##VIDEO ID:GnoidqqxqBM## [Music] all right thanks good all right it is 408 we apologize for starting late but I will call the select board meeting for January 9th to order um if you can please join in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you so today we are doing the interviews for the Town Administrator candidates so our first appointment is with Shelley per welcome Shelley thank you hello Shel hi hello would just minutes hello thank you for having me all right so um we have a lot of questions um probably similar to the ones that were given to you during the hiring committee so I think for the board we'll start off with you telling us a little bit about yourself and your background sure um so first and foremost I'm a mom human and dog three dogs two boys um I have a 17-year-old and almost 15-year-old that go to Frontier um my background uh I've been in business administration for pretty much my entire career I took a little path off to uh explore philanthropy and fundraising for a little while at a private school um but primarily I've been in business offices um my education is in Business Administration and nonprofit management um I was with amers monor school for I believe eight or nine years um moved up the position there I started as an office manager moved to Director of Finance and then was head of school for three years um before deciding that I wanted to investigate fundraising my master's degree is nonprofit management and philanthropy so I decided I wanted to try that side of the role really quickly realized it wasn't for me um ended up at chicke Public Schools back in the business office and I have been at Frontier year since 2019 uh so this is my sixth school year there as the um Director of Business Administration so I know a lot of times we always come back to this question but why gramby um so I think first of all this was a really difficult decision for me to apply for this job because I'm really happy where I am um I love the people that I work with uh I my school committees which I have five separate School committees and my relationships with the towns are really strong um but someone forwarded this to me and said this is you and I read the job description and said wow this is me like this is a good fit for me um personally and professionally um and I think that I have the uh leadership skills and the budgetary background that gamby's looking for based on the job description um I've worked for small communities I'm local I know the area I grew up in South Hadley um it just felt like a good match for what you all were looking for and my next step for professional growth as I was looking through your resume do you have any grant writing experience it didn't exp explicitly say that in here so we have a grant writer at Frontier um our curriculum directors primarily write our grants I review a lot of our grants and work closely with um other departments that don't necessarily have the experience in writing them for example I've been working with the food service department on a couple of farm to school grants more recently and then uh we do have Frontier has a significant number of grants that offset our budget for all five of our schools so um while I haven't been in the Hands-On of it definitely in every step of the process um especially the last pieces of managing those budgets and making sure that we're meeting criteria and that even when we're applying for it what we say we're going to do we are going to do with the funds I don't want to monopolize it if you guys have a question that's that you're thinking of D go first or I can go I I Soo yeah I don't know if you heard me oh I'm sorry I didn't hear you I was looking through some questions I'm sorry how can you compare your experience with your current position and reflect on that would take part in being a Town Administrator and the duties and responsibility of that position sure um so Frontier is structured very much like a town as a regional school or a small town um we have to have uh a Treasurer I act as essentially the accountant as you would have a town accountant um and then work closely with um all of our different select boards all of our finance committees all of our um CPAs the capital committees um School committees uh so I think it's similar in that regard as far as far as relationship building with all of those different departments um keeping organized and on top of things uh and also my experience with small community so we're five small districts four small towns so I understand the hardship that small towns face when it comes to resources and personnel as well as finances um we don't have an HR person in any of our schools um or at the Town level so that's always a challenge for us so I manage a lot of HR responsibilities for our school Personnel um budgeting wise that would translate over to the Town Administrator position um I'm currently responsible for five budgets so I build them from beginning to end uh work with constituents to make sure that the schools have what we need um I think that that is similar to the town you're just working with police fire school you know instead of just um our small school department so um you know admin administratively I think it is very similar to my current role you know there's a balance of the political side of things and the administrative side of things there's a balance of your personnel um meeting everyone's needs particularly in collective bargaining and then you also have employees who are not in collective bargaining units so um I think that a lot of my role is transferable into this role I think the one piece that um I have not been a Town Administrator and I have a lot of familiarity with Mass General law we have to follow a lot of that in the school um but I'm not the one necessarily responsible right now to make sure that we are following it outside of the accounting function so that I do have a responsibility for but you know we're held to the same guidelines as far as open meeting law posting meetings you know making sure that agendas are adhered to you're not changing things um things along those lines and procurement I'm the chief procurement office or for the district the towns technically for the elementary schools are responsible for procurement but anything that is school related goes directly through my office so I have mcppo certification which I think would also translate over to the town in the Town Administrator position thank you you're welcome okay so based on your leadership and management skills how would you approach building a collaborative relationship with the Town Council and departments officials um so I think communication is the most important part in that uh I think that you have to be able to communicate clearly and as transparency as POS as transparent as possible um while also maintaining confidentiality where needed and uh what I currently do in my district is I have regular meetings with my own team and then with um department heads as needed um so I think opening that up particularly coming into a new role you know I would have to be doing a lot of relationship building and Trust building and uh learning from others as I come in you know I I don't think you can come into a position like this and come in with all of your own ideas and want to change things I think you've got to build trust um regular meetings I think are really important so we meet collectively with uh different levels so there's different levels of administration um right now I meet with my facilities director uh on a regular basis to make sure that I know what's happening in the community as far as our five buildings go um for maintenance needs but also for capital projects and then same thing with food service which I'm also responsible for so I think a lot of those skills would translate um I don't like to micromanage so long as everything is going as it should be going um I want to trust the staff that are are working in my departments and working for the district and um I think open lines of communication are really important there I like to be in the no also like I don't want to be surprised by something so I do expect people you know to keep me informed just like I keep them um one of the practices that I have which you know may not translate um entirely but just to give you an example of my style is I have weekly check-ins with my team through email and not only am I asking them to communicate to me what their plans are for the week I'm communicating with them about my plans for the week so that if there's something that I'm expecting from them it's right there on my list or if I owe them something you know I'll say get back to treasure on XYZ so um I try to keep that communication as open as possible great thank you so Shelley you said you were the cheap procurement officer so you're familiar with writing Arts yes although I will say um I we do tend to work with I don't know if anyone is familiar with furog it's a Franklin Regional um organization do you work with furog yeah so you know I consider them the professionals when it comes to procurement um so we work with them pretty regularly not only on Collective bids but if we have a major bidding project that we're going out to do it's typically a you know nominal fee to work with them to review documents they'll actually post bids for us and review some of those things but um yes comfortable with that so that would be similar to Piner valy planning commissions yeah I think it's usually worth it when they're the ones that are in it every single day that's what they do and you know uh whether it's a Town Administrator superintendent business manager you're managing so many different things that you know you don't want to miss anything and make sure you're following Mass General law um where would you say you lack knowledge or experience this position um that you could obtain training and and I additional information to to improve your knowledge sure um so I think on the municipal side uh although I know that you have other departments that handle you know assessor tax collector those kind of things but I that's something that I haven't done in the past is been very familiar with setting tax rates um I understand that concept and you know people paying their property taxes um but I think that those are all things that you can learn um I think additional education on you know Mass General law when it comes to you know schools get Chapter 70 funding I know that there's chapter 90 funding for towns so you know just from familiarizing myself with that um making sure that I'm joining networks so other networks of town administrators so that I have resources professional organizations um DLS has a great uh communication that they put out with educational opportunities for webinars and things like that so I'm not afraid to learn um I definitely think that there would be um some challenge in that but I think that those skills um you can pick up for versus administrative and Leadership skills so what do you consider the most difficult problems facing small towns like grany uh so ultimately I think it comes down to money you know uh particularly in small towns where schools tend to take up the majority of your budget um if you don't have a lot of new Revenue growth which I don't imagine grany does um you know you're primarily residential with some um commercial and and farming and you don't have a lot of opportunity for new businesses to come in which means you're not having a lot of new tax growth so you know if your school budgets are growing at a faster rate than everything else um the majority of your funds are going to come from there I think also um in my community it's even more challenging than here I think because a lot of our fire departments are volunteer you know we have a chief and maybe one or two full-time people um same thing with the police department I think ramb is a little bit bigger than Conway or Sunderland is um maybe comparable to Deerfield but I definitely imagine that those are significant challenges in a small community I think in that regard to police and fire um I would consider grany like a passage way you know you got to go to lllo I'm coming from Sunderland I'm cutting through grany if I want to go to Belchertown South adley I'm sure that puts a huge strain on your fire and police department um as far as accidents and and calls and things like that um which again is all resources right you only have so much money to go around for each of the Departments and balancing those uh I also Imagine in this community similar to where I am now your buildings are older you know you've got to think about capital projects but how do you fund those in the long term um what kind of free cash do you have do you need to borrow if you're borrowing do you need to do an override to increase your your taxes so um very similar I think to the communities that I'm in currently with the tax collector and Treasurer being elected positions what steps will you take to to have them become part of the financial team with you um so I think again it's that communication making sure that everybody is on the same page uh you know I think at first coming into the position I would want to learn from who's ever in those roles uh so that I can get familiar with how things currently work but then also work to um create that team even though they're not people hired by the town ad administrator or the select board they are elected public officials um I also wonder if I don't know if this exists and if it didn't exist I would have the goal of making sure that we have structures in place so that there are um policies and procedures that are consistent throughout departments whether they're hired or um elected so that everyone's sort of following the same guidelines we need to function as one Community um for the benefit of our our residents and taxpayers even though we all have different goals and objectives good thank you so as you can imagine um just like anywhere right um there's going to be conflicts there's going to be challenges how would you go about solving or resolving those if there's a conflict between departments if there's a conflict between Community stakeholders um so I think it depends on the situation uh but trying to be as transparent as you can with maintaining confidentiality where appropriate um bringing people into a room together to talk and have conversation versus communicating via email I think things get lost in translation easily through email um with departments it it might be a little bit easier to navigate if you had the structure in place where you had strong Communications to begin with but if we're talking about people in the community um I think there's a fine balance of letting people's voices be heard uh but also making sure that you're sticking to bylaws and guidelines and and regulations in the town um you know that balancing that political side of things having an open door um I'm trying to think of an example of something for you in my current town I mean we always have this battle at the school level as far as you know budget goes of you know somebody wants to add a position and we can't add that position and for me particularly you know I'm the one saying no to finances a lot you know we can't add a new staff member and you know sometimes special ed for example will be like you know well let's not do what's best for the student students and storm out you know in the middle of a conversation and I think you have to bring it back if people get upset you know you're not letting things go you're making sure that those issues are resolved I also think bringing it to the appropriate party so if it's not something that I handle making sure that it gets to the right Channel and that I'm not speaking for somebody else in that process um and then guiding and directing people to the proper channel to express their concerns I think education is important too because sometimes community members just don't understand how things work and I think if you can provide them education where they can easily understand why you have a certain process or procedure or law or guideline in place um that can help educate them and make it an easier conversation so with that said I'm I'm kind of glancing through your resume also at the same time um I see that you were J me with schools um I currently also am oh really a carpenter but nice job was quite different than one of course um so what what might you do in town to help with the schools to move forward um we have a new elementary school or fairly new but the high school is very dated what do you think you might do to help that move forward um move forward as far as facilities all around facilities I mean we have great teachers and staff I believe um so I guess it more leaning towards a facility so I would want to make sure that there's a capital plan um and that could be a deferred maintenance plan as well as long-term capital make sure that we're looking at Major systems in the building you know roof HVAC you know your boilers those kind of things um seeing if what we can do to get those updated and developing plans to get those updated so one thing that we're working on currently is putting um mini splits into all of our school buildings so that there's air conditioning you know the way that our climate is these days it could be 90 in September and you know cold in June and um so we've been working on phasing that in it's hundreds of thousands of dollars um so trying to balance what our towns can afford to support for capital projects looking at the schools resources I haven't Dove deeply into what grany has for um School budgets but what other opportunities are there can you get rebates on any of those projects that's what we did for the Mini Splits um and I think that communication between different departments is really important so we have set up where um a member of our school committee sits on the capital committee with each of our towns um so that there's communication with the superintendent and communication with me uh we also have meetings between the school department and the town administrators just to sort of talk about things that are coming up um staying in communication with your facilities director those kind of things I think the capital planning is important it's hard to look out like 20 years okay well sure we'll need a boiler in 20 years but what other things can we work on does our cafeteria equipment need updating how can we manage that what grants are available there what other resources can we tap into in the community you know we have a family that we're working with now on the farm to school Grant who's really passionate about putting local produce and products into schools so is there any opportunity for that as well for the community to get more involved in help right um I think it's a tricky balance because the school is such a significant part of your budget but you also have to make sure that DPW police fire you know everyone else has what they need so and I think in my experience everyone thinks that the school takes more of the money than the other departments so again education as well sharing the budgets being open making sure everybody's on the same page and on board and you would obviously work to find more grants to try and do that I would try yes yeah okay thank you how do you do it deal with change and let me give you an example um the select board for example so over the past um eight years the board has changed with eight