ing. Um, I am going to call to order our board of selectmen meeting uh for August 5th uh 2025 at 6:31 p.m. And we will start with the pledge. Pledge allegiance to the To the flag of the United States of America and to the
republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. All right, we've got a few announce Oh, I got to do a roll call um attendance. So, uh Eric here, Kim here.
Pike here. Second round. Don here. Thanks, Don. All right, a few announcements. So, this meeting is recorded by the local scene. Anyone intending to make an audio or video recording of this meeting should notify the chair at this time. Marca? No.
Um, financial assistance applications are available on the town's website or by calling the selectman's office. There are several boards and commissions with vacancies. To see a complete list of the openings, please visit our website at kingstonmma.gov. If you are interested in serving, please contact the selectman's office at
781-585501. Uh, also check our website for any additional events or notices at kingstonmma.gov. Um, before we go to open form, were there any other announcements that I'm not thinking? Oh, next week we've got the National Night Out. That's right. The National Night Out at
um the um behind the middle school sort of in the back, right? I think it's 4 to 7, correct? I think that's what they said. Check the website for the exact time. I do not have it in front of me at the moment. Thank you. Any other announcements? Carl, do you have anything? No.
No. All right. Open forum. We've got one person. Marcia, do you have anything you want to say? All right. Um, our appointment. So, um, next steps on filling the town administrator position. Um, I'm not sure that we I don't think
we brought it up at our last meeting. Um but we did receive um a resignation from our town administrator on Wednesday. That's why it didn't come up in our last meeting. Right. So we did receive that on Wednesday who's um taking a position in in same position in in Fair Haven. So um
still by the ocean. Um uh you'll still have uh it it looks like a lovely town. Um you know, we wish you the best of luck there. And we also thank you for I mean we'll have more to say at at future meetings but but
definitely lots of thanks to to you on working on all the projects we've had going on here in town um and continuing to work on those projects in this right this time period as well right we we've we've had a lot of things going on over the past few years that you've been here. So again thank you. Um
so we need to talk about what are the next steps. Um, so can we start with the current contract um has a 90-day uh period where when we receive a written notification um Keith remains employed through the town of Kingston through 90 days.
However, you know, if we can find an interim or a replacement before then he's asked the board to consider that. Um, I don't think we're in a position to discuss that now, but I just wanted to bring that up because folks may not be familiar with his contract terms and
what that what that says. Right. So, I think um that also segus into um whether we would need an interim TA or if we're waiting to just hire a permanent TA. And I think that process should not try to be rushed. Like even if we took the entire 90 days, I don't
think that's enough time. Um, I think we need to to to be realistic and in the past when we've had openings, we've had interim TAs. So, I I think it makes sense for us to look for an interim uh town administrator
um uh as well as moving forward on um a search for a permanent town administrator. But we need to talk about how what does that look like? Um what is the process going to be? We don't have an assistant town administrator, so it's not like we would
be, you know, um, uh, you know, some towns might have an assistant TA that would just like move into that role. Um, so we're we're going to need to do a search. Um, and in the P Go ahead. I was just going to say, one thing I
just want to mention too, it would be ideal. I don't know if this is possible, but it would be ideal if we could find someone interested in starting, you know, before the 90 days is up per his um Keith's request. But also, I mean, I would love to see
someone an interim role that could potentially serve in the long term potentially. There have been a lot of other communities near us that have conducted recent searches. Mhm. There are a lot we those interviews, those final interviews get, as Keith knows, get published for everyone to be
able to see them. So, I mean, there are a lot of potential candidates already out there. Um, the other thing I think we need to discuss as part of this is when we had an interim come in briefly in 2020,
the law firm found the interim for us. we weren't part of that process at all other than saying yes, we agree, we're going to have this person come on and they're getting paid x number of dollars. Um I don't know if the law firm would be
involved in that way now, but finding an interim is obviously a short-term solution. So that's something else for our board to think about is how we want to do that. And then lastly, the other thing I think we need to discuss is whether we want to consider, not maybe not now, but in the future, whether or not we want to
hire a search firm, whether we think that's necessary. I know we don't have the money for it. So, I would probably advocate against it. Um, but that's I just want to agree. No, and that's that that's the big item that I was going to bring up next was whether we do hire a search
firm. personally um because of the financial situation that that we're in um I'm I'm leaning against that and rather you know utilizing a a search committee um internally. Um some of you guys were here the last time um some of
you guys have uh were able to interview um the the previous applicants. Um it looks like there and and as you mentioned Fair Haven had their search process. There are other towns that have gone through the search process. Um those interviews are available now. So a
lot of the leg work could have been done. I mean we can take a look at those. Uh there may be additional questions that we might have for candidates that are specific to Kingston. Um but I think it's we're in a unique situation where I think there will be more candidates um available now
than like let's say a year ago, you know, and with with the financial situation of the town right now. Um trying to come up with 15 or 20,000 out of a budget where we don't have that money, we would have to cut something to to get that money. Um, I think it makes sense and we certainly have people
I've had people um reach out and said that they would be interested in um serving on a on a search committee. So, I just personally feel that we need to be financially prudent. Um, and I think we can do a lot of this work. Excuse me.
