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Date: 6/3/2015
EAST LONGMEADOW – The Board of Selectmen chose Greg Moyer to be the town's interim town administrator at its June 3 meeting. Moyer ranked in as the top candidate out of a pool of five individuals by all the members of the board.
Board of Selectmen Chair Paul Federici said he was most impressed with Moyer, who previously served as interim city manager of Bethel, AK, because of his knowledge, experience, and personable nature.
He added that Moyer "knocked it out of the park" with his interview, which took place via Skype at the board's May 26 meeting.
Federici said he was impressed with Moyer's work experience — particularly with a two-year interim city manager assignment in Galena, AK, during which Moyer helped the city recover from a flooding of the Yukon River in 2013. The natural disaster destroyed 90 percent of the community.
Selectman William Gorman initially thought the interview over Skype "wouldn't be any good," but Moyer impressed him more than any other candidate.
The list of the remaining four candidates included Derek Brindisi, who was the director of public health in Worcester from June 2000 to February 2015, Willie Morales, a 2015 graduate from the University of Northern Iowa with a master's degree in public policy, Bob Rooney, the former chief operating officer of Newton, and Robin Bennett, the former town manager of Brandon, VT.
"A lot of these people are professional interim town managers," Federici said. "They're hired guns. They go from place to place to place and do this for a short period of time and then move on, which I thought was interesting."
Selectman Angela Thorpe said she thought highly of Morales, Brindisi, and Bennett during the May 26 interviews.
Federici said the candidate he ranked as second was Brindisi.
Federici told Reminder Publications the board has made no decision on Moyer’s start date. At the board’s June 9 meeting, the board discussed a salary figure proposed by Moyer and worked on developing a counterproposal. Moyer’s salary is expected to be approximately $83,000 per year.
Moyer also provided the selectmen with a standard contract that the board hoped to amend slightly.
“Most of it is fine, but there’s one small thing we hope to change,” Federici said.
He added the board would most likely have a clearer picture of Moyer’s employment status at its June 23 meeting.
No plans have been made as this time to create a search committee for finding a permanent town administrator to replace Nick Breault who was recently appointed as Wilbraham's town administrator, he added.
During his May 26 interview, Moyer said some key qualities of a town administrator include listening to input from department heads and elected officials and sharing information with an elected body or department manager regarding the news of the community.
“Keeping them informed [is] the main quality, I think,” he added.
Moyer said the trends and strategies the town should consider with better municipal management include finding new ways to make the town more efficient through better policies.
“It’s a lot of those basic management principals that any organization, any city, any town, village, should have and if their not there it will come back and bite you,” he added.
Moyer said his resume includes a gamut of municipal work in Anchorage, AK, including serving as an ombudsman, city clerk, and assistant to the city manager during the course of three decades.
He added that while serving as the interim city manager of Bethel he was responsible for hiring a new police chief, director of Public Works, and human resources manager.
The challenge of being an interim is what draws Moyer to this line of work, which is a personal love of his, he noted.
Assistant Managing Editor Chris Maza contributed to this report.