different members and in the future it's it's going to change again yeah how do you deal with change like that because you know it's a different makeup each time you me every year you could end up with a different board sitting up here with a different board member yep um that may see things different than you see things um for the town how do you deal with that so that does happen currently our school committee is on a similar cycle that I believe you all are on where you know someone's cycling off just about every year although we do have threeyear terms but they stagger them um which is the same here as far as a slide for yeah um so I think it is tricky I think uh in my experience sometimes people come into these positions with their agendas and they think that there's been a problem in the town and they're going to make change um and they may not necessarily know how things really work um so that relationship building that communication um I think it's really important everybody has a different personality you have to learn how to communicate and work with people in different ways um you know I think it can be really difficult but it's part of the job it's part of my job now where I have to I have to work with and what I have to do currently um I don't know if the select board is like this at all with the Town Administrator but I have a a responsibility to educate people on the budget so when someone brand new comes in they've never looked at a school budget before and some of our elections take place before our budget is even voted on so people are coming in and voting on a budget they have no idea what it even looks like um so I make sure that I'm communicating with them open door you know if you have questions about warrants if there's a bill you don't understand if you if you want more details on a line item please just ask the question um you know I try to make clear presentations about things um I think it's just part of part of this work I don't know if I really answered your question there you did to a point I said my thought process is you know how do you deal with with the with the change and like you said when you don't you may not you know someone feels different than how you feel and U and how you deal with that we did yeah appreciate that okay can you share an initiative that was under your charge that failed and what you learned from that experience um so talking about something really specific that we're still going through at the school uh I've been working for my six years to try to get us uh to utilize our database to a greater extent um there's more significant capacity than we're currently using it for uh we also transitioned from a school-based system to being cloud-based for our database or our financial software and with that came a product that was supposedly going to digitize time cards for us um so we enrolled uh took a great deal of time to get it set up because we're really complex in the way that our district is being five separate districts um tried to launch it and realize that what I was sold on wasn't really going to work in our district because of the way that our particularly our parent professionals are paid and the way that their time sheets work so I had gotten our business office all excited this is going to make things easier for us and then in the end um we cannot use that software that we have paid for for three years now unfortunately so I've gone back to the company um asked for some refunds it was really deflating to our staff because paper time sheets are really difficult to deal with um when you've got five different schools and and a variety of changes going on with within those um but we'll keep plugging along we'll keep looking for ways to make processes improvements better um so that we can be more efficient so that had a financial negative downfall for us and just like you know this morale of yeah this is going to work and then it didn't so we had to work through both of those things so off often in we hear as a as a select board um with uh Town administrators or town managers you know kind of jumping from town to town and you know what's what's the bigger and better you know I guess my concern with bringing someone new in is the commitment that that person is going to have for the town of gramy yep um one thing I would say is I am local you know opportunities like this don't come up very often in our community although I will say four of my towns have three brand new town administrators um in the last couple of years so it does happen um I think some of some of it is burnout because I think it can be a really high stress job when you're so forward- facing and I think um it's not always the right fit for people so I think that's why they move sometimes we see the same thing with superintendent it's hard to keep superintendant in their roles um long term um I want to be in a place where it I feel like I'm part of the community um I'm not going to promise you I'm going to retire with grany uh but I would love to be in a place that I can be in long term I think it it takes you know a lot of people say it takes a full year to learn the job I don't think that's the case with this role I think it's going to take multiple years before you really feel comfortable in your skin just like it took me in my position um you know right now I know my budget's blindfolded upside down backwards and it took six budget Cycles to get there so um and I love where I'm at so um I don't I'm not looking to be that person that bounces around but it does happen I think there's a variety of reasons why it happens but um you know I I live in Sunderland you know I'm not coming from another part of a state I'm not coming from out of state um I want to have a stake in the game where I am thank you you're welcome what is your approach to Economic Development and attracting new business to a town oh that's a really good question and I might not have an answer for that thank you I didn't mean to stop you no that's okay I mean it's certainly not something that I've had to deal with in any of the roles that I've been in um I guess one of the things that I could sort of relate to is when I was at um ammer monu it was a private school so you're constantly trying to bring in new families so that you have tuition um you know which took advertising seeking out the right right businesses making sure that the are the right family sorry um making sure that the community knows what you have available for spaces um I don't want to give you some answer you know that doesn't make sense I'm trying to be honest with you about my experience with that so So yeah thank you you're welcome that actually makes a lot of sense to a point now it does how do you how do you bring people in yeah you know whether it's like you said whether it's businesses whether it's families you it's the same type of goal and I think your schools are really important right you all know that if people are drawn to your schools and want to have families here then it's going to keep them in your community for at least those you know 12 years um but I do think it's a challenge when you don't have a lot of space from my first conversation with the um hiring the first hiring committee um the DPW manager I can't remember his name I'm sorry he was what was it Dave Dave he was talking about um the capacity of your sewer system right and how is that correct am I remembering this right okay um that you know it's hard to take on new infrastructure so you can't just throw up new buildings because you don't have the capacity for it um so I think you're facing a unique challenge we are I think the only thing that I think hasn't really been touched on is how do you handle public criticism or dissatisfaction with Town policies or situations and can you give an example of how you dealt with this type of adversity um so I don't take a lot of things personally uh I it's just always been a skill set that I've had um I also think I firmly believe that any public environment whether you're in a meeting like this or any other meeting um you're not calling someone out if you really feel like they're wrong it's one thing to have dialogue and conversation and not agree um but I'm not going to publicly shame someone I just I don't believe that that's the right way to treat other people I might the next day pick up the phone and have a conversation with someone um but there's a time and a place for that I have to deal with uh this quite a bit in my roles because the um again in my community there seems to be this sense that the school takes too much money from local budgets and I have to present to all of our finance committees and they're not always happy with the what I'm presenting to them I have two towns that just had their first draft of budget at level service at 10% and so those are going to be challenging conversations um I've had to sit like this in front of Select boards and finance committees and and sort of uh feel like I was being attacked and keep my professionalism and my composure in those moments and answer the questions to my best of my ability or say I don't know the answer to that I'll have to get back to you and then make sure that I'm having follow-up conversations you know I've witnessed a lot of controversy at our public meetings um especially Town meetings you know I'm I'm going to all four Town meetings to have our budget past but listening to what's happening in the background and people are really passionate about where they live and I think gramb is the same way from what I've watched on some of your meetings and what I've read online um people have things that they believe in and that they think is right and that um they want for their town and for themselves and their community and I think we have to um strike that balance of letting people be heard but also doing what's best for everyone involved I think too shell with that um you know there are some Facebook pages that are out there that do not part of the town but they're associated with the town and at times people can be have a negative thoughts about whether it's the select board or whether it's a a Town Administrator or whether it's about you know other officials in town yeah so I mean and this and that's for us just be upfront honest with you too and I don't think it's any different than any other uh town or city but how do you how do you deal with that those those are the ones that they're not at a town meeting where things are being said but things are being voiced on a maybe on a a Facebook page where you know is not true but it's just how do you deal with that as a individual um so what I currently do because this does happen in our community uh there's always a variety of things um whether it's curriculum related or anti-racism inequity um there was a lot if you look up any of the Facebook pages on about Deerfield um so again not taking those kinds of things personally uh knowing that you've made decisions or the select Board of the school committee has made decisions in the best interest of the Greater Community understanding that everyone has their own beliefs and they have a right to their beliefs um and then having a network and a support system So currently my superintendent and I can shut a door and say did you see what was on Facebook yesterday and that stays within the walls of the community um and then also talking about administratively how can we better educate people if that's necessary if someone has wrong information um having individual conversations if needed or at putting something on an agenda for a school committee meeting that we need to talk about because people didn't really understand what they were going through it's not easy this is this is a hard role I think for people to be in very similar to the superintendent I you know sometimes I'm like geez that was tough those people are brutal they really can be we have public comment at our school committee meetings and we hear you know what the community thinks about things so you know professionalism smile nod try not to take it personally and respond where needed also you know sometimes people just want to be able to have their peace and and say how they feel but sometimes there are action items that come out of that that you have to do things later build build and repair relationships even um if you were offered this position where do you think you would see the town in five years um well if I'm hearing if I'm reading between the lines on any of your questions um I might interpret that maybe there needs to be some Community Building within different departments um and there needs to be more communication and more transparency amongst different departments whether that's you know your elected positions your Treasurer tax collector those things or you know Fire Department police um so I would think administratively and the functionality of um the town would be running more smoothly that we've put systems and procedures in place so that communication is more significant um and stronger uh you know I can't really speak to you know the question that you asked about increasing you know businesses and whatnot that I I would have to look at work but maybe we're looking at more grants for the schools um developing plans some of the things that we've talked about already so that we do have plans in place to take care of capital needs um you know I think it would be a slow process because I would want to learn from the people that are already here and in these roles as to what's worked and what hasn't worked uh try to understand why we're doing things the way that we do them and not come in with a bunch of change off the get-go until I've really sort of observed what's already happening so um you know three to five years I would think that we would be seeing some significant change at least in the function of offices within the town good thank you it's definitely a possibility and next five years there's going to be a change a lot of the department heads uh as well just as people are looking to uh retire if you will so those are you know some of the things that would be challenges for you know the Town Administrator to work with too is is new people coming in yeah at that level and I I think that that's hard in any small community you keep people for a long time you know in my uh payroll office and business office I have three personnel that have been there for 25 and 30 years and they have really important roles they're in leadership positions but to replace someone that understands the ins and outs of our district it'll be a huge loss for Frontier to have to go through that um and I I think that you make sure you're looking at job descriptions and structure of roles and onboarding you know the right people and and trying to make things better as you go through those processes I don't have anything else Crystal I do not either I'm good I thank you thank you so much for coming in no problem thanks for having me good luck with the process thank you sh is there anything you want to oh ask us anything you want you want to leave before for that we may not have you may have't covered through other questions either um I do have some questions I but some of it is um uh you know about position like benefits and things like that that I think will come in the next round if I were to get a an offer of employment um I am curious so you talked about this a little bit about transiency of of the select board but given that you're in these roles right now how do you view and how do you describe the relationship between the select board and the Town Administrator so this is my well Glenn's been on the select board for nine years now or your been sing one eight years eight years and uh I I feel that the we have a good relationship with the uh town ministri and and that we should it's a lot of um open communication back and forth um it keeps us a breast on what's going on but I said you know as new board members come in and just like any job or position you know especially as a select board member uh which is pretty much a part-time position it takes you some time to understand not just position that you that you have but everything you need to know or learn that's going on in the town that was happening before you arrived this position as a select board member and the continuity I believe is the Town Administrator uh that that brings that from each person that's elected the select board member because that person is the one that has been here throughout and it's it's here for the town as well so this is um just to also to speak on that this is my third year on the board and I don't think I really understood what the Town Administrator really did until the third year when I became the liaison for the Town Administrator in the board so the first year you're the clerk you make all the Motions you take all the notes stuff like that and then the second year you kind of get to sit back and watch everyone else kind of do the work and then the third year you work directly with the Town Administrator so um I didn't really understand all of what Chris Martin did until I sat in that role so I think it does take a good three years to really understand the position yeah but given saying that I also think the um the assistant Town Administrator she helped me a lot in the first two years so Chris kind of took a backseat when it came to the new select board member and I got all my knowledge from her until I started working with him directly the third year so you do have someone that you can lean on as well um who's a great asset for the town uh saying that I don't know how long she will be here um but it does um I think it really helps the S board members that come on to um again have those procedures have all the information like hey welcome here's your stack of bylaws here's your stack of this here's all the codes that tell you when you're reading the warrants what department is charging what because I would read those warrants and say what I don't I don't even know what I'm looking at that those codes tell you what department and what's going on and stuff like that so that's um and to speak to Glenn too it we have a good relationship and we lean on him for a lot because he has that Municipal background that we don't have and he has the background of the Mass general laws and you know so when we're sitting in a meeting and we're like well can we do that you know we lean on him and if he doesn't have the answer we'll get it from Town Council sure so so I am the newest member as you can probably tell from what's going on here uh was elected in May I had some concept of how it all worked because I like to self-educate I do a lot of reading and try to figure things out um on my end of things it was very um I won't say difficult but very different to transition into this role I'm still learning as crystal said it takes a lot of time uh originally she said it took me a year to really catch on and then her second year and now her third year as the chair so as far as the Town Administrator goes and the assistant um I feel fortunate that when I'm confused about something or I have question about a Mass General law or something that actually is happening in town I'm comfortable to be able to call them or come here and sit down with them and have a conversation and ask questions about those things and try to form my opinions and move forward with them um so Chris has been very informative in that aspect of things with the laws and um the format of things and how