him more money. Put another way, Selma is simply too small a town to keep a great manager forever.

So what exactly has secrecy done for Selma? It has produced managers good and bad, but it has not produced a manager who has grown deep roots in Selma. Mr. Radford came close, but even he eventually left for a larger, greener pasture.

What secrecy has not done is given Selma citizens a voice in the hiring of the person in charge of spending their tax dollars. Perhaps if citizens had a say, the town could hire a good manager willing to make the town his home.