Yeah. Did we pass open forum already? Sorry, I for I was just hoped on. Say that again. Did we pass open forum? We did. Okay. Sorry, I didn't I wasn't on. I'll bring it up next meeting. Thank you. Okay.
Couple of comments that I have. Yeah, go ahead. Um number one, um I would like to see us work with Keith here to, you know, see if we could get to a point where um we can in effect release him earlier. I
would think from my point of view that um we probably absolutely going to need him for 60 days so that you know maybe we could be targeting something like October 1st instead of October 28th. Um,
I also think we um should be looking immediately at probably an interim person, but at the same time, I don't think we want to have an interim person in here
for a very long period with Keith that I I I don't see the need that I would hope that we get an interim person that's strong enough that can pick up pretty rapidly so that no matter what we do, whether it's an interim or a permanent,
I do not want to see more than two weeks to maybe 30 days overlap. Um, I I also um think that I like Kim's suggestion that if at all possible, we have an
interim that has a possibility of working into a permanent uh person. I I think that can be helpful. um the um issue of an external uh search
consultant. I've been involved in with two of them now here in the town with the uh Silver Lake superintendent was done by an outsider at least the first you know three iterations and then when we brought Keith in here it was done
with an outsider. Um I would like to say that we don't need to do that. I don't want to spend the money. I suspect it may be something like we get 30 or 45 days down the road and depending upon what kind of progress we're making,
then we make a may have to make a decision that we don't like. I also believe, and now here's the opposite of what you expect from this conservative financial guy, but when you're talking a 20 or $25,000
cost, okay, the town should always be able to find that in a $50 million budget that I don't care if you have to cut back some overtime somewhere or you don't uh buy this equipment or you do something that when you're dealing with
a 5060 million budget, you ought to be able to find $25,000 in a push. Um, I also have mixed emotions about what kind of a search committee we want,
how much public involvement we want that I'm not sure that have based upon my experience twice here in town, having a lot of public involvement is necessarily a good thing. Uh but I think that's
something that the five member board needs to probably end up voting on. Um so those are my initial thoughts. I I think it it it does make a lot of sense. I think um I I agree with you. I think two weeks is probably good because
in the end and I've done a lot of thinking about this and I've been involved in this in private industry and so have you. Sure. You know, you have institutional knowledge that needs to be passed on and preserved and whatnot. Um, but we have a lot of people who are, you know, full-time professionals here. We've got
fire chief, police chief, we have an HR director, we have finance director, um, we have a town clerk, treasurer, collector. So, all of those people, not to mention the folks in the office, too. Oh, absolutely, 100%. So, the highway department and everybody here, Trisha, um, you know, all these people
have a lot of institutional knowledge that are going to be passed on. Um, and Keith obviously has quite a bit, too. Um, but those other professionals are also going to have um a a lot of information and the other boards and whatnot, water commission, sewer
commission. Um, uh, but I think um I mean Keith, what do you think? I mean, do you think a two-eek overlap is is reasonable? Sure. Yeah, I think it is. Um, you know, again, depending on um the person who's coming in, what what
their capabilities are. Yep. Um, you know, I guess from my point of view over the next uh few weeks, you know, we've got a fall town meeting in October. Um, I'm working with Kathleen Barrett, our finance director. I've reached out to the school to try to put together a
five-year financial plan to give give the the board u the finance committee and the school committee an idea when we have our our joint meeting in September. you know, at least from from um Kathleen and my point of view, you know, where we
think we are, where we think we need to be. So you got so the the the three committees can have a discussion and whether or not there needs to be um you know, ideally find a policy that all three boards will try to follow consistently across the budget process for 27. You know, those are and you've
got, you know, you've got collective bargaining coming up that you'll have to work with uh Kate with. Um, but I think a couple of weeks is probably fine. Okay. And again, as I've mentioned to the board, I'm a phone call, an email, or a text away. So, if I can help whoever's sitting in that chair, you know, I'm