it works and giving information to us um on an individual basis because we don't talk together obviously for the law reasons sure so so sort of piggybacking on that um Crystal you're a town employee as well right so um how do you perceive or describe how the employees feel like what is the work environment like for Grandy employees so I work for the school department which is separate from the town so the select board does not oversee the school committee um they present their budget to the town uh they work with the town accountant and the Town Administrator and and they try to come to a consensus on it the select board has no involvement with that uh part of it um so I get mixed feelings from people when I go into to pay my taxes when I go in to sign the book um I feel like a lot of them are um feel like there's a lack of communication which you did speak to that so I feel like that's something that uh the different departments and the different elected officials really need that team building that um more communication and transparency and I and I'm not saying that it's because it was done on purpose or anything like that it's just sometimes it gets lock in the back lost in the back room and there's so much to be done at one time and we have a lot going on in the town right now um between the different hearings that we have going on and the change in positions and hiring so we have a lot that needs to be managed so sometimes things do fall off to the side or you know that quick email like you were saying Gets Lost in transl Translation and they think it's you know well why was it so short well they're busy it's not on purpose you know they're not being short with you on purpose they're being short because they're limited on time and someone just walked in and now they have a meeting or something you know so I think like you said building that that relationship and you know making sure that if someone does see a problem that you're following up with that thank you so I mean I can't speak speak for all the employees but that's just what I hear as I go through the different buildings okay so along those lines you were just talking about um some things that maybe you're looking what I'm interpretating you're looking for in the New Town Administrator someone who has strong communication skills someone who's going to bring build trust and bring your community together if I interpreted that wrong I'm sorry but that's sort of what I'm hearing you guys saying um what else are you looking for in the New Town Administrator I want to make sure that I'm a good match for what you're looking for also if you need to make sure you can build a budget it's a really big one I don't have a problem with that um dealing with the other departments is a MIG thing um as Christal said we've had some challenges recently we're working through them best we can um it would have been nice if we could have come to conclusions rather than taking the road that we're in right now we're on right now um but here we are and this is what we do um so again communication is a big thing you've expressed that so I think that's one of the biggest uh things that we need to be open transparent um to speak to budgets a little bit if I can I know you probably have a time constraint I don't know where the clock is in here um we started a little late so okay yeah we did start 10 minutes um so just to give you some of my experience while my resume said as Director of Business Administration I am responsible for five separate budgets with five separate school districts so you know I'm building that beginning to end working with the different constituent groups to make sure that the needs are met presenting that to we do present to our select boards and our finance committees they don't really have a say in it like you said but um I'm still having to communicate that and present that and then managing that all throughout the school year so you know if that's something you're looking for that certainly is a a strength of mine is there something else you want no I I think you know the way I look at a Town Administrator is almost like a CEO of a corporation yeah U you know he is responsible really for the day-to-day operations that are happening within within the town Y and uh and as a select board looks for him or her for answers so you know it's I said uh the the people sitting on this board today I think were fortunate they have uh uh a Town Administrator that's been around for so long that's so knowledgeable and you know and I think as we move forward as a town and as a board and uh and hiring a new Town Administrator that is getting a little more difficult for us because we will be working with someone that hasn't had the knowledge or experience nor know what what happened 5 years ago in the town of gramby and what the budget was or why you know this got passed or this got that got passed at at a town meeting so those are some of the things you know for our future I think and when it's you know something for the New Town Administrator too to also understand there's some there's some challenges that go along with that because you know you're replacing someone that's been here 20 years or so yeah um can I ask another question because I know um Chris has been the accountant as well correct so what does that structure look like moving forward is he staying in that role he's staying in that role till June of 2026 okay and then he's going to reassess on where he is at at that stage okay and that position reports to the select board or to the Town Administrator worse with the Town Administrator okay okay um I I don't think I have anything else I think you guys gave me a lot of good information and I learned a lot about your town so thank you for the opportunity thank you apprciate it's very nice to meet you too you as well good luck with your process thank you thank you good catch on that sometimes you get so wrapped up in asking questions that you forget to ask if they have any questions all right so next um applicant is Michael Durham if at any time you guys need to take a break just let me know no I said at any time if they need to take a break just to let me know because we have four hours it's gonna be back to back so I don't want to you got to sit there for four hours hello welcome thank you thank you for having me down tonight the commute was crazy 202 can get really busy all right so Michael we will start with if you don't mind telling us a little bit about yourself sure feel a little bit like a little kid at the small table sry well as you know I'm a resident of Granby I live down on 54 Taylor I have two children in the school system um only have wonderful things to say about the school system out here it's uh night and day better from where I came from in the state so that's off to them um was interested in getting involved in the community to ensure maximum transparency and everybody who wanted to have a say was able to have their thoughts known um in the community I left from the schools committee changed the rules to prohibit um visitor comments night of which I didn't think was very first amendment friendly they'd have to register with the city cleric and have it vetted and then put on the agenda and then they were limiting them to 90 minutes to speak 90 seconds to speak so didn't really like that didn't want that to help to happen out here um so jumped in ran for the uh school committee as a school Committee Member been on the school committee for a couple years now um professionally started out my career as a commissioned officer in the United States Army um did about four years as a parachute reconnaissance officer the 8C airborn division deployed to uh kandhar and Helman Afghanistan um as a reconnaissance Splatoon leader um was Branch detailed when I finished my time in combat arms unit I transferred into the milit military intelligence sector went out and got certified in ground signal intelligence collection and analyzation uh used to hold the highest clearance the US government gives out tssci and all the other letters that come after that uh um once gap's career course um decided that I wanted my family to grow up outside of the military so exited the military went back and got my MBA from suffk University with concentration and finance uh have experience working with a boutique Investment Bank in the uh biomed sector so do have some exposure to merger and acquisition and uh sounds super fancy but it's basically just like selling cars you can sell a car you can sell a company but the profit margin on a car and the profit margin on a company are vastly different so you know if you've seen the wizard of vws Once you pull back the curtain you're like oh my go this is so sketchy so went down to New York City was working in uh fintech um setting up server stacks for um for hedge funds and traditional asset managers and um I had every intention of staying in the financial sector and basically making as much money as I could and I had a soldier of mine take his own life and uh it really bothered me deeply that I was out there basically living the dream and raking it in and to know that one of my guys was just so silently suffering and no one saw it coming um profoundly altered the course of My Life um I'd always been a volunteer at the veteran services department in the city that I came from um and right two weeks after that happened the gentleman who is a Vietnam veteran Marine very funny guy calls me up and says hey Mike I'm I'm hanging it up um if you want to come down here you should throw your resume in the stack and and come take this over for me and had that not occurred I don't think I would have taken that drastic 90 degree turn into local government but um I'm glad that I did so throw all my stuff back in U-Haul move my family back into the state and uh took over that office what I can say about local government is there is a ton of opportunity for refining and creating new systems um I was shocked that everything was still done on paper payroll um everything you know rubber stamps for certification by pen by hours no software integration um so rolled rolled all that out digitized 150 years of of uh military records in the 90 days in office in conjunction with the state um with the state of Massachusetts uh um veteran service department they have a uh a repository out in Milford so it didn't cost the municipality any money and we were able to digitize everything back from the Civil War forward and get that into mro so you could just click a button and find any of your relatives for the last 150 years and you know blink of an eye as opposed to going through individual manuals for hours on end um then uh because I'm kind of a finance nerds where I came from made friends with the assessor and collector and CFO and you know learned how the gears work down there um took it upon myself to go back to suffk University and I have a graduate certificate from suffk University and the Massachusetts Municipal Association and Municipal leadership and finance so that's under my belt as well um very interested in how the system design and and Improvement so in order to understand how a municipality supposed to work it's best to understand the textbook version of you know the finance the HR how the Departments are integrated how the machine is supposed to work so you know if you're just like adjusting an engine uh you know adjust the timing and Spark and air intake the same is true of any organization it's just a machine and then before you can make improvements you have to understand the machine and how it works so that's why I went back for that second graduate degree um like I said I made friends with the assessor and uh we were talking about the tax bill and I was thinking about how to get out additional information to the community at a low cost uh specifically Market to a group of people that didn't weren't electronically Savvy and we came up with the idea excuse me we came up with the idea well everybody has to pay their taxes so why not put a rider in the tax bill because you know every single structure in the city is going to get your message so came up with a message for chapter 115 distribution and a lot of VBA benefits that individuals were um eligible for but may not have known about um I myself had no idea when I first got out of the military that there was a veteran's office or the welcome home benefit chapter 115 nothing it was just I bumped into another veteran at the gym which is where you're going to find a lot of Young Veterans and uh they said you should go to town hall and check it out because there's somebody there to help you um so we stuffed these flyers then went out in the tax bill and 90 days after that we had 106% increase in um and federal funds VBA applications we went from putting out 7 9 million annually to 16.45 in the course of one fiscal year and uh we had over 400% increase in uh Massachusetts chapter 115 payments which was astronomical we went up to Triple digits of those who were helping and then over the subsequent years we were able to get those individuals off 115 onto Federal benefits and um alleviate that burden on the town while maximizing the benefit to the local community also applied for R numerous amounts of Grants uh I do have some um some um experience in the uh procurement process as a department director that is a certification that I would need to go and get if you're if I'm lucky enough to be Town Administrator here um we were able to complete a major construction project during covid which was wild um you know something like half a million dollars to renovate uh the world War I Memorial in town and um we had a complete Co lockdown and we were not I'm not sure if anybody's in the construction industry but building department locked down all projects in the city and so I reached out to the Department of Revenue and they said hey you're only going to have this grant for 12 months too bad so sad make it happen and at that point I went up to the mayor's office grabbed the chief of staff grabb the chief of police DPW lead building department commissioner red in the state myself the contractor and came up with a plan for how we were going to execute a 4 and a half month project in 14 days and we pulled it off and every time I drive down that street and see that it's uh it's a wonderful thing that you can see Reach Out And Touch um when I came into the the city um I was only in charge of one department and by the time I left I was in charge of several um parking uh let's say uh parking Appeals building code appeals consumer uh protection division veteran services I was oped board member um I was a member of another nonprofit that was City related uh really expanded in scope the reason I came out here is because the market was saturated in terms of those that are assisting locally in the veteran Community uh we can't grow more individuals within that so I figured that I would jump to a a larger pot which is the the federal government so game o to Grandy wonderful H circumstance I can say I've lived on four continents and this is the favorite my most favorite community that I've lived in I've never been somewhere where your neighbors come and knock on your door and say Hey you know I'm so and so and here's a plate of cookies here's my number and uh everyone knows each other it's really kind of a wonderful thing and uh that's a culture that is unique to this municipality that is one of the major reasons that I want to get involved in helping which is how I ended up on the schools um anyways went back uh got a job at the Veterans Administration so oversee um over the last three years2 half billion dollars distribution over 36 departments and six hospital locations um we also do the payroll for over 1,200 employees um we're number one in the country for Budget projections we're allowed a 10% variance in deviation for our burn rate and expenses and last last year we came in at 0.1% of Target and all of our excess that was built in was used to save I'm not going to say which hospital systems they were but other states VBA hos VHA Hospital Systems um which honestly it's a small community the fiscal community and the federal government so it's not saving them it's you know what someday down the road I'm gonna need some help so when I when I inevitably mess up I can pick up the phone and say hey remember that one time so uh yeah I I really believe in high contacts relationship building um leading an organization is not just knowing the gears and how the organization function functions in terms of human driven organizations not just machines uh it's the people are the gears so to truly understand how something runs you need to understand the individuals at a personal level inside your organization so um I also have some Consulting experience uh I've consulted uh both in the continental United States and outside the continental United States advis Fortune 100 companies on process Improvement and procedure um there a fun project down in South America uh improving the the manner in which the the voter in team I'm butchering that Portuguese sorry anybody who who can speak Portuguese well um how they do their manufacturing process we were able to save the millions in terms of when to shut down and repair their um their Milling system H so that was a fun project uh also did some Consulting locally with medium to small siiz businesses and here in Boston um when I say medium to small I mean1 150 million dollar and below with less than 300 personnel and uh we I was able to create a uh custommade CRM System customer relationship management system it's like Salesforce but unique to the um the individual organization we're able to spike their um year-over-year sales by 200% by assisting them and coming up with the marketing plan and I don't know if if you've been in the unfortunate area of having to buy software but it's extremely expensive so if you can if you're very creative in Excel Excel has I mean you could land any you can land on Mars using Excel there's so much stuff you can do with it in terms of projecting and forecasting and compiling data and making sheets talk to each other um but that's uh that's really been my professional journey and um I really that wild deviation I thought I was going to spend my career working down on the stock exchange and just climbing that ladder and I'm glad that I took that drastic turn into Municipal work it's uh it's personally beneficial because it creates tangible results um you know when you're working in Investment Banking you you're like Mr meu you're just ripping off people and making rich people richer um but at the municipal even at the federal level the numbers are so big you know managing billions of dollars it's Monopoly money it's it's dust last week I I made a payment of $63 million and that was before noon so um you can do more to affect people at a personal level at the municipal level here than you can at the federal level as an employee um so that's why I would agree 100% yeah so that's why I'm interested in coming back diving in and uh I do have uh budgeting experience Consulting experience I like process Improvement and design I'm good at that um and whether it's a operational life or death decision which I've made in the past um in the worst in circumstances or whether it's longterm strategic planning I can do both so thank you very much for having me here I know that was a very long-winded answer to that first question so thank you for your service thank you for paying your taxes