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Date: 10/4/2023
SOUTHWICK — While two Select Board members have disagreed on the composition of a search committee to help with recruiting a replacement for the town’s retiring chief administrative officer, board member Jason Perrone has suggested not appointing a committee.
“I am of the mindset that if we are going to put together a [request for proposals] for a [recruiting firm], I would like to see the town completely out of it,” Perron said during the Select Board’s meeting on Sept. 25.
The board has started the process of replacing current Chief Administrative Officer Karl Stinehart, who is retiring in late January after serving the town for 35 years. Perrone said at the meeting that “I don’t want any inference of the stuff that people have said in the past” about “conspiracies” in hiring for town positions. When contacted later, Perron said he just wanted to hiring process to be transparent.
He also wanted to town to hire a recruiting firm that would provide three to five candidates — the board would decide how many — for the chief administrator position, and the Select Board would make the hiring decision without input from the community.
“I’m not inclined to put together a small screening committee or screening panel,” Perron said.
“Respectfully, I disagree,” board Chair Doug Moglin said in response. “I think a screening committee, dutifully composed, is going to vet candidates and bring forth candidates to the Select Board that they believe would be appropriate for the town. That’s where I believe the screening committee can be very beneficial.”
Board member Diane Gale said, “that’s my opinion as well.”
It was then that Moglin pointed out that he and Gale have a difference of opinion on who should be appointed to a screening committee.
At an August meeting of the board, when the subject of finding a new chief administrator was discussed, Moglin said he preferred a search committee composed of Police Chief Robert Landis; one or more members of the Select Board; the chair of the Planning Board, Michael Doherty; the chair of the Finance Committee, Joe Deedy; and Town Moderator Celeste St. Jacques. Moglin said at a meeting in early September that appointing the chair of the Finance Committee is “open for discussion.”
During that meeting Gale made her suggestions for members of a search committee. Those included a Select Board member, Town Clerk-Collector Michelle Hill, someone representing town counsel, a retired or current school representative and a retired member of either the Select Board or Finance Committee.
Apart from the Select Board’s official representative on the search committee, she said she would prefer to not have any other current member of the Select Board or Finance Committee, because they might be “too swayed one way or another in the decision making.”
Gale also suggested, during that meeting, that the recruiting firm hired by the town could help provide guidance on appointing a screening committee, saying that in researching the subject she had found other towns had adopted that approach.
Moglin, recognizing the impasse, said he hoped the board could come to some agreement, but suggested to the other members that should be thinking about who might serve on the committee.
He said his idea was that those chosen should be based on what roles or positions that person may represent, “without thinking so much [about] a person.”
The town released a request for proposals last month to take bids from municipal executive recruitment firms to help with recruiting Stinehart’s replacement. The bid specification identifies 35 separate job duties and responsibilities for the chief administrator, including serving as the town’s personnel officer; the municipal hearing officer for appeals on fire and building code civil violations; the Community Block Grant relocation officer; the town’s affirmative action officer and, in cooperation with department heads, as manager of the town’s insurance programs, including worker’s compensation, property damage, liability, motor vehicle and health.
The chief administrator also prepares the articles and warrant for Town Meetings and organizes the preparation, publication, and distribution of the annual Town Report.
Among the Select Board’s requirements for candidates are three years of experience in administration and operations in the public sector, public speaking experience and a bachelor’s degree in political science, business or public adminstration or a related field. A master’s degree can be substituted for the general experience requirement.