always going to be willing to do that. All right. Thank you, Keith. Um, so in the end, I think I agree with a lot of what you said and including the the finding, you know, the money. We c could we do it? Yes. I'm just thinking the optics and when we're literally saying we've got 3,000 and then probably
less available in under the the levy. It just it it it's hard to then say, "Oh, well, let's spend the money when we could do it." I think I absolutely agree that any place we don't have to spend money in the next eight or 10 months, whatever is left, I
personally will be charging forward and saying, "Hey, do we have to spend that?" Right. Right. And that's and that's legitimate and fair. Um, and I think I think your suggestion as well that we see how we're doing on our
own. Um, if it looks like we need to bring somebody in, then we we can pivot and and make that determination. And of course, one thing about an interim that it seems to me we can hopefully control a bit that let's say we had somebody agree to be an interim
next week. Mhm. Well, maybe we want to see if they're willing to work, I don't know, 10 hours a week for a few weeks to, you know, work with Keith as opposed to coming in full-time because, you know, we I don't
think I want to see a full-time interim next week so we can say goodbye to Keith by the end of this month, say. And so I I think that's kind of a balancing act that you know and that was going to be one of my questions. I if
any one of us are interviewing or having very preliminary discussions with somebody who might be interested like we had this one resume come in already from somebody interested in being an interim. Okay. We need to I would like to have
some kind of guidelines. Am I talking to somebody about being an interim effective August 15th, September 1st, September 15th? That, you know, I think that's a step that we need to understand and hammer out.
Agreed. Agreed. Um, Don, did you have anything you wanted to add right now? Uh, if you don't mind continuing the conversation, I'm about a minute from the building, so I can actually just talk when I get there. Yeah, absolutely.
Jim, do you have any response to Carl or No, I think that that all makes sense. Um, I did want to mention as part of this discussion the job description. I know we so when we conducted the search in 2020, we worked with a search firm
who interviewed a lot of the staff and um us and residents to try to gather information about what they wanted in a town administrator, financial background, communication, transparency, all those buzzwords that you hear in all the interviews. But I I think that
taking that job description, I realize we may want to we want to look at it and see if there's any changes to be made. it accurately represents what that search company put together based on our community and
our feedback and the employee feedback. So just keeping that in mind if we want to change it I'd have to be convinced why it's not right in I spent a couple of hours going through it today and I think it's more a
case of needing some cleanup that um there's there's some you know just some of the grammar is bad um there's um I'm fine with grammar changes as you know duplications okay where you you you know under you know maybe
supervising required supervisor responsibility. It's almost duplicated because I find five pages to be rather long for a job description and you know I was that the final one that we used in 2020 that has that those I thought we
cleaned that up. I don't know that Tina had sent out. Okay. Yeah. and and so that so my point I think it's a good job description with all the quantity and quality that's in it but I
just think it needs to be cleaned up like I I went through and delete this delete that yeah yeah we just have to be careful some of the stuff in the job description is required by law so we just want to make sure that we're only cleaning up administrator I'm sure required by law that we have to
tell a highle manager whether he can um have the strength to move a computer from one side of the room to the other. That's asinine. If that's something that has to be I think that actually is something that has to be in there by law. It is. It's ridiculous. I didn't write the law
though, so I can't take credit for that. It's ridiculous. But it does have to be in there, right? Because that's in that's in my job description as well at my job, which is also an office job. So that's funny. How you doing? Hello, welcome. Sorry for having youth sports
control my entire That's what happens. Eric, just one thing I guess I'd like to add if it's okay with the board. One of the things I think would be important whether it be just two board members so there's not a po posted meeting uh you know maybe meet with the department heads as a group. Yeah.
