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Date: 7/15/2020
SOUTHWICK – The Southwick Select Board met for a regularly scheduled meeting on July 7 to interview candidates for the Head Custodial position, discuss paving projects for the year, and acknowledge the police chief’s retirement notice at the end of his contract.
The Select Board began the meeting by jumping right into the interviews with the two candidates, Hilary Gilday and Daniel Storrs. For each interview, the Board asked four questions, including ones about experience with supervising, how they would handle personnel issues, schedule flexibility, and management style.
In Gilday’s interview she said that she likes to lead by example when it comes to her management style. “I like to be an example to my team, when instructing them I like to show them examples of how I do things and then help them develop the correct strategies in order to be successful,” she said.
During Storrs’ interview session he said that one of his strengths was his ability to manage drama in the workplace. He said, “As far as drama I always talked to the individuals and got their opinion on what’s causing drama and then resolving the issues to where there is a comfortable workplace. I’ve never had issues with any of my staff, if there has been drama, I addressed it right away and we were able to work it out.”
After both interviews, the board elected to make Gilday the new Head Custodian because of her experience working in the town. Select Board Clerk Russ Fox said, “We have two great candidates, but Hilary has worked for the town of Southwick. She already knows all the buildings, the people, the process, I think that gives her the edge so I would make the motion to offer the employment to Hilary.”
After the interviews, Department of Public Works Director Randy Brown jumped into the call to discuss potential paving projects for the year. He said that currently the town was able to secure $1.5 million dollars for this year’s potential projects.
One of the issues with the projects this year is that the price for some of the projects has gone up. Brown said, “I want to be a little conservative here, we opened bids last week and bid pricing for paving and capital approved projects have gone up. I’m hoping that if I can identify a specific project or location, we may get some better bid pricing.”
During the meeting, the Board also announced that they had received a notice from Southwick Police Chief Kevin Bishop that he would be retiring when his contract expires on June 30, 2021.
As part of the process for hiring a new chief, the town’s Chief Administrative Officer Karl Stinehart explained that the department would look at someone in the reserves to elevate to full-time status.
Select Board Chair Doug Moglin said it would be a good challenge to see how well the town has managed the department over the past several years. “This when we get to see how our hard work pays off in terms of the bench, recruitment, and staff that we’ve brought on over the past five to ten years,” he said.
The Southwick Select Board next meets on July 21.