because I tell you what the the training that we received saved 2third of my reconnaissance troop um the plates that we wear I saw those save three people they stopped trapnel they sto bullets the the vehicles that we were riding in I've seen those hit tank mines and everyone inside walked away um the medical training tourniquet application we had a quadruple amput um and he lived he you so thank you for investing in us so we were able to come home and continue to live so great think it might be hard to follow all that up um in your cover letter you had mentioned that you have a list of ideas which include the use of state and federal funded projects to offset residential tax burden so I was wondering if you could kind of speak to that a little bit oh yeah absolutely excuse me one second all right so uh when I first put in for this when Mr Martin announced in August uh I gave a lot of thought to what is unique about Grand B and um you know our culture we're quiet we have neighood Community I think we have good schools our infrastructure is our greatest strength um our Key Road is 202 and I'm not talking about the the uh water sewer extensions things of that nature I mean the physical geography of where Grand B Falls in between key communities that people commute to and the amount of available land that we potentially could use for future projects and um our greatest weakness is our lack of commercial tax base to offset the residential tax burden um I know that we only our our tax base from the commercial side is only 5% and two and a half of that 5% is just the electrical polls lease on those and um I know that there's been some interesting conversations uh between residential zoning and things of that nature and I think people like the culture of our town um that being said it can be quite a shocking tax bill when you get it and I have seen some people um vent uh in certain forums um so I thought to myself well what are ways that we could lessen this um without adding additional expense onto the taxpayer and one of the thoughts I had were well we could set up a a series of wind turbines along 202 and plots of land that could that are not currently being used and would not be good areas to be used um in front of the high school where that the high school sign is um you know it was said last year well why don't they have them play lacrosse beside 202 not only the leue liability of the ball flying into that road maybe killing somebody I don't want the kids that close to people driving by 40 50 mil an hour that's not something that could be used for sports um and then down to Du fr's Park where all the trees are cut and we have that row of stumps um in that flooded out area there you would have to be bab Ruth to hit the ball 700 feet and now that I've said that someone's going to and they're going to send me that video but if we were able to erect four North Wind 100 wind turbines which have a 20 meter diameter blade um uh um blade diameter we would collect 60 to $70,000 annually each on each of those um which equates to building you know 10 to 15 new residential structures here and it would be done via state and federal grants that already exist so if you put in four of those you'd offset the tax burden the the same is building 50 new single family homes each generating to 7,000 in and tax revenue and you wouldn't have to do it with a penny of any of our taxpayers money because funds be coming from state and federal sources um so that's one idea uh electrical grants for administrative vehicles for Mike let me ask you a question course and you know it it seems like a a good thought process how do you convince the residents of grany that you want to book turbines up on 202 that enjoy that enjoy the scenery of 202 and the community base and and the farmland and stuff like that I think it would have to be a community discussion on what everybody wants um but I have seen in other municipalities where they can they have come together to offset the um um uh what's the electricity water what's the name of that bill well um I'm I'm at a loss for the word but the the electrical bill there's communities now where if the municipality generates its own electricity and then feeds it back into the system if individuals in the community were interested in buying back that power generation we could offset the cost of their um utility that's the word I was looking for they're utility bills so there's three ways to influence uh influence individuals the first is um head heart and wallet so though you really have to again know the individual in high context and those who love the forest would you prefer your electrical generation to be done via fossil fuels or would you like it to be done via the collection of U natural geological process that occurs which will also save you money in the long run and if it if the discussion is had with the town and then not interested in this look or the use of this land in that manner that's fine it's just an idea that I had you know in a silo and it needs to be presented and discussed in order to be furthered but um there are unique ways to offset the cost uh the second is uh grants for electrical vehicles for administrative vehicles that the town currently uses that's another way to save 50 to 100K a year in terms of turning over those vehicles um let's see DCR and US Department of interior grants for Royal fire prevention and Forest management um looking into those that would be an easy sell especially after what's going on right now out in La those poor people um so they'll be hot on getting those grants written and we do have a lot of forest space um I know a lot of people were um alarmed by the amount of trees that we took down in Def frines and they thought that we were hurting the environment but um arborus went in there and identified sick trees and then removed those trees for the betterment of you know the ecosystem and um things that can seem violent like uh deer hunting for example aren't aren't necessary I don't know if there's any Hunters on the board we're watching but um if you don't manage certain populations or you remove the natural Predators from the ecosystem that manage that population for you that population can spike wildely out of control and then it can cause an internal collapse in it so the same's true when we're talking about well I love the forest I love the ecology I love the look I do too we live in a beautiful Community um that being said we need to be creative in the way that we offset um offset the cost of the services that we provide in our community our children still need to be educated our police and fire still need top tier equipment because equipment and training for First Responders saves lives the same way it did for me in the military so whether we're investing in children's future long-term success um in the schools and uh or we're investing in you know the EMTs who show up to your house when you're in a crisis it's important that we're able to afford what we need to afford for the betterment of the community and uh I think that people would be able to see our best intentions and balance that decision and if if they don't want it that way that's fine that's part of being in municipal government it's not always going to be the way you want it it's what the community wants um so does that answer the the question okay yes AB um so to go back to the original you don't have to go through the whole list I was just curious what your brain because I'm sure you have a long list there I do I got a couple Pages um but I'll give you the the highlights uh Municipal partnership with a local University through the mass Municipal Association to get additional uh administrators in here into a training program and use us as the spearhead that way we offset labor cost and also internally grow leaders across the state uh public private partnership with FW web Northampton for the creation of a plumbing curriculum Somehow Here at uh GPS and uh a couple more like that uh Town efficiency improvements creation of Municipal Doctrine and operating manuals no employee should ever be the single point of failure for a system um knowledge capture and transfer of outgoing leaders is important but if if I leave the town and something were to happen to me you should be able to walk into my office take out my manual and say Here's the Gant chart which correlates to the calendar of all the repeating processes that happen annually and here's a manual and step by step of each of the key steps you need to take in order to execute it and here's the or chart and the orc chart correlates to the steps of who is supposed to be involved in each of those substeps that way I am I or whoever you pick is not the single point of failure in this system uh there should be no worry about individuals they they should be a systemic system set up with a operational you know procedure manual or reference that you can come back to and that is the mark of a true administrative leader can that machine work without you um bulk ordering between surrounding communities uh and the schools Department could save 5 to 10% annually fuel office suppli salt sand mechanical Parts bulk is the way to go um had some ideas about town Billboards but I'm going to skip over that because I don't want to give that Sal right now uh you know what my my final thoughts on that are you're only limited by your creativity and motivation uh in terms of what is achievable to offset the tax base here in the community um I like uh some uh entrepreneur once said to me people don't know they need this yet but once they see it they'll wonder how they lived without it that's the attitude I want to bring to Municipal leadership and government doesn't have to be this way because that's the way it is and that's the way we've always done it we can get creative and we will stay within the confines of the law but we will motivate everyone at the department level to put their best ideas forward thank you of course yes um so we kind of touched on you know everything is you you've done them in your over the course of your professional career uh and with that said Michael can you really narrow it down as to what you did at the as in your career that would really focus on a Town Administrator position sure so it was nice to be this two two steps to this first it was nice to be a department director um that way you can see how the individual individual department works in terms of salary and operations and maintenance planning at the individual Department level the The Next Step Up would be what I'm doing now for the veterans administration which is when you take 36 different departments and then you consolidate their needs and then you get the projection analysis from Washington DC what you will receive for the following year and then you balance that based off the target goals of the organization that you're in for the goals that you want to achieve for the next year so determining operational Targets in line with a strategic goal that is the the step that I'm at now and I think that directly correlates into what a Town Administrator does there's a variety of departments each with individual needs um fiscally uh in terms of budget generation and all of those are funneled through one individual person who consolidates balances creates a recommendation for the board and then puts it forth for the town to vote on if it's appropriate or not the the the um projection analysis um in addition to that I really love working with people and uh in my current role although it is fun manag billions of dollars it I do miss the day-to-day interactions with individuals people will never cease to amaze you on the things that they do or say or come up with or the crazy things that happen and I really just love problem solving for that um and that is the other big piece of being the Town Administrator not only do you need to be good on the fiscal side but you need to be good on the human resources side um you need to know the laws in terms of discussing things with individuals and the procedures that you need to take in order to ensure that you're not violating you know Union protections and things of that nature and uh I think that given the experience that I've had in the past with direct leadership roles government um that would that would be strong a strong transitional skill set that would help me here and I'm not saying that I know everything there is to know about being a Town Administrator that would be you know something I would need to grow into I'm not going to step off the bus and into Chris's 23 years of experience there will be speed bumps along the way but um I think the thing that uh I think the thing that matters is I don't think you're going to find more motivated candidate than somebody who resides within the town I [Music] am resolved to do everything that I can to be successful in this position because not only does it affect me professionally but it affects me personally my friends my neighbors my family everyone is depending on the person who's in this position doing this well and that's the of motivation I have in terms of coming into this position you will see me I don't live in another Community you'll see me down at the the softball field or at the basketball games or bringing my kids around or you know down at the early mug or getting my car fixed down at wrestles and you'll be able to grab me all the time and say hey Mike you know good and bad coming out of my mouth careful what you wish for and I and I understand that because I worked in the last municipality I also lived in it and I did all of the parking and building appeals so you could imagine the amount of angry people and uh just general hoopla and on the reverse side of that coin all of the happy people that you've helped um so yeah Municipal work matters this matters and no matter who you pick I hope that that individual does the absolute best for this town that they can yeah um you're giving us a lot of information so it's bringing questions to my mind one being um Community you want to be involved how do you ensure transparency between yourself community and departments to keep the peace revolving well uh acting in accordance with uh open meeting laws would be the first place to start so ensuring that the postings occur within 48 hours and you know the little hiccups of you that doesn't include the weekends it doesn't include holidays also open meeting law is different than the town meeting law so not violating those State ordinances um I think the best way to maximize communication is to ensure that you have weekly or whatever interval works best departmental synchronization meeting and any large processes or any large events you have a you have a joint planning meeting with all the key stakeholders to ensure that they have their input in the planning process you can come up with a great plan as an administrator and put it forth but if people feel that you are just dictating it to them it you're not going to have the same effect as if you presented it to the key leaders within that department for them to tweak because when they see it and tweak it or approve it prior to it being presented they take ownership of the plan as well and they want to see it be successful because their name's on it at that point and also there's some small things that you wouldn't know if you're planning in a bubble from their experience at each of those individual departments that you need to take into account um if you do that you're going to have great operational planning and execution internally I think staying in line with municipal code and state law is how externally the community is able to see into the the inner workings of the machine here um in the municipality and then just being approachable you know you you should if if you're a true Municipal leader you should be accessible um it this is not a nine-to-five position this is uh your phone better be on all the time the most wild stuff is going to happen to you both in person people are going to call you with wild things and you can't shut them out and you can't you can't marginalize their feelings because what's big to an individual may not seem big to you but you're not that person and we are here to assist the public and benefit their life and so you need to take that into account I think the the second part of leadership is people are gonna be mad at you you are not going to be their friend 100% of the time and they're not mad at you they're mad at the problem you need to separate the people from the problem and not take it personally and that is not something that's easy to do and that is not and easy to learn skill and if you're able to calm people down and point out exactly what they said to you and the root cause of it and then work together to come up with a solution or at least to let them know that they have been heard and you have done everything that you can or if nothing can be done at a minimum you were respectful they were heard and this is why the issue can be furthered people just want someone to lead in that manner so that is how how I lead thank you because you answered the second part of my question great would how would you handle it on a personal basis with somebody in town that might be going after you for something they disagree with or yeah I mean we could always cut the lights I'm just joking I'm joking anyone watching so I know um Glenn asked you to relate your professional background to a Town Administrator what would you consider to be your weaknesses going into this position well I think I have the uh all the right attributes in in terms of leadership skills and experience so it will be the day-to-day operation bit that I will need to get my feet wet on and get quickly good at um how to you know the day-to-day operational things how things are posted who has access to the web to the web page for postings um uh HR System payments uh procurement all of the day-to-day workings of the system and it sounds like a big lift and it is a big lift but it's nothing I've shied away from in the past um when I came into the federal government I had zero experience with Federal finance and it's not like Stock Exchange Finance it's its own unique system and it uses hilariously Antiquated systems um you know blue back screen white cursor uh not gooey interface and uh you're thinking floppy disc you're thinking right and F separate types of softwares that don't integrate with each other and uh took over that position and within 120 days I was a subject matter expert in New England and 90 days after that I had identified and implemented the training for a new software that was going to integrate those five Legacy systems into one and then we taught all 36 departments the proper way a budget integrated those platforms into that new software and they were able to project their need need in a uniformed operational software that is now the standard operating procedure for our VA system here in central western Mass um so even though somebody doesn't know or may not know the day-to-day intricacies skills can be taught very quickly attributes take years to instill in individuals um so that would be a big weakness I also uh also extremely loyal to those that I work and live with which you know sounds like your typical interview um softball question but I want to tell you a story about why loyalty may be a bad thing professionally and uh goes back to the service had an individual senior NCO platoon Sergeant five deployments you know Silver Star Purple Heart