And um you know uh we meet every every day there's a every Tuesday there's a board meeting. We have a department head meeting. So they're available, you know, either either at 10 o'clock or when we finish, whatever is convenient. But um I
think it'd be worthwhile um to hear what the board has to say about what traits they would like to see uh good, bad, or indifferent um and include them in at least the initial discussion if you I think that's an excellent point getting input from department heads. And
I think if I think if we do it as a group rather than one off, I I just think it's going to be more constructive and and provide more sub uh substance than just one one uh person at a time. So like I said, if I mean I'm happy to get them together whenever you ask me to. Time on Tuesdays to
Well, they they start our department meeting start at 10:00 and you could you could come in at 10, you can come in at 11:00. doesn't really m you know whenever we'll work around the board's schedule but I think it'd be important to um to have a conversation with the board with the department heads to u
hear what they have to say and and you can take whatever you want into consideration from there. Thank you. Okay. Excuse me. May I ask what what we are talking about tonight? I missed that part. We're talking about um hiring a town
administrator. Okay, I assume Keith is leaving. So, yes, good luck at your future position, Keith. I whatever that might be. And I'll miss you. Thank you, Will. That's nice.
All right. So, uh I may be here next Tuesday. I'll have to let me get back to you by the end of this week. Next week either. We should probably do it sooner rather than later. Um I could be available to Okay. I mean, Tuesday mornings are usually bad for me,
but if we did it at 10:00, that would be okay because I could be out but in that doing what I need to do at 11. We can do it at 9:30. Okay. All right. Whoever is going has to be willing to take notes, though. So, I'm looking at you two boys. If you two are going to do it, one of you has to write down some things so you can bring it back and tell us
what they said. Eric takes notes that no one can read, including Eric. Uh, that So, I'm also willing to attend, but I'm sure Missy would say the same thing. I'm sure Carl would say the same thing. So, whatever works for the department heads, I'm sure two of us will be able to make it work.
I can type some notes. No, because then it won't be a meeting. Oh, so I can um All right, then let's I'll type the notes. That'll do. Plus, as as was mentioned in a prior meeting, sometimes some employees are not as comfortable
speaking candidly in this setting, right? It's just not for everybody. So, yep. But my hope is that whoever goes of the five of us can bring back a summary of the feedback received and what we what they want most out of the
next town administrator. So, we cannot vote on anything tonight really in terms of the next steps because we didn't we didn't post any potential votes. Well, technically you can. Open meeting law allows you to vote on anything that could be reasonably anticipated on the agenda item.
So what I was going to suggest is um on whether we want a search committee. I don't know if you heard the discussion. Yeah. So well so I guess to be quick with my comments on that. So search committee I fully agree that we should
try without until we need. Okay. I think that's the right approach. Committee or without a search firm. Without or sorry without a search firm form firm. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I think the committee should be extremely tight, small. Um, and I really think it should
probably be more employee driven, um, or board driven. So, one of the things I think that we're I don't mean to interrupt you, but just going to throw this out there real quick. When we were doing the police chief search, you know, we had uh, uh, Mark was on that, but obviously he's public safety, so that was very tightly
related. So, I think, um, yeah, the town clerk reached out. He said he would be interested in um serving on on a search committee. Um so we could, you know, pick probably no more than two
selectmen. Yeah. Like we did for the police chief and then whatever else we think would would make sense. So I mean I think um a department head or two. Yeah.
I don't know. Keith, do you have any um any thoughts on that? My only thought, I guess, on a department head, you know, it's I've always found it to be difficult to have to include an employee who ultimately is going to be working for the person that they're interviewing and and potentially hiring. So,
yeah, my my personal preference would probably be one of the chiefs because they're not directly if not both or but they have to Yeah, they I guess that's kind of what I was thinking when I meant employees. Um, yeah, we probably don't want to hire someone that would be or have someone interview that is working under them
ultimately. That's But it does happen. I mean, my wife, yeah, in hospitals, I mean, they they definitely do that, too. But I I get I get the discomfort. Um, and I think it would be fine. But if we get if we get the feedback from the department heads at least in the
beginning, I think that would that would help. They appreciate that HR. Yeah. Yeah. Involved somehow. Yep. Um, the other question I guess I had, and I might have missed this, but an interm or an interm that could potentially be
to hire. How would that how would that work without limiting our field of applicants? Because obviously, if we're getting an interm, then it's only people that are unemployed currently. No one's going to leave their position for a potential. So my
probably my response to that and then anybody else um would be that we try to search for someone who would also be interested that we think is a is a good strong candidate. Um but that person's going to
have to understand if they're committing whatever it is whatever time period that we are opening it up to other people. just not every to your point, not everybody would be available to be an interim, but we should allow the permanent to be opened up to just about anybody. Um,
yeah, I have I have no problem with an interimm coming in and potentially getting a position, right? But I think that whether they're interm or not, they need to fully go through the process that everyone else is going to have to go through to become the full. Yeah. Because I think we're just I think we just limit ourselves, right, by
having um especially if we put blinders on and say, "Oh, this is going well for two weeks and we're just and then we would think it would be just two weeks, but Yeah. You know what I mean? Three months or two. Exactly. I think it's I think we're talking about several months is what we're looking at. That would be my guess.
