This paper presents a study on the contradictions of the Manager Council of Vargem Grande Family Health Unit, in Teresópolis City, state of Rio de Janeiro, concerning community health needs. The study helps understand public control policies of a Family Health Unit Manager Council, strategically based on changes of the health care model starting from the Primary Care Network. The aim was to analyze how the Council solves community deadlocks and problems, and to discuss contradictions of the decision process. It is a case study with qualitative approach. Counselors were interviewed and the Council's minutes were analyzed. Thematic analysis was used to identify problems and contradictions of the Manager Council. Data showed that deadlocks and problems are of political, economical, social and cultural nature and that they overcome the scope of the Council. The Council's attributions reveal a control practice restricted to service rationalization of the unit administration matters. The Council was not able to interfere on health politics neither on public budget destinations. So the counselors' attributions are deprived of political sense to guarantee citizenship and the conquest of social rights. The conclusion was that Vargem Grande' Manager Council is not an effective possibility of popular participation in an enlarged State public control in the Gramscian sense.
Manager council; family health; public control