you name it and uh was going through some marital problems and his spouse put a controlled substance in one of his Beverages and he came back from Christmas leave and she knew that we were going to be doing a drug analysis like we always do and that individual came back failed the drug analysis and um that was horrible I had to go down and get them we went and talked to the wife with the MPS she admitted in a sworn statement that yeah I did this I did it to ruin his career but we had the order from you know president of United States who had cut the military by 50,000 people so you couldn't walk down the sidewalk and chew G your hand in your pocket and they were looking for a reason and I don't know if anyone here has been part of a court Marshal it's very unpleasant especially if you're enlisted um because everyone on the panel is a field grader above and uh I was told by my squadron commander that if I was a characterist witness on behalf of that NCO it would ruin my career and I told him good thing I'm in the shallow water because this is the right thing to do this is a excellent non-commissioned officer he didn't choose to do this we have a sworn statement basically you're real roading this person and uh testified on his behalf didn't matter dishonorably discharged out of the military um he's still fighting in the court systems called me from down in Texas homeless a couple years ago help him I uh he could call me today and I would fly down there and get him um but loyalty can be a weakness it can that being said I wouldn't do anything different Integrity is something that can't be sacrificed period now I'll never lie cheat steal and I'll never tolerate anyone who does you have my trust until you don't and uh that's how I operate uh unquestionable moral leadership from the front are you familiar with a lot of the actually yes I did read that in your resume the Mass General law um I'm mean I some of them right some of them that that's something that I would really need to dive into but I'm nerdy I love reading stuff in my spare time my favorite books to read are macroeconomic manuals um if uh just like I said earlier I like to know how the gears work on certain mechanisms so you may find me just reading Law manuals that apply to certain processes within the municipality just to see how it's supposed to go um I did write the the correction to Mass General Law chapter 59 subsection a through e which your vso should be bring before you hopefully soon and that eliminates the the systemic depreciation of the veteran and gold star abatements um what had happened is late 60s and 70s they delineated a specific amount that they were going to have for the abatement well every year as you know inflation occurs because we're a fiat currency um fiat currency Is Not Gold backed so inflation through the Federal Reserve is to be expected because they had a static amount every year that amount gets less I don't think that was the original intent of the law so we calculated what exactly their original intention was in terms of gross income at the time then we projected that out to the total amount and then we wrote the new language that every year your taxes went up the abatement would go up at the same percentage to eliminate that systemic depreciation of that abatement for war widows and disabled veterans um so that specific portion of Mass General Law chapter 59 a through E I wrote I lobbied for um for the past four and a half years both with the state house um and the state senate and uh we're able to get that through in the heroes act I know my name's not on it and it doesn't have to be because I'm not an elected representative at the state level and they should take the credit because they assisted in pushing that through so um thanks to Senator ol and uh thanks to representative Donado uh M uh that's District 35 so they were the big leads on pushing that through Michael listen to your talk this evening and explain a lot of things um there there's no doubt uh you have a extreme passion for the military military personnel and First Responders um why do you want to leave the VA Hospital well like I said earlier the uh I can have more effects at the local level the um the machine is so big at the federal level that unless you're a sitting Congressman or Senator you can't dictate strategic policy in a way that can better the system uh even the they're not going to like it if they're watching this but if they're watching Municipal TV it is what it is even the directors of these Hospital Systems they don't have a say at creating their target goals they're not like a private hospital where they have to set up their own marketing plans and compete and compete they are limited here comes the bad part they're not going to like they are limited by macroeconomic trends and the macroeconomic trends for the veteran population in the Northeast is not one that is growing uh currently we have something close to 300 last I checked 378,000 US veterans in Massachusetts 60% of those are over 70 years old so 20 years from now the VA will contract and there's nothing that any of those directors of these Hospital Systems can do that's just a macroeconomic fact so you can manage those organizations the best you can and the resources are going to be diverted at the federal level to areas of the country that are growing so that would be the Southeast Texas Arizona that's not this portion in terms of of that um so I see the uh the economic Trends in terms of the writings on the wall and I know that's you know 15 years out but uh the the second part of that is I really like this community and uh the people here are unique and they deserve to be taken care of and I can use my skill set for the betterment of my friends my families my family my neighbors and uh you know I can drive down the street and actually Reach Out And Touch something and say I had a hand in doing that personally start to finish and uh that's not something that any one individual is going to be able to say in the federal system it is it's a it's a big organization so I think the I think the uh the personal attribute and to be able to see your effects through your your efforts matters to me and uh I feel a real passion for this community because of those that I've interacted with personally in my years here so I want the best for them and uh that's why I'm I'm willing to go down this path and fully dedicate myself to betterment of this municipality so okay no yeah absolutely all right no you made a point to say that you know it's it's from what I um gathered is in a position where you have the ability to make change see change correct or a positive part so I get that I get that at a local level because you you move up as local state federal you have more and more you don't see as much you don't have as much heart in in that in that change so I do see that I do understand it that's what I'm going for um what experiences do you have with um labor unions or any kind of negotiations yeah of course um I actually set up uh I was a member of the Teamsters Union and I set up the um department head Union for Teamster Local 25 um from the last community that I was at so um I know the the president of that Union personally um I know about the laud milk and uh regul in terms of what you can and can't do uh in terms of questioning individuals um the distribution of Union cards and uh votes um in terms of setting it up the legality of that end um sorry I'm just putting my thoughts together but you know at the end of the day Union is just a grouping of people and uh you're going to have your union lead that you're negotiating with and in a community of this size you should be able to know every single person within this municipal government at least you know by face and name you should be able to walk down the hallway and know who you are and I would like to know like I said earlier High context matters you know think about your family things about your life what you need what you're going for if you understand people deeply all unions are are just a group of people that come together to negotiate for better terms for their organization and from the town management perspective you need to ensure that it's fiscally responsible that the things that you are negotiating on or potentially granting won't cause huge deviations or arguments between specific unions in the municipality I'm sure that there's multiple unions within the this municipal government here so there'll be different um groupings of people that you have to negotiate with but at the end of the day people are just people it's a head heart and wallet what exactly are they looking for and you'll know before they get in the room who these individuals are and what motivates them because we here in the town uh are kind of blessed that we are such a you know I don't want to say small I'll say Boutique that's a better word Boutique community that you can get to know everyone who's working within your structure and be able to develop those relationships which makes negotiation much easier like I said earlier you just got to separate people from the problem and the the problem for negotiations is always going to be salary increases benefit increases scheduling things that they want and you need to weigh that against the needs of the community and I think the best way to weigh that against the needs of the community are to look at the operational procedures that you have set up and then measure based off the capacity that you need to um meet those milestones and goals versus is what the individuals are requesting in terms of scheduling benefits and cost so is this cost effective is this in line with Market rates of the surrounding communities um yeah it's nice to have a Town Administrator because in a you know mass type A government where the mayor directly negotiates it's very political and it can get real expensive real quick and terms of well I'm just not going to have my union vote for you anymore and so things are promised that really the PX the taxpayers should not not the best interest so having a professional administrator be the middleman between the elected officials and the unions to come to a joint agreement that can be presented is a more efficient way of doing business than in my opinion the municipal type a form where a strong mayor dictates the terms and negotiates um because it's not always in the best interest of the community because of the voting process there's usually a lot of votes uh tied up with unions so thank you of course Michael if you were uh to get this position how early can you start um I would say two weeks just to be courteous to my employer um like I said um it's probably a hold over from the military but everywhere I go I generate an operational manual and if I was walking across the street and the pvta knocked me off into the next life sorry a sense of humor but uh somebody could sit at my desk turn to their right and say oh look operational manual open it up page one here's the schedule events broken down by quarter and then it's tabbed off into each my operational processes which means the next person to take my job is going to have that book when I didn't have that book and I had to come I had to put it together for them because like I said true leaders develop systems that don't fail if you remove anyone individual from the system so that is my intention here if you elect me to this Oro me to this position um it's not about the individual it's about the organizational processes and capturing that knowledge and procedure for the Next Generation because Grand B is going to outlive everyone in this room it is so it's incumbent upon us to ensure that the structures that we create are there and continuous for our children and their grandchildren and generations to come thank you I'm do you have any questions for us uh I do um the uh excuse me is I know that Chris is staying on as the the accountant um would he be willing to operate in a capacity like a Consulting coaching capacity to offset or transition some of the stored knowledge that he has from this position to the oncoming um individual was that maybe a discussion that had been had prior to this so he is done the 24 he is done the 24 so there's been conversations with him uh in regards to that and um that is totally up to him obviously okay um but we are anticipating with him being um the accountant you know he is still uh part of the Town part of a town employee so he is able to answer questions outside of uh know being a town account Chris has a lot of uh passion for the town of gramy and wants the town of gramy to succeed so I would imagine he would be open to uh some questions and things like that and and be there when things go up okay but that's great um in the upcoming uh budget process that's occurring now the um has a has there been any consideration into the purchase of the Town Annex in terms of forecasting cost because I know it was discussed that the lease is going to be up and the west stre building is not fully complete right now so that might be a pretty sizable chunk of discretionary funds for the upcoming year uh has there been any discussion about that um with the current Town Administrator or any solutions the last we heard he was going to contact her and see if she would extend the lease that we have but I don't know that it is being EX ended yet I don't think we heard back okay she oh she did okay so I imagine he'll be telling us that at our next regular meeting okay he has spoken to our wonderful that would be a big hurdle to get over no just uh thank you very much for hearing me out today I uh I know I've been talking at you for a full hour now so no you're good on the time because remember we started late with you because we started late with the first app I just want to say thanks for what you do for the community uh as an elected member myself I understand that this is something you do out of passion it's not something you put in your pocket so thanks for that and no matter who you pick I hope it is the best person for the community that's all I want at the end of the day is the best person to lead this municipality forward and uh yeah that's my last thought so thank you very much thank you good very much s um yes so you would like to take five minutes so we are going to take a five minute break and then we'll right we will now continue with our interviews thank you for the break so next up is Scott butcher hello evening evening good evening how are you good how are you today great thank you so welcome if you can tell us a little bit about yourself Le um well I've uh you know most of my career was in high-tech um I spent uh you know over a couple of decades there but overlapping with that was uh getting involved in municipal government uh locally in uh in purple Massachusetts where we liveed for 33 years and uh started on the board of health there and ended up on the board of Selectmen and uh as you know with most volunteer positions you end up being on a lot of other committees and as well and uh so I you know over the course of probably 20 years I was involved uh you know mostly as a volunteer or elected official uh in U Massachusetts municipal government and uh decided to make a career change uh with all the things that were happening in high-tech uh at the time with mergers and Acquisitions it was time uh to look uh in a different direction and I took my Municipal experience and decided to uh go after some Town administrative positions and uh was initially hired by uh Wilton New Hampshire and uh so that's where I uh turned this into a full-time role in municipal government and that was back in 2016 so about eight almost nine years ago now are you currently the the Town Administrator for bookine ener I no I left Brookline okay yeah so could you uh tell us um what weaknesses you might have coming into the town of grany weaknesses yeah as far as a Town Administrator well I think that the um and strengths so both yeah so for for me I think would be getting reacquainted with Mass general laws after being away from it for a period of time so uh you know the town government and town meeting format isn't all that different in New Hampshire compared to Massachusetts but there are certainly are differences and uh so I think that would be probably the biggest learning curve would be to get reacquainted with mass Jal laws yeah because looking over not only your cover letter but your resume you develop rfps you are a project manager manager for the town hall renovation which we're currently in right now M so performance evaluations negotiations grant writing as well MH how do you handle public criticism or dissatisfaction with Town policies or situations so I think criticism just comes with the job you know I think uh anytime you're in a in a public position you're always going to have uh people who disagree with uh a decision you might make or the policies you're implementing on behalf of a select board and I think that just comes with the territory you know I can remember when I was first elected to the board of Selectmen back in Peril you know one of my friends on the planning board said what are you doing he says because uh you know in that position you're going to have the town is going to agree with you and the other half isn't so you're going to be fighting that all the time and I think that's just just comes with the territory with any any public position you know every Community has different constituencies with different priorities and different thoughts and uh you just have to manage that and I think a lot of what what we end up doing honestly is we're you know striving to comply with state and federal laws and our local bylaws and a lot of the decisions are driven by that and I think if you educate people as to why uh certain decisions were made or certain policies were enacted you know I think they generally come around you know it's it's a matter of Education um what are your significant challenges or most significant challenges you faced as a Town Administrator oh I think the um biggest challenge is that uh um you're juggling a lot of a lot of different uh things at once and that's just again the nature of the job it's what honestly attracts me to the job because you certainly don't have time to get bored or get stuck in a rut because uh you can have your day well planned out you walk into the office and a phone call an email uh a visit from somebody uh what might change your your entire day and uh so I think it's it's the ability to uh adapt and uh you know manage uh situations prioritize situations on the Fly and decide where you need to spend your your time that day and um you know I think that's the biggest challenge that any Town Administrator or town manager has what do you feel that some of the I would say similarities between Brook line and being a a town minator there what it impact well yeah so similar size communities uh you know Brook Line's around 5900 uh in population and uh you know a uh you know semi uh you know rural U mostly bedroom type Community uh is what Brookline was and and honestly most of small New Hampshire towns fall into that category and and um so I think one of the the appeals of grandby is uh because it is a similar sized town you can certainly get to know the community well and know the people well and start to develop uh you know relationships and uh you know credibility with with the population we're in a larger Community I think it becomes uh a lot more difficult and you you know start to feel more