That that's my only my only concern to that would be just not make sure we don't limit ourselves. I mean, honestly, I feel like it's going to take five or six months potentially to find I don't remember. So, let's see. Again, it depends on if you have a if
you have a a current somebody who's currently employed who has, you know, notification period, you know, that's going to be factored in as well. So, you know, typically, you know, if you can get something done in three or four months, you I think it'll be on the quicker side. Yeah. But, I mean, your like your
situation with Verhaven took several months. Took four months. Four months. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I think you know, we have to be realistic. This isn't four months plus then the waiting the waiting period for the contract. Yeah. Exactly. Oh yeah. Yeah. So when you're I I think what I
was thinking is there are there are a lot of people who've had positions eliminated or shifted due to budget cuts and other things or people have moved so they may be available potentially. Um and as we're thinking about an interim there are interims out there that just
do this. They're retired. They did this as a job and they they don't do it as a job anymore. They only do it for a month or two. There are people like that too. I was just thinking as we're looking for an interim, it makes more sense to me to try to approach folks who may be
looking for something permanent possibly as opposed to only bringing in someone we know is not possible. Yeah, that's that's where I was. Oh, no, no. I I I just again, it's more just I don't want to limit it. um because well, you know, I just don't want to be in that situation where we're
basically reaching out to three specific candidates that we're thinking about as opposed to having 30 people apply. Um it just it's just it just limits us to at least that's how I see it. So, as long as the interm's going through a full process, I have no I have
personally no problems with that. is one of the first steps to have the um job put in the U MMA the job bank there. I would think we we need to get the job description
right. Um and we can't we can't vote on that tonight. No, but finalized job description should be the first thing probably on our list. Exactly. And I spoke with Kate, our attorney. Um, and they can go through it as well once we have a a good working
copy. Um, she'll she'll go through make sure we have the lifting computers on there. That's right. Right. The Carl Claus. Um, God. Yeah. Just to make sure that that that we're um tight there. Um, and then we
would be able to um list it. So, advertise the position. I mean, this is we're probably at least a couple weeks away from that. So, after we finalize the job description, we'll need to discuss and
hire an interim town administrator. What does that process look like? So, last time the law firm just did it for us. Like, we weren't involved at all. They said, "We have someone. They're willing to do it. That was it." It does not need to be a formal process. I spoke with Kate about that as well. I mean, that's what happened last time. It
was just a law firm did it and it was someone who had been town administrator here before. So it was a very simple process. So she said it it's you know we identify someone that we think can handle our interim basis.
So the law firm can do that for us. Um she said she could but that wasn't really something that they they specialized in. our prior law firm um I think did that more often. Okay.
