Maybe it was the sweltering weather, but tempers flared at the Board of School Committee meeting July 11 over a familiar issue — how to vet applicants for key administrative positions with the start of the school year fast approaching.

Superintendent Thomas Brennan was pressed to bring candidates before the committee for interviews — or to at least give members a chance to question them.

“We go around and around with this every time I make a nomination,” Brennan said, adding, “I don’t think it’s worth the grief I feel because there are members of this board that don’t have faith in the decisions I make.”

Brennan was responding to concerns raised by committee member Debra Gagnon Langton, his critic-in-chief when it comes to staffing decisions.

“It’s obvious our hiring process is broken,” Langton said. She alluded to crowding and scheduling problems in the early weeks of the school year last fall, which were partly pinned on newly hired administrators.

As of June, there were principal vacancies at four schools — McLaughlin, Parker-Varney, Gossler Park and Beech Street — and several assistant principal posts to be filled. Brennan wouldn’t comment on whether hires have been made for several of the positions.

Amid the heated exchange over personnel choices and the challenges facing the school district in the weeks ahead, Mayor Ted Gatsas spoke up. “Nobody likes it. Nobody. I don’t like it. Let’s stop pointing fingers, because unless we work as a team, we’re never going to get this accomplished,” he said.

He sounded a bit like a scolding principal himself.

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There’s a bit more team spirit when it comes to trying to squeeze tax revenue out of the city’s hospitals.

The Board of Mayor and Aldermen voted last week to ratchet up the pressure on the hospitals to make compensatory payments for all the property they own. The nonprofit hospitals claim most of their properties are tax-exempt.

“It’s time to pony up,” said Alderman Joe Kelly Levasseur, who has led the charge against the hospitals. “Look at the salaries some of their executives are making.”

Levasseur said the argument that hospitals have made to justify their tax exemptions — the charity work they do in caring for the poor — needs to be reconsidered in light of the recent Supreme Court decision upholding “Obamacare,” with its goal of insuring many of the poor.

The aldermen voted to send letters to Elliot Hospital and other nonprofit medical centers, asking officials to explain why they claim exemptions from the property tax and requesting that they make compensatory payments to the city.

The aldermen will also be consulting with the city’s State House delegation to draft legislation that could help the city go after the hospitals.

It could be a worthwhile venture. Board of Assessors Chairman Robert Gagne told the aldermen that in investigating Elliot, he found nothing in the state statutes that granted hospitals a “blanket exemption” from the property tax.

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There will be no rain check for Milly’s Tavern. The aldermen on Tuesday voted to reject giving owner Peter Telge a $200 refund for the cost of a noise permit he bought to coincide with the Sky Show on June 2 at Arms Park, which his bar abuts.

The fact that the entire weekend was a washout because of heavy rains was the least of Telge’s problems. With little notice from the Sky Show’s organizers, WGIR and the Fisher Cats, Telge said, he was forced to cancel a long-planned private party.

“I lost $10,000 that day,” Telge said. “The point of the refund was to make me go away,”

Now he says he’s considering suing the city.

Several aldermen were sympathetic to problems encountered by Telge and other businesses near the park, and the Committee on Administration/Information Systems recommended that Telge be given the $200 refund. (Telge sought the permit so he could stage music outside his bar to coincide with the Sky Show, a move he figured was making the best out of a bad situation.)

But aldermen ended up deferring to City Solicitor Tom Clark, who cited a regulation in the city charter that permit fees are nonrefundable.

Still, several aldermen said the dustup exposed problems with the fairness of event permitting.

“Maybe we’ll have to look at the ordinances,” Alderman Phil Greazzo said. “Why do some businesses have to get entertainment licenses and others don’t?”

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How do you say “thanks but no thanks” in Turkish?

Manchester is spurning the affections of Pendik, a city in Turkey whose representatives earnestly sought a sister-city partnership.

The aldermen voted last week to designate the proposal from Pendik’s mayor “received and filed.” In other words, Manchester’s just not that into you, Pendik.

A delegation from Pendik visited New Hampshire recently, and its mayor wrote a personal letter to his counterpart, Mayor Gatsas.

Turkey is one of the world’s fastest growing economies and is New Hampshire’s ninth-largest trading partner, economic development chief Jay Minkarah noted in a letter to the aldermen.

Manchester formally joined Sister Cities International last fall, with the goal of fostering transnational cultural and economic ties.

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Ted Siefer may be reached at tsiefer@unionleader.com.