distan from from the people that are actually you know uh paying the taxes and paying your salary now the Town Administrator position in Brook line and new it y are they both full-time yes oh yeah absolutely I mean the other difference between New Hampshire and Massachusetts is New Hampshire runs Town Halls a lot leaner so we have a lot less staff so Town administrators uh take on a lot more responsibility wear a lot a lot of different hats uh at once and that makes it uh extremely challenging uh but it also uh takes away from your ability to have the time to really dig into issues and think more strategically rather than operate tactically uh just to make things go on a day-to-day basis um it it seems as though according to your resume that you've jumped around from town to town as an administrator is there any particular reason for that well boards change so uh when the board changes uh sometimes the board that hired you has a different philosophy than the one might that might get elected the following spring and uh uh and I found myself in that position in both Wilton and um uh new switch you know in newp switch you know there was a complete board change so I ended up with uh two new board members the veteran that was on the board resigned uh midterm and uh so I had a a new chairman that basically had a year of Municipal experience and then a you know new raw member that had no Municipal experience and they had uh uh lot of educating that they needed to to get under their belt and we ended up with differences in philosophy uh because my goal is to make sure that we're always complying with uh you know state law federal laws and uh they had some different ideas on that so uh it was time for me to leave so why would you think that this board would be any different would it would it cause you to jump ship so well honestly honestly depends I mean I I I certainly need to work for a board that has integrity and as I said comp you know compliance with the law as much as much as we can with the resources that a small community has is important but if you're asking your Town Administrator to do something that's kind of outside of the uh you know outside of the norm and into the gray area um that that could be a problem for me personally you know I think that uh um you know my personal Integrity is important and if a board asks me to do something uh that's uh not in compliance I certainly would have a discussion with them and have them understand what what the the law stated and um hopefully we could get on the same page but um uh you know different boards have different ideas about the what the role of the Town Administrator uh is supposed to be and and um uh you know sometimes that gets in the way of uh the ability of the Town Administrator or town manager to do their job good thank you yeah well I it's a follow up to what uh you know David mentioned too and had said this earlier uh this evening um you know in the past eight years this board has had a eight different board members M throughout throughout the the elections and that you can imtion things do change philosophies change um but I think you understand some of that as being a select board member and a chairperson itself absolutely time um so really with that said and it goes back to um and I'm just trying to listen to what you're saying it sounds almost like you left the town not the town left you um uh yes yeah that's that's correct um and again when you have um a board that um you know Works cooperatively uh with each other and uh U you know sets a clear and consistent direction for the Town Administrator um you know then the job you know becomes doable um when you have a board where can't even agree amongst themselves and as the Town Administrator your job is to implement the wishes of the select board and if the select board can't even uh get to the point where they can come to a consensus and agreement on on something uh it makes it impossible for me to go out and execute the wishes of the board and you know I I've been in situations where you know you have an individual board member that will come to you and ask you to do something different than what the overall consensus of the board was and when somebody starts acting as a board of one instead of a board of three or five then um it it it becomes problematic for for you know for any employee let alone the Town Administrator um to to do their job effectively because you're not sure which marching orders you need to follow and um uh and and you end up finding yourself in the middle of sometimes a disagreement between board members and that's not a place you like to be either uh how far is was it lboro lineboro actually yeah how far is that from grany uh so that's about a 90-minute drive so my uh intention would be to relocate if I okay you know if I were to get this job there's my other next question you answer yeah thank you what have been your most significant challenges you faced as a Town Administrator oh I think honestly most of the the bigger challenges have been you know Personnel issues you know we've we've had uh certainly some some issues where you know disciplining uh employees and terminating employees in some cases those are always I think the most difficult things to manage uh you know as a uh Town Administrator your your role is really risk mitigation for the community so you're trying to keep the community out of court so I think the way you deal with with those issues is you know is always sensitive and you know there's a certain process that you need to follow to make sure that uh the employee is uh treated fairly uh but at the same time uh understands uh that the town is expecting certain performance or certain behaviors and if they don't comply that you know they do risk termination and uh unfortunately uh um you know I've been through a few of those and you know in every every one of the towns I've uh you know I've uh I worked for and even as a selectman I've had to deal with a you know a series of those issues so when they do come up how do you approach those to handle them and come to a common conclusion well I think that um you know typically you do some information gathering you know depending on what the nature of the um you know of the problem is um whether it's a per performance issue um you know a harassment issue a theft issue um you know I've dealt with with all those types of scenarios and it's a matter of doing information gathering uh and then U having a discussion with the with the select board about uh you know what the situation is and typically um you know once the initial uh investigation is done typically we would engage labor Council to get some guidance on how to you know move forward you know with a process if it's you know if it's a simple disciplinary performance process you you wouldn't need to get necessarily labor Council involved that would be something that the Personnel policies would probably outline what the process would be but if it goes beyond that and sometimes they do go beyond that even into criminal investigations then um you want to get labor Council involved and um uh and make sure you have a very defined methodical process that you can uh you know bring to a satisfactory conclusion for the time as you overed at various departments for the town what is your um what is your Technique in doing that what is what is your way of managing all the different departments and making sure everyone's doing what they should be doing and communicating them like how what is your style so I you know typically I I have had you know regular meetings with department heads so we'd have regularly scheduled meetings uh just to get together as peers and uh you know really um make sure there's good Communications between the Departments make sure that the Departments understand the wishes of the select board uh and direction of policies or you know budget development or budget uh expenditure controls and um so I typically look at that as a as a collaborative uh you know effort on the part of all the department heads including the Town Administrator and uh you know that has generally worked well um you know in uh you know when when I was with the town of Wilton they preferred the select board preferred that I take more of a direct management role over the department heads so it was kind of bleeding into being a town manager type of role but that was what their preference was and actually the department heads liked that as well because they had somebody available uh you know 40 plus hours a week uh to bounce questions off or get guidance from and uh you know it worked pretty well um um when I was in New Ipswich and uh Brook line it was more of a peer relationship but uh you know it was a matter of you know keeping an eye on budget expenditure oversight and keeping everybody up to dat and you know we generated regular reports for the department heads on where they stood year-to date against their budget and certainly uh you we had open communication so if something extraordinary came up and uh it was going to be an unexpected expenditure because of you know equipment failure or uh somebody had to go out on you know on leave and we now have to backfill with a temporary uh Solution that's going to cost the town more money from a labor standpoint um you know those are those are all the discussions that you know the department heads would have amongst themselves and uh and then go back to the you know select board and uh in some cases the finance committee to uh talk about what the additional financial burden may be and where we might be able to look at other areas of the budget to you cut back spending to compensate for the additional expenditure of the unexpected event Scott we're we're similar to a lot of different towns or smaller towns in Massachusetts they have a a strong Chief as a fire chief and a police chief have you worked with that both yeah that's that's pretty typical for New Hampshire as well okay yeah and now besides the uh department heads you also be um we also have elected officials so our Treasurer our tax or or town collector and so forth so how would you make sure that they were part of the budget process so I think uh you know certainly during budget season you would open communication up with with everybody but um you know I think depending on uh and when you're dealing with elected officials sometimes it's you know who's in the position and how they feel about uh um uh you know their involvement in communicating I've I've certainly had you know Tom clerks and tax collectors and that you know wanted to stay as far away from you know the rest of us uh and and run their own show um as possible and there were others that you know wanted to be part of the department head meetings and things like that and you know it's a matter of feeling out the community and what what their preferences are but certainly um you know I would invite anybody to participate uh in in you know in certain meetings uh so that they can hear what's going on um you know I'm a big believer in communicating U out to you know a very large audience about what the policies or the budget situation is again the more information that's out there typically the smoother things go uh the fewer questions you get uh you know at the very last minute going into town meeting uh so U you know I think good communication with everybody elected officials um volunteers uh Etc anybody that really anybody that has any part of town government and certainly anybody that oversees a budget of any kind you know I think has to be involved and has to be part of regular dialogue excuse me Scott how do you deal with um you know Facebook and things like that I mean we we have and again they're not Town Facebook pages but they do pertain to uh to our town um just sometimes negativity that may come out people don't agree with the decisions whether the select Bo or or town Town Administrator so honestly um you know I think it's good to be aware of kind of what the pulse of the community is you know I I I think the risk is that people get jened up on Facebook and sometimes they start putting information out there that isn't accurate and you want to at least be aware of that so you can take other steps to you know kind of correct the record and uh make sure the correct information is getting out uh to the community uh because some of those things can become runaway trains and uh you know you don't want that to happen either so I think you have to be aware of of what people are saying and then uh counteract that with some good clear communication on whatever subject matter they're talking about and try to set the facts straight and if it really gets elevated and I've certainly had it elevated in in some communities to the point where you know the Sak board might decide to actually have uh you know sort of a public hearing on the subject just to clear the ear and set the record straight as well if it if it gets to that point so I think all of those tools are available to kind of mitigate you know uh misinformation getting out there and perhaps uh having voters not really understand what's going on or start to become you know suspicious I don't know if that's the right word but of what town government is doing with their tax money uh so so those are always concerned um can you describe your suggestions for finding new sources of revenue to increase monies available to the Town Projects well I think you you know one thing I've I've done in every town is you know you certainly take a look at you know fees that are being charged for certain things you want to make sure that you're you know at least recovering your true costs of delivering certain services and I think you you know you have to you know I think every few years you really have to take a look at the fee structure of you know every you know every Department that does collect these and and uh really make sure that you're recovering uh the true cost of delivering those services and I think the other thing is looking for grant opportunities you know uh you know state and federal grants um and uh you know sometimes there are there are other uh local grants or you know local planning commissions have Grant opportun ities but looking for for grant opportunities as a way to uh you know uh you know fund certain certain projects that you may need to get done and um you know that again is part of any really local government we you know we're always looking for you know state federal and state programs to to uh perhaps get a big infrastructure project or or some other uh issue taking care of care of thank you so in this role as the Town Administrator you'll wear many hats what is your approach to staying on top of everything so that nothing gets mix missed so I think it's uh you know it's keeping Good Records good documentation um and uh um you know you know I think again that's part of the um part of the job that I think is most interesting is is you the ability to be managing many different things and not not really being stuck in a rut of any kind so I think uh uh you know it's a matter of you know staying on top of things keeping Good Records uh uh and also U you know again it comes back to good communication keeping the board up up to date on what's going on and uh you know recognizing when you know perhaps you need to delegate you know some things and and find uh you know another another resource to help you out because things can at times you know I experienced that in Brook line we we had so many things going on last year that um it um uh there was a lot for one person to to deal with have you ever in your roles had an assistant never yeah you I've Had A administrative assistant or executive assistant but again you know like the town administ they also typically wore multiple hats so they weren't necessarily dedicated to supporting just the select board's office right same here y many have Scott where do you see yourself in five years and I and I say that because as we look forward the next five years will have new department heads just by you know retirement currently we're uh seeking a new fire chief at this current time so we know the next five years just you know really talking to some of our uh department heads that they may be leaving they may be retiring so I guess where do you see yourself in five years well you know my goal honestly in any of the towns that I've gone to is you know I think there is a lot of value to stay in a role for an extended period of time I think you um when you have that luxury you end up with a lot of institutional knowledge that I think is beneficial to the community and um so the longer you can stay in a role I think the more valuable you become and uh and honestly I think you can achieve a higher level of job satisfaction as well because you can see projects and initiatives that you started through to completion and municipal government never moves fast so it takes a long time to start something and actually see it implemented funded and uh um you you start to reap the benefits of that so that that would be you know ultimately the goal for me I mean I you know my you know typically I would like to see um U you know the ability to stay in a worldle for 10 years you know I think that's that that uh allows you to really get to understand the community and uh you know you build those relationships you build the credibility um and you become uh you know uh hopefully a good go-to resource for anybody in the community whether it's a elected official a department head or just a resident um you know they you know having a familiar face there for long periods of time I think is just beneficial to everybody involved and I I know you mentioned um if you were given the opportunity um to become Our Town Administrator that you would look at moving down toward the state um if that was the case would you would you had any like objections if that was part of the agreement um no I mean it's not uncommon for towns to uh you know set a timeline on somebody needing to relocate within a certain distance or within the community itself um so that that certain certainly something we could uh could talk about yeah because I certainly don't want to make a long I I did that in you knowed into Boston uh you know every day for a lot of years and I don't want to have to do that again good know um how would you Mentor or guide a new department head or another employee experiencing a budgetary or communication problem so I think you know again it's a it's a matter of you know understanding what the issue is meeting with the one-on-one and understanding one how did this get to this point and uh uh and sometimes unforeseen things you know do do happen uh you know you end up having a major piece of equipment fail or something like that and suddenly you're uh you know trying to do an emergency procurement of something to get get something resolved and uh so I think that's it's it's really sitting with uh you know a department head or whoever it may be and really getting a full understanding what the problem is and uh you know I think the most immediate thing is what's the solution how do you fix it get you know get things back up and running or so you can deliver the services you need to deliver to the community and then uh you know learning from that and seeing what uh you know what could have been done ahead of time to mitigate that or if it was truly unforeseen um you know sometimes you need to budget for things and you want to you know everyone's always looking for ways to