So um I I don't think this is going to take a law firm doing recruitment. No, no. I was just wondering I was more wondering process because typically when we're interviewing and negotiating contracts and things that the the candidates, potential candidates and all of that is is discussed in um executive
session until we get to the finalists. It's a little bit different in an interim situation. So, I wasn't sure procedurally how that works with a board of five instead of the law firm saying this is who we're hiring. We'd still do that in executive. You could still do that piece in
executive and then and then you just can negotiate and then do the open meeting vote on that piece. I don't know how that works. That was my understanding. I'll that was my understanding when I was on the phone with Kate today. I think I think the only question I
have, Eric, I guess, is is whether you if if the full board is going to interview an a interim person, do you have to do it publicly? I would just if you want to confirm that with Kate. That's a good question. You might want to just confirm that with Kate. The rest of it could be done uh just like you're hiring, you know, a
regular time. You don't have to in I guess how do you pick one? I think I think do we need to That's the point, I guess. I think we would need to determine whether the interm is just an interm or if we're looking long term because I don't think you're going to know that. Well, but if if we're having like a firm
or if we're just getting someone to come in interm, then we probably don't need, you know, the full onslaught of interviews like the last time they just kind of said this person's available, right? But how does it I guess my question is how does the how does the person let's say each one of us knows someone? I have no idea, but let's say
each one of us knows someone that we we think could do this. How do you do that? I I would suggest that if we had three possibilities, Kyle Pike has met with one person who's interested. Kim has met
with a second person who's interested. Don has met with a third person. Okay. We bring those three names before the board and we interview them in a public meeting. Yeah. Okay. We could, but just to be clear, Kate said there's no required process to
interview people in a public meeting for this. This is just a interim position. The question just was how do we pick someone? That was my question. Yeah. So like you have John Doe. It can literally just be deliberation in in an executive session. You don't need to put interesting. Okay. I I mean we could we can talk about
that. I just wasn't sure and get more feedback from um from Kate. But this is I mean to me either is fine. Yeah. I don't know if we want like comment. I think we just want to talk about it and decide. So whether that's executive or public
and to me a lot depends upon you know we have four weeks from now we've got one name then one name for you we got six names then it's a different situation Kate made it sound like you you don't
put interrums through interviews rigorous process understood understood you select one right you're just whoever's available whoever's willing to do it mean you could actually do normal good business moving forward with an interim to run the town.
Right. Yes, I understand. Without the bureaucracy getting in the way. Right. I'm just trying to follow the rules, Carl. Oh, I'm not I'm not pointing at you. All right. Those are my questions.
Do we know what they're You said they can search for an intern, but they don't typically do that. Do we know is that a cost or we is that part? Yeah. I got the impression they they don't want to do that. And honestly, why why do we want them to pick out who we want? Let's see how we do.
Yeah. I I feel like I feel like they probably know more no more people not necessarily more people who would be familiar with Kingston. True. Well, and and frankly, you know, I think you can use you can use Kate or
somebody in the firm to help vet the people who submitted if there was somebody who's right because they retired or has been in this business for a while, right? Okay. I I guess as a real world example, we've
got this resume from this person. Okay. How do we want to approach that? we can discuss that in executive because that's a a person and then well let's say we discuss that person and everyone's like hey this is great we
want to move forward then we would make and I'll double check this with Kate I'll make sure that that but but this was my understanding from the phone call was that we can make a decision and then we would vote in in public session to
well you would probably someone was probably going to have to reach out to that person and Well, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, we'd go through, right? You would go through that that process. You would reach out to the person, find out more about them, right? We could um bring them into um you can bring them into an executive session,
do a background check, right? And I'll again, I'll double check all of this, but Okay. And again, you know, I I I use that as an example. I don't think that's something that needs to be done overnight,
but at the same time, I think it's easy to get in the rut of kicking the can down the road, and we don't want to do that. No, we can't. We We do have a clock tick because I'm trying to tell Keith that he
can leave here October 1st because I know he's only a telephone call away. Yeah. So, um, any other any other thoughts? So, it sounds like we're we're in agreement that we would at least start on our own with our own
search committee. Um, the exact makeup of what that search committee would look like, we don't know yet, but um we can we can um make a determination on that. Can we put that on the next agenda? Maybe not the 12th. Put the one after that, I guess.
Can I just ask you a quick question? Yeah, Trish, do we have any public hearings on the 26th agenda? So, I'm just wondering back. Well, I'm just wondering, does it make sense at all? Our normal agendas are the 12th and the 26th this month. The 12th, we've going to have a quick
Yeah. uh remote meeting from for most of us anyways because of the national night out. Does it make any sense at all to move the the board meeting up to the 19th? Uh I'm going to be away, but I can join remote. that week.
