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Wilbraham selectmen interview town administrator finalists

Date: 3/12/2015

WILBRAHAM – At a special meeting on March 7, the Board of Selectmen interviewed three finalists for its vacant town administrator position.

Former West Springfield Mayor Edward Gibson, East Longmeadow Town Administrator Nick Breault and Dana Reed, former Bar Harbor, Maine, town administrator and current Tremont, Maine, interim town administrator, met with the board.

Kevin Sutherland, chief of staff for the city of Ithaca, New York, and?Daniel Knapik, mayor of Westfield, withdrew their applications prior to their interviews.

Each candidate was given at least an hour to answer nine questions posed by the board, which included topics such as budget philosophies, the Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District’s decline in enrollment, how each candidate would handle hypothetical situations and whether each candidate had a sense of humor.  

Breault said he has been a town administrator in East Longmeadow for a decade. Prior to that he worked as a mayor’s aid in the city of Springfield for 5½ years under two administrations.

“I think, even as a town administrator who may be involved in higher level strategic functions, it’s very important to always put the focus on the citizens that we serve,” he added. “So, that’s what I would bring to Wilbraham.”

Board of Selectmen Chair Robert Russell asked Breault, “Why would you want to move to a sister town across the line?”

“I would want to state clearly that my desire for the position here has nothing to do with a burning desire to leave the position that I’m currently in,” Breault explained. “I’m not trying to escape anything. I’ve spoken to my Board of Selectmen and I believe that they understand that and they are supportive of it. I look at it as a possibility for a career progression.”

Breault described his budget authority in East Longmeadow as “somewhat weaker” than what is allowed by Wilbraham under the town’s bylaw. He “doesn’t have global budget authority,” he noted.

“I have some responsibility with department heads, but I don’t have safe direct oversight with them,” he added. “It’s more of a guidance type of rule. I believe here those types of responsibilities are required of the town administrator.”

Gibson, town administrator of Becket, said one of the frustrating things he has to deal with is “those that I don’t directly manage [who] are elected officials.”

One aspect of his budget philosophy that Gibson highlighted was “financing through tax revenues.”

“The competing needs is never easy,” he added. “It’s probably one of the hardest things we do and sometimes we think we get it right; the tax payers thing we get it wrong, vice versa. It’s interesting and I did notice that almost $36 million of your revenue came from your taxpayers and roughly on $2 million or less came from the state.”

During his time as mayor of West Springfield, Gibson said he developed a local meals tax, which amounts to $700,000 annually.  

“One of thing that I have missed, [working] up in Becket – there’s not a large business base,” he added. “I enjoyed working with businesses in West Springfield and trying to bring new businesses into town or expand the businesses that are there, and thus expand your tax base. Growth is one of the most important things that any community can have, especially when you’re not getting a lot of state aid. I would look forward to doing the same here.”

Reed believes he was hired in Bar Harbor because the “budget was dysfunctional,” he said.

“They weren’t in any financial difficulty, but it was hard to tell where the money came from [and] where it went,” he added.

Reed said by the time he left Bar Harbor the town had a “strong financial position” and had established a capital improvement program.

According to the Bangor Daily News, after serving as Bar Harbor’s town manager for more than 27 years, Reed reached a separation agreement with the Town Council on May 8, 2014.

Of the three candidates, only Gibson had any experience working with officials in a regional school district.

The town also hosted a public forum later that evening to allow residents to meet and ask the finalists questions of their own.