uh you know to trim Department budgets um and certainly you know you know new whip switch was an example where they were notoriously Frugal and you know unfortunately uh when you had had somebody in the public works department you know uh blow up an engine on a on a dump truck and you know now it's over $20,000 to to repair it and there's not $220,000 in the budget to do it um you know then you again you have to go scrambling looking for other other uh monies elsewhere um to see what you can do to move money around to fix the immediate problem get the piece of equipment back in service but that means uh perhaps deferring some other uh project that may you may have lined up uh and uh because that money is no longer available so I think think those are all things that you know collectively we would all discuss and and uh figure out what you know what priorities needed to be shifted and uh move forward thank you can you share an example of an initiative that was under your charge that failed and what you learned from The Experience uh so initiative that failed um you know honestly I can't think of one off the top of my head um right y not a bad thing yeah no no it's not I'm just you know I'm just thinking of a you know of a project that you know might have gone sideways or something like that but I I honestly can't um can't think of one or maybe something that you tried to implement in the town and it didn't go well or um so the the only one that I could think of and and it was really just preliminary discussion um and again looking for Revenue opportunities um as well as uh getting a little bit better perspective of what was going on in the community is implementing some sort of U business permit process you know the the planning board was having some difficulty getting a grip on uh what small businesses were in Tom because they're not always very visible uh there's a lot of home occupancy uh type of situations that you don't necessarily see and uh and they wanted to understand what those were and we thought that maybe you know coming up with a um you know an annual fee for a a small business permit you know something nominal fee like $15 because we weren't really looking for a lot of money we were looking for data more than anything else so that we could uh the planning board could better manage the community and from a code enforcement standpoint we can make sure that small businesses were in compliance with our local zoning regulations and um uh that idea wasn't very popular with a lot of people in the community even though it was going to be a nominal fee they just felt like it was uh going to be uh asking uh for too much information and uh um they uh you know they'll Live Free or Die State they they don't really want to uh give up you much information if they don't have to thank you have any questions questions I think I'm good all right do you have any questions for um well just what do you see as the priorities for the New Town Administrator what are the the you know the maybe the top five things that you would like to see a Town Administrator focus on when they step into the role learning the town um the day-to-day operations how it runs I think the other thing that stands out to me is communicating building that relationship with the town employees with uh the select board um we rely on the Town Administrator a lot for knowledge um especially for Mass General law and procedures because we are a part-time board um and our term is three years so I am up for reelection this year and Glenn's eight years you said it before eight years now on the board and Dave joined us this year so those were my top two I think that stand out in my head okay um I always tend to lean towards budgetary issues because we have had some problems um in the past and a little bit currently that we do manage to work our way through MH um but it's always a challenge so we would look to Our Town Administrator to help us get through those challenges okay and I would I agree with David I mean we're we're we're in in budget season now in beginning of January starting a lot of departments are focusing on their budget so um and we have a a Town Administrator now that has that's been with the town 20 plus years that now exiting that has taken a lot of knowledge U and uh experience with him so I think you know and for anybody sitting in these chairs whether it's us or people in the past um have benefited from that and I think so and moving forward and as you know time goes on I think too it's at least for myself because this is you know probably my last term as being a a select board member is that I want to make sure that that the uh the Nick Town Administrator is able to provide that knowledge and that experience with the future board members because the board members depend a lot on you know someone that sits in that seat as a as a Town Administrator because you know as I said earlier this evening you come out of the board and most of most of your first year is kind of going through the going through the water trying to learn what's going on in town and getting caught up on things that happen the past that are currently still being being dealt with so it's it's that's what I look for is is that person when that person comes on is is really hitting the go hitting the ground running yeah yeah I think one of the you know one of the things that I've typically done is any you know new board member is certainly you know free to you know set up time you know with with me to kind of understand what the what the procedures are you know what the uh you know the issues are within town that they need to be uh brought up to speed on quickly um you know could be pending litigation something like that um and um um so I always would encourage you know uh you know new board member and not just the select board you know honestly any uh any elected official that uh wanted to spend time just understand how municipal government work it's to my advantage to to bring people up to speed because once people understand how how it all works works it it makes life easier for everybody and uh keeps us all out of hot water I go one last question I would have too is that and I would uh suspect that the towns where you were a Town Administrator yet had a you didn't have an in-house Town Council everything was done right yeah I mean we you know typically you know typically most most of those towns um you know probably spent between 30 and $40,000 a year on uh outside Council uh Brookline um in the last two years uh we spent $2 million um on legal council because we were being sued by a developer uh as well as we had three other smaller cases going on um so you know outside Council you try to use sparingly and uh and again I think the Town Administrator is you know was supposed to be knowledgeable enough to answer a lot of the you know the general day-to-day questions when it comes to Mass General laws and you know how town government works or how you would handle a certain situation but there are times when uh you know you get to a critical point where uh having outside Council uh is is important but typically though you know the towns I work for you know3 to $40,000 a year is what we spent on you know mostly just general Town Council issues sometimes labor Council um unless you know we had a major event but uh um you know I think the Town Administrator should should be expected to answer you know 80 or 90% of you know the questions somebody might have from uh you know Mass general laws or uh procedure type of question did you have any other questions for uh no I think that's that's all I had thank you oh sorry one other question if you were to get the position how early can you start um I could be available probably by the 1 of February okay thank you thank you so much for coming out thank you for having me have a good night J right so we do have a couple minutes before our next um applicant comes in does anyone mind if we take another break no I don't mind okay we'll make motion to take a short break until the next op next for our appointments is Michael's slos it sosic yes welcome thank you if you can tell us a little bit about yourself please sure um uh my name is Mike slik I'm a lifelong resident of llo your neighbor to the South uh I'm a graduate of the uh Eisenberg schools MBA program in finance I have a law degree from uh Boston University uh I'm married I have uh an adult daughter and I've been been in municipal government for approximately 20 years uh I've been uh starting with uh the position of Town Administrator in lllo and I've been in uh Town manager in Oxbridge and AOL uh I've been in Sterling I'm currently in North Brookfield as the Town Administrator so I guess my next question is going to be why grany it's home you're right next door I'm here all the time um and I think I could do good here uh I I love North Brookfield they're wonderful people but it is it is quite a wayse away and as a Town Administrator you do supervise departments uh department heads I do what is your style I like to be a very collaborative and supportive uh manager uh I feel I'm there to uh to help the department heads achieve their goals and serve the people uh certainly I I have the greatest respect for all of my department heads because they're the subject matter experts uh I'm not a uh police chief or a fire chief or well I know a lot about DPW but uh uh certainly uh I'm not doing on a day on a day-to-day basis I want to know what their needs are uh what I can do to support them and uh actually I I like to fill in when they have gaps uh certainly I've had people with administrative shortcomings I've helped them with that um with uh personnel management issues and I can fill in there and and just um be available to support them when they need support now that doesn't mean I'm I'm a pushover I I certainly have had disciplinary issues in the past and you know I it's not my favorite thing but when it happens it happens thank you D do you want to Sure Michael I see for several years you were a town manager then you kind of went to public works and you kind of came back to being a a Town Administrator uh yes I was in um Sterling and I will tell you Sterling is and it's not a bad thing was a high needs community in the sense that there were a lot of public involvement and a lot of night meetings and I was there pretty much four nights a week we didn't do Fridays but I was there usually till 9 10:00 every night and uh some things were happening in my family particularly my uh my grandmother was in in her last days um and my daughter was having some issues at the time and I took a job that was less intense uh were you living in llo at the time I was living in llo I have never I've never lived anywhere else okay uh except in law school obviously you know we uh we lived in eastern Mass because I went to school in Boston but uh L's been my home and I don't plan on moving in anytime soon um Enfield worked well for me it was uh a much larger Community it was uh I was the assistant director of Public Works for about seven years uh and the job was eliminated because they had a massive budget deficit they made some unfortunate choices as far as use of arpa money to fund ongoing operations and you know uh when you're budgeting you don't use one-time money for recurring expenses so a lot of the projects I were man was uh managing were eliminated and they didn't me need me and um I went back to what I love best which is Town management so um you have a lot of experience in small towns I do so my question to you would be um what do you consider the most difficult problems facing small towns like grany money money you larger towns can uh leverage their size or economies of scale you have to do all the same things that larger communities do and you you need a lot of the same resources um and they are not proportionately cheaper uh right now we're having problems in uh North Brookfield with our school system like every other school it's uh losing students because enrollments are down everywhere and because of that uh we've had trouble maintaining uh maintaining the the uh and everyone's choicing out so in the high schools we have classes of and I mean not class rooms classes of 15 people and it's just become impossible to uh uh maintain that uh financially and we're exploring solutions to that uh we attempted to regionalize with quog region but um their school district did not uh uh did not accept us because our uh teachers frankly made more money than theirs did and they would have had to raise their salaries uh proportionately so we're looking for Solutions but that's not the only thing I I mean I'm losing people because I can't pay uh my Town Hall staff appropriately um I I've got a Treasurer that makes less than $50,000 a year I'm not going to be able to hold her if she gets a better offer so that has been very difficult thank you can you tell us how you handle public criticism or dissatisfaction with Town policies or situations public criticism I'm I practiced law before I went into public service I can I can handle criticism um but I also listen to I thought it was the other way around that no the public piece and then going into being a lawyer that you know adaps no you get a thick skin um but uh that doesn't mean I don't listen to it because uh I don't let it bother me if it's unfounded and I know it's unfounded but I also want to I if I think there's something to it I certainly will address that um and you know I've there have been times I have been criticized publicly and uh more so I think as a moderator in in uh lllo that I've given some people too much latitude um and I've corrected that so you know there's always well not always but frequently uh a hint of Truth in the criticism and you need to respect that what would you consider to be your weaknesses my my biggest weakness is I tend to hyper Focus uh and I lose track of time I've had to uh create uh procedures mostly I set alarms if I know I have meetings because I'll get involved in a a spreadsheet working on a budget or something and I'll look at the time oh I had a zoom meeting 20 minutes ago uh and that's something I've I've learned at the beginning of the day I review my calendar and I set alarms to make sure that I don't miss meetings uh and I'm where I need to be at all times and with that what are your strengths my strengths I'm uh well that can be a strength too to be able to hyperfocus but I I'm very decisive uh and I get things done I I like to cut through and you can't always do it in in public meetings but I like to cut through uh the the red tape and and get to things um for an example uh I was on the committee to build the senior center in lllo and the meetings tended to go on and on and on and I was the guy that would say look we've talked enough we know where we're going I'll make the motion to do this and we'd do it and we'd move on to the next thing uh because things were were not progressing that quickly we knew where we're going to build the thing uh we we narrowed it down to the plot of land where it is now uh none of the others had the features that we needed the uh proxim the proximity to the uh senior housing the uh utilities uh and the availability and still for meeting after meeting we kept rehashing the old ones and I finally said look it's time to move on let's make a decision and take it to town meeting to acquire the property and that's what happened uh because if I had done that I don't know if the building would be there now we might still be working on it thank you um what strategies do you use to engage with community members and ensure their voices are heard uh a number of different strategies I like to get out into the community I attend meetings as probably more meetings than i' like to but that's just the way it is and I have an open door policy uh I've never refused to meet with a citizen if they wanted to talk to me uh I make time um but I also engage and and get out there at uh public events and and uh make sure I I shake hands and introduce myself and ask them what are your concerns uh because people can think about things but they don't always want to express it but they're happy to tell you if you have good point Michael if you you given the opportunity uh for this position where would you see yourself in in five years well I'm not the youngest man in the world probably uh closing in on the end of my retirement on retirement I'm you know I'd be getting close to my full retirement age EV that point so uh I would probably be interested in a second contract but probably not a third good and what what I'm saying is I'm not looking to ever leave here is and I'd like to finish my career here been at this a long time and uh this is a nice place to be I wouldn't I wouldn't take our silence for um we we just I mean and I look at your resume I mean resume really speaks for itself thank you so it's it's you know for us to kind of at least for myself I look at some of the questions I've asked you know previous candidates that really doesn't apply to you just based on the based on what your resume you know has on it so um I don't want you to take you know anything out of us being you know silent for a couple seconds here trying to think of questions to ask you so if you were to get the position Michael what what's the earliest you could start I would like to give uh a reasonable amount of notice uh I I'd like to give them four to six weeks is is that something you could work with I I certainly do not want to leave them in the lurch I was the their first um Town Administrator and I've been putting procedures in place I want to make sure that there are uh whoever replaces me is in a good place and the position is well established well with that said too let me let me ask you Michael if you were giving the opportunity is there's was there be a way you could uh maybe start part-time absolutely absolutely yeah Town Administrator we have a you know a town administrator assistant U that that works well uh but we do have a Town Administrator that I know in a couple weeks is just is done it's done we like to you know look at having someone at least work with that individual for a little bit if possible at least to get to know some of the things that uh where Grammy is right now because there are some things challenges that we have right now I would certainly uh be be open to talking to my uh my current board and um asking if I could get a A reduced schedule uh probably at uh no pay uh and uh because I do not want to leave them in a bad place I I completely agree with that and and understand that and you know and um it makes sense it does so I don't want to get that I I will say though um I'm I'm a quick learner uh my first my first job as a Town Administrator was in lllo um I was uh lawyer at the time and uh I was active in town politics uh volunteering on various boards and when it became available I was invited to apply and uh my predecessor had been the executive secretary for many years and um they gave her uh a number of hours to to uh train me I think uh um several weeks worth and I think she only used 8 hours I was I I got on very quickly uh I've done this long enough I can hit I can hit the ground running I know what a Town Administrator does and and I certainly um the job isn't different in different towns the problems are different but not the job interesting saying because I I went to a different place I left somewhere where I was there for 28 years I went to a different uh agency people had asked I had said you know