I think I'm away that week, too. Okay. I just I'm just trying I know what you're saying. I mean, I could, but I'd probably have to be remote for that week. Well, that wasn't a very good idea. You and I was a good idea. We just all planned our trips around I August that's recovery week for my son
from his uh tonsils getting someone has to be home with him. Yeah. So, that's no fun. Uh we I do think we need to do something before the 26th. I I think that we're going to need to get get that search committee started. So,
um Well, I mean, what about what about a to me? Isn't the the immediate search committee sitting right here that the five of us? Well, I guess the only the only question is do you want to add, you know, a police chief, fire chief, town clerk,
anybody else besides the people who are on on this uh board for an interim? I'm not really sure you need to. Not for interim. talking about the they're talking about the actual hire. I'm sorry. Yeah, I think we have more so I actually think you have more time on that. So like my immediate focus is on the
interim. Yeah. Because the full-time hire can wait a little more. So what we might need some of that interim would be done by executive session. We're talking about specific people. But I still think we need to finalize the job description because whether
that's the permanent hire or the interim, we want it to be clear expectations of what the role is. Yeah. And what goes under it. I would just like it. I'm not saying it's going to work. We could give them what we did in 2020 and say this is pretty much what the job is. That's fine. As long as we're okay with doing that, I'm okay
with that. I know there's grammatical things we need to deal with, but at least then they would have something to understand like this is what Kingston's town administrator does because we don't have a bylaw. We only have your contract. So that's another option, too, is pulling the description of
responsibilities just out of the contract and saying, "Here, this is essentially what the job is." I it in terms of having that ready for the interim. Um we have the old one. Yeah, that's fine. So, okay, I'm okay with that. Okay. Well, I certainly will provide the full
committee my comments almost immediately. So, what I would suggest is that everybody send their comments back to Tina and then Tina would aggregate those and then send them back out to us. Uh, I got to make sure that's not violating
open meeting. Yeah. Okay. No, it's just you can't get you can't get into a dialogue about Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's all. But she can compile everyone's changes and then send it to us before our next meeting. It's like it's it would be considered meeting materials. So I in my opinion that the first order
of business is identify um what we're going to do with an interim and we do have names that that we need to talk about in executive session, not in public. Okay. But you still have an additional item too on the agenda as well. Yes, we do. So, the next item here is um
adding an additional signer for the weekly warrant. So, Don's been my backup. Um but Don can't do Thursdays and and town hall's not open on Fridays anymore. So, um yeah, the Friday thing killed me unfortunately. I'm in the city on Wednesday and Thursdays for work. So,
that's a little complaint. That's one. That's three. That's fine. So, I guess the question is if Carl or um Kim could be a backup and the problem is I am I'm going away
tomorrow for the weekend and then I'm back. What's that? It's Wednesday. That's a weekend for him. I know. Welcome to Mainland. I can work I can work from wherever. So, I'm not going up on a Friday night for the weekend. He'll be back September
30th. Carl, what's your availability like on Thursdays? I'm glad to be a backup as long as nobody else wants the position. You're your primary. You're not backup. I'm I'm glad. I I move to add Carl Pike as an
additional signer of the weekly warrant in the event that the chair is unable to do so. Second. All should we say replacing Don Alenbrite just because we just because we can only have one. Yep. Yep. Okay. All right, included that, Trisha.
Um, all right. All those in favor? I I I We That's unanimous. We don't have any meeting minutes or no town admin report. Uh, no comments. Next regular meeting is next Tuesday. Does Keith want to say anything or is he
good? Did you want to say anything? Since we talked about your contract. Okay. All right. All right. Um, would we will we need to not to circle back, but if we're getting edits of this and everything, will we need to actually meet or can that get just posted?
What? The the job description? We'll have to vote on a final job description. So, do we want to But that's not for the interim. That's for the full-time hire, which I think we want to establish. I thought we still wanted to use that for the I'll just Okay. All right. Never mind then. I
think um we need it for the posting and I think we want to establish if we're doing a working group we would want to establish that as well. Yeah. Okay. Then we don't need to do I was going to say do we want to have a meeting like an executive next week but that's we probably don't need to have that much of a I think we need to wait and see what
happens with the interim because we might need it we might want to have it for a contract with an interim. Sure. Maybe um but we need to see how fast that happens. We didn't last time but you didn't. Nope. Okay. It was essentially you will serve as town administrator and
this is the amount of time and this is the amount of money. Okay. Pretty all right. Seemed pretty standard. Okay. Then um so move to adjourn and uh actually move to res uh adjourn open session and
recess to executive session not to return to open session for the purpose of to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with non-union personnel. Town administrator second all right it's a roll call all um
all those in favor Eric I. Kim I K pike I All right to exe