it's it's new faces uh new new place but the same business yeah Point you're making I'm going to be applying for the same grants uh dealing with well not the same public officials but I know the public officials here um you have Jake don't you we have Jake as well Jake's a I know Jake well he he collected signatures for me uh when the last time I ran from moderator so you don't have Aaron do you Aaron Saunders is Aon we have Jake and Grammy's a little different gramy split up into two different um sections well I I know years ago when when Tom petrolati uh was our state rep for both towns um someone from ramby ran against him on the Republican side and he got you districted out of his district the next time so we have we have one Senator and two reps BR who's here I I don't know I don't know your reps d who just got Dan car car I don't know them no I thought Dan Cary was done this month Dan is done course so I was gon to say I'm not sure who replaced him either actually we haven't met them yet so but that's that's who our delegation is well I'll meet them as soon as I can yeah great um can you explain some of your experience with the grant writing if you yes uh I've I've done I've been successful well very successful in some places less so in others and it really depends on on your needs um I my first big project is I I don't know if you recall the East Street project in lllo in the um early to mid 90s we got a million dollars a year for four years uh to redo the stretch of e East Street from the bridge to the country club um and it looked beautiful for a while it's it's sort of degraded a bit unfortunately it hasn't been kept up as well as I would have liked uh but you know I was involved in obtaining grants uh at that time because of the dollars involved we had a a consultant but smaller grants I write myself and I've been pretty successful um one of my proudest moments was uh when we were having a a real issue with uh the budget in AOL in the time of was in half all and um I was going to have to do some furlows but I found out a about a grant from desie for uh towns that had large increases in their um in their Regional School budgets um and I applied for that and it was unrestricted it didn't have to be used for schools and I got $50,000 because I was the the only person in the state that had applied for it so uh that really pulled pulled me out um currently I'm applying for a number of Grants we got a a uh a development Grant downtown um and I'm going for a second round uh we've done uh streetscape sidewalks with them because uh north brookfield's roads are in atrocious condition and the sidewalks are in atrocious condition uh we did the first phase uh it'll be finished in the spring we're working on the second phase getting the uh funding for it uh the funding had been there $600,000 when I came in but it hadn't been moving forward and the first thing I did was push the project forward and we broke ground in November and uh finished most of the first phase we've got a little bit more to do in the spring and uh I need to expend that out so I can get more uh um and if they had spent the money when they got it we'd be on phase four uh but you need someone to push the project forward uh we're getting uh we've got a grant for a water line that uh is also in progress um should have been finished but you know what happens when you have to go with the low bidder uh they did not finish on time um reason was they couldn't get help well I don't know what their reason why they couldn't get help but we had to give them an extension so the final uh Paving will take place in the spring uh we're doing sections of uh Route 67 uh in in the um in the spring possibly in the end of the winter uh unfortunately that's the state route that the town declined to turn over uh so we were stuck with it and but I did get a grant to uh pay cave numbered routs do you own uh I assume the uh the state owns 202 here the state does right through very good because there's nothing worse than having to maintain a state route um I saw that uh I looked at your road miles you've got 68 total but 10 of them are are not Town maintained is that correct I'm not sure on the exact mileage but there are some in town that are not maintained by the T yes not exactly sure how much that's the best thing you can have a nice road that you don't have to pay for so i' work I work on grants whatever kind I can whatever kind I can get I mean um I'd rather get the money from the state or or the feds if I can I've contacted uh Richie Neil's office um the uh Federal earmark process will be beginning I believe in February and uh I'm I'm on speed dial to talk to them what strategies would you employ to address and resolve conflicts or challenges within Town departments or between Community stakeholders I I think you can see that I tend to be pretty softspoken I I can be effective as a peacemaker and a mediator uh when I practice law I was mostly I like to solve um rather than than litigate and I'm uh a good mediator I work well with the unions I work well in mediating between departments uh I like to build teams I like to have uh fairly frequent Department uh meetings so people talk I give everyone the opportunity to discuss issues in their departments and I try and build that camaraderie uh I've had issues in the past where there there were interdepartmental feuds and I've done a lot to done I did my best I was not 100% uh successful um but I tried to build Bridges and bring those departments together um the police and fire department and a neighboring town still don't get along that well but I try um they're in the same same building and they just uh don't function well together at least they didn't at the time um as far as the community uh again I I I like to uh get out into the community and and um build Bridges I currently have a a a resident in in North Brookfield who's uh been feuding with the town for years um but he and I are get along very well uh he still wants to sue the town I don't know for there there's some least some cognitive issues there but uh he has no animosity to me because I treat him like a person and uh addresses his concerns uh I had a similar person in uh Oxbridge when I was Town manager there um after I left the place he called me and he said I want to sue the town will you represent me and I said I can't tell you how many conflicts are there uh so no thank you I I can't help you with that but you know I I tend to be a very approachable person and and I I I've made a lot of friends in North Brookfield in the short time I've been there everybody knows me as Mike I have anything else um I would like to ask one more um so if you were to spend the balance of your career here where would you or what do you think you can do to help move the town well I I've looked at your financials I think your budget process could be tightened up a little bit I I noticed uh you are taxing to Levy uh but there are other things that are a little loose that maybe could allow you to ease off on that for example uh you don't do a good job at projecting um uh other local revenues um you've historically under forecast those uh which leads you to get a lot of free cash at the end and you use all the free cash uh which I I like to have a tight budget and I think it could be tightened up a bit I think you need some economic development I'm I drive through town all the time three or four times a week and by saying that I will drive through town too much I don't stop I don't drive to town nearly as much as I drive through town I'm going through to go to uh to Amis to go shopping there or I'm going to uh South Hadley to the theater or to Johnny's you need to have businesses here that that draw people and when you have we go to Cindy all the time in the summer because it's there but you don't have a lot of good restaurants like to encourage that um that was a situation I was in in AOL beautiful little town Charming little town no reason to go there uh now I'm not saying there's no reason to come here but there was no reason to go there so we worked for economic development and put in that Plaza are you familiar with the one on uh on Route off of Route two with the Market Basket is oh yes um took a lot of work to that at that dealing with with Market Basket and putting in the infrastructure because there was no water there we had to figure out how to pay to put a $3 million water line in to develop that Plaza uh we did it with a business improvement district we got all the in infrastructure in and it could be a little more developed now Co tended to  the development um where the Hobby Lobby is is the rest of that laa is unfinished cuz things kind of halted uh when Co came in but certainly there's a lot there that wasn't there before and now if I want to go to Market Basket I drive up to AOL um who else what reason was there before to drive to Athol uh I want to find reasons for people to stop here um yeah you have some things you've got a CVS but everybody's got a CVS um you know this unique features and and draw people here to stay here not to drive through you make it sound easy but it's not easy we also have um you know Water and Sewer that stops here so that's a big that's a big thing for us to try and move forward and I'm working on that now uh in North Brookfield there's there's a section of road that we we have an area we want to develop into uh retail and maybe maybe offices also but we want to develop it but there's no water and sewer there familiar with I'm looking at the you know extending our water and sewer lines down there and it's going to be a lot of money uh but at least get the plans on the table figure out how much money it is until you know have the plans and you know you don't know if you can can afford it or not and once you have it you start looking for the money again Congress and Neil can you give us an ear Mark want you want to create some infrastructure and and develop the area thank you mik to follow up on that probably Mike now because you said you might um you know and I've been a resident of gramy for the past you know 29 I was 30 years now and you know I've seen Grammy change throughout the years but also I've been a member of the the select board here for eight years as well as on the planning board for five years and Business Development always sounds great but what I also hear from a lot of you know residents that live in grany they like the small town charm they like the the the the life of they feel that that that the farming and things like that what gramy has and that's some of the reasons why they move here uh because there's not a a big why next to them well you you can do both look at Hadley uh they have a wonderful uh uh tax base along Route n but you drive tenth of a mile off of Route n and it's idyllic Farmland again uh you can do it and and you've already got the traffic you might as well benefit from it you know you you're on the planning board you you know you you can uh Zone things and concentrate your development um where where the cars are already uh reap that profit and then your your citizens uh can benefit from having a lower tax base or lower taxation on residential property you can do both and have at least a perfect example of it we did get a j a Dollar General not too long ago May about yeah oh maybe it's prob probably eight years now for longer weren't in no so 10 years I was on the planning board Five Doll General four or five yeah because I know they're still having issues board and stuff so yeah i' say four or five they've been here four or five years yeah well I was on I was on the planning board when I that started so yeah yeah yeah that took a that took a lot to to get that to go through General on 202 really dunin donut took a lot yeah I like I like you thinking you know there a world as a way well it's it's a matter of preserving what you have and and concentrating the the economic uh development in in a way that does not impact the town's quality of life uh and you know uh benefiting it from it and and allowing uh the taxes not to get too high uh I like to R run a tight ship and and I've I've never uh supported a a tax override uh they're currently looking one for one um at least the school department is in North Brookfield um I don't think it'll pass anyway but I think there's always a way to to make things work without going back to the citizens for more and I would say we're we're we're a lot like North Brookfield in many ways you're a little small a little larger I'm sorry little larger but I mean a lot of the same same issues yeah um you do have uh as far as economic development you you we don't have it's the only Brookfield that doesn't have Route 9 running through it um Route 9 goes from West Brookfield through Brookfield into East Brookfield but you've got to go off Route 9 to up 67 to get to North Brookfield and as a result we don't have that uh access to a lot of it's harder to develop no in North Brookfield uh Reserve tax base for commercial and residential the same uh the T the we don't split the tax rate um we don't have a lot of development the only the only really large um industry is Vibram U are you familiar with vium they make H boot souls for the military and for hiking boots uh they're pretty high-end uh Footwear um but uh North Brookfield has the uh American um the American uh headquarters it's an Italian company um but and I work very closely with them because I want to I want to I want them there a long time uh because they're a a good employer uh good jobs um I regularly meet with the uh the vice president who's in charge of the facility and uh we're working to improve uh access parking for his employees uh I like to work closely with our uh with the Employers in town uh to make sure they they expand and provide jobs I don't think I have any more questions I don't have any more do you have any questions for us well um tell me what uh what are the major projects on on the uh drawing board right now right now I'm working on four different buildings in North Brookfield they're uh redoing the sewer plant um we're also we doing moving the high we've acquired another building uh moving the highway department into that uh taking the Old Highway Department building and and redoing it as a a uh fire department apparatus building and then rehabbing the existing 19th century fire uh uh Firehouse uh I like building projects do you have anything in the office F right now is near town offices um the West Street School is being renovated into town offices so it's underway right now that sounds like sounds like fun actually I love building projects that's the we are our our Public Safety Center is is still fairly new our uh department for public work or Highway Department their buildings is is still fairly new um so libraryies fairly new library is fairly new so the challenge that's been it's been ongoing for for a while is to bring all our uh Department offices under one building and sometime ago West Street School uh and up we end up building a new elementary school so West Street School became available in the town will get back over and is in the process now of renovating it uh early stages but to have a place for U the town offices for our staff so they all be under one particular building right now we have this building here I I saw that and we also lease uh a building which was the old phone company for gramby at one point often on root tool too as well so well I I certainly have experience in it if you need that uh I've also got msba experience I've built two schools uh the high school in xbridge and the elementary school in AOL so I know the process um I know the uh the building process I've worked in a number of uh well two senior centers uh a library um in currently these buildings um other issues I should be aware of I guess i' learn that when I come the dam at do frame I guess was a project but um so we had a dredging visibility study done and we are currently um looking into a grant last year it came out in January for freshwater dredging okay and um I'm looking I I haven't had a chance to look it up um yet but it's it came out in January last year and I missed it so the only thing I found when I searched was saltwater judging but they did have a freshwater one and I missed it before um it closed so or right after I closed this when I found it so that's something that I put on the agenda so that I don't forget about it so that I look for that Grant this month and see when it opens up what the requirements are of it because we're looking at I think it was 1.5 million to dredge that pond and it's a man-made Pond and it's one of our open space and Recreation areas it's our biggest one in town drudging is almost a uh it's this unending task uh when I was in Enfield we had uh are you familiar with freshwater Pond uh in Enfield in Enfield I'm not uh we it was a 5-year process to uh get it dredged going through all permitting um through the state and and then actually getting it done and when we got it done we would start it again because it it silted up again in five years well this has needed to be done for over 50 plus years oh no this uh it's it's a long time coming uh this if it gets too silted up will flood route five so okay yeah we had to it was just never never ended m uh but I I know the process and and I I know all the permitting that you have to go through this was the state of Connecticut but Massachusetts is not any easier and Forge Pond also the dam is we had a there we have a gentleman um Leonard not Leonard Leonard working on it and he got an extension for the first phase of it um which he should have done before June and then once the second phase comes out we'll be able to get the funding for it through um do right so that would be the other project that we're working on I'm trying to think oh in the process uh of hiring a new fire chief yeah I read that have an interum at at this point and then we're going to start hopefully next couple weeks um it's 17 so probably towards the end of the month so start interviewing for a new fire chief I had I had read that yeah yes and I'm familiar you've got some permitting issues I I guess with the winery I saw I was reading articles about that nice wine R they make good stuff like any small town we have we have issues that are going on and you know we're working through all you know than yes well um anything else you'd like to ask me good all right thank you very much thank you it was good to me you also have a good night okay okay this is embarrassing is it awake no thank you for coming good to meet you thank you thank you very much you're welcome thank you so we had a lot of great applicants tonight um I am not prepared to make my decision tonight I don't know how you guys are feeling um but I think I need to go home and just take this all in this a a lot of information from all of the candidates I agree and I made a lot of notes that I will go back through and uh reread to refresh my memory again and make a decision out of further com in time how are you feeling I agree with you it's got a lot of good candidates a lot of information we kind of sit down and process it but uh yeah okay so our meeting will be on Monday we have it exec session first at 4:45 and then we also have um at 5:45 right is when we will deliberate or discuss the next Town Administrator okay very good perfect so I well entertain a motion to adjourn the meeting I will make a motion to adjourn the meeting I'll second any further discussion no discussion all in favor I thank you