e probably we are okay um I'm gonna go ahead and call this meeting at the shs fa select board order today is Thursday March 6 25 this is a special meeting of
the um of the select board we only have um well two items on our agenda um first is to interview candidates for the Town Administrator position uh we will then be going into executive session for the
select board members to deliberate we will be coming back into Open Session if assuming that we have made a decision during that um executive session um to announce our decision so um first order
of business is to um introduce so we'll just quickly introduce ourselves uh Melissa yes board co-chair ni and Rita frell slick board co-chair Eric stalker not
SLI he does everything else except for co-chairman um so um what we're gonna do this evening Adam is um go ahead and uh take turns asking questions as you'll see this is a hybrid format so we have
um Town's people here and I think a few folks um who are participating um remotely and that's how we handle our um select board meetings so first of all I want to thank you for your interest in the in the position I know you've been
through one um set of uh interviews and um the delay was caused by me I'll take all responsibility um in our getting to the meeting tonight because I was uh I was away um so as I said we'll go into
executive session we have two candidates that we're interviewing this evening um then uh we'll go back into Open Session to make the decision and the hiring is contingent upon um doing uh reference checks and Su successful negotiation um
with the candidate who we identified so I think Melissa is gonna lead off as the first questioner yes um thank you Adam uh what sorry why did you apply for this position tell us
something about yourself we would not be able to learn from your resume what are three things that are most important to you in J two things important to me are mental health and getting
results why I applied is some my board members I've had a little bit of uh some division going on in the town of Temperon um which which takes away from the my mind the productivity of the Town um
I'm proud of the results that we've done over there but you know the good leader knows when to fold the cards and uh I think that's where I'm at in Templeton and I saw the town of shuberry at I I like small towns I I right now I'm in a town of 8,000 but it's really I looked
at the size of shuberry and I I said to myself this is similar to philipson size population wise and I really had interest and I'm from the wild west myself chick originally so that's that's why I put in for my
interest for this position okay um can you describe your approach to communication with and managing staff um I I try not to ask you all the questions at
once um and uh just talk about what first steps you would take if you were hired at Our Town Administrator well I I know Gabe doing a fabulous job and I would want to look at the chart of accounts I would want to look at U looking at the omnius budget as opposed
to the line item budget um working with departments I have a great relationship with uh Town departments uh in town and I would look at other ways that we could accomplish things you know it's really hearing them out hearing
what they have to say and sometimes you have back and forth sometimes you don't agree but at the end of the day as long as you have that open communication hear them out look at the facts and then you have to make a decision that's that's the effective thing of being an administrator making a
decision um and what have you done in the past to strengthen a team 10 employees while maintaining accountability from those samees we have we we had department head meetings where
the department heads office come in it allows for input from all the Departments they voice their concerns they voice you have that open dialogue obviously I always leave my door open I have that my own little policy to keep my door open so anybody could come in
and talk to me so they feel like they there's always an open door I think that's important if I don't answer your questions all the way please jump in and okay um yeah I think that's uh maybe just
First Steps what what are the first things you would do sounds like you said you would meet with department heads is there anything else and look at the budget meet with the department heads I'm sure the budget's fine but you know I I like going over it because I I think I have a different style than what you're what you're doing here in shs
Berry obviously I would work with the select court on that uh to implement that because you're obviously the elected leaders of the town and uh my job is to be Provide support provide that critical support and be your agent
that's my job so so I I kind of need to have well I need that board supportive and just one of the things we got to do thank you okay thanks Adam um I would say this this question it might be
similar to what you just were talking about but here I'll I'll ask it as it's written here please tell us about your leadership style and then subset of that would be how do you build trust and effective working relationships with department heads and elector elected officials bring them all in
and could rephrase that into that question a little bit uh just how do you how do you build effective work relationships the department heads and elected officials how do you how do you how do you do that how do you get what I would like to do is um is do quarter
reports um where the department heads would submit a quarterly report to a select board and that allows a dialogue between the select board and the Departments that's that I think would be a good first step and that way the public knows what's going on that that establishes that trust I think that's
one of the first things I would do I'm not sure if you're doing it now but that's something I would look at doing obviously I would work with the department heads and maybe it's not quarterly maybe it's because I I don't want to come in and ruffle feathers too fast so right so I obviously work with them
before I go to the board okay great um yes tell us about your experience with Municipal Finance including budget prep and Grant application and management well I've done all of it I've done this is my
budget that I've releasing to the select board March 12th so I'm not opening it March 12th be released um but you can see I take a lot of pride in it I do on a work uh we built up St our stabilization account
we've done a lot of tremendous things Finance wise so I'm pretty much do the entire budget myself um now granted to select or to make changes to this budget um but I do the whole thing and uh I do the draft warrant for the board uh is
there the second part of that question this yes so the um including budget prep Grant application and management and I've already I've applied for Grants my favorite one's Community compact they're pretty easy not going to lie some some of these grants are very competitive and and
sometimes it when there's when they're very right to the point it's really it's just putting them in and how do you manage them the deadlines and the receipts and when you have to spend them by and all that how do you work the back end of those grants as they come in if
they're awarded to I usually leave a note next to me on on uh dates to remember because dead you got to work by deadlines so like for budget for example what I do is I do a countdown calendar where the board approves it so we have
each uh when I'm releasing the budget when the department of reviews are when when when the board's voting to approve the warrant it's a countown calendar where the board's on the same page with the administrator so it's really keeping track of the dates and making sure you
don't miss them but the board El in norat too I say it sounds like you have a different process there than we I'm say it's wrong or ours better but generally speaking our finan does the budget with the town Administration it's easier well it's definitely easier
EAS but but um put this way they're very involved in the process and the S really steps in almost at the end of it almost um and the town administr is really the facilitator more the facilitator of the Budget Building Pro do that sound
accurate yes it is and I'm just asking my question I guess would be how did does that sound like something you could work with what do you think about that idea absolutely yeah I could work with I work well with our well we they called a advisory committee in our town but they they don't do the budget um but I work
well with them and it just I'm I guess it would be just a different process right right so I don't to get used to that a little bit of a learning so I just have a followup question to to Eric question so in that case you are securing the budgets
directly from the department heads and you're putting it together and then your advisory committee does plays what role we call it our finance committee so when I released the budget uh so March 12th I'm releasing the budget that following Saturday we have the department reviews all day with the select board an
advisory committee and we go through the entire budget the select board to make Minor Adjustments but I always warn them if you take if you're going to add money there you you got to find it someplace else so you know usually they just make Minor Adjustments uh but yeah it's it's
a different process than what but I I mean it's just a different style so I would have to or a different way to do the [Music] budget okay good
um so how would you plan to engage with Community um residents with residents and Community groups to understand their concerns and followup to that is how would you address a contentious issue
that has divided the community what I would start is with doing copy with the administrator I think that's a good way where folks feel like they become posted on the town website they come set up a time or set up a certain time at the library or
someplace where folks talk me maybe this could be every a couple months three months and have that and there's a it's interesting to ask that question um because we fac some pretty uh divided issues it's treating people with dignity and respect that's the most important
thing and setting up boundaries so I actually learn to really appreciate people that are critical of me because they keep me my toes and even people that I consider could be sometimes difficult at town meeting I still have a great relationship with them because I said look at there's just keep they're
they're just holding me accountable that's their job um so it's really listening to people hearing them out and um giving them their a direct answer giving a direct answer whether they like it or not um so I guess I'm going to follow up
can you give an example of of when that you did that in templon yes uh I have a resident that's very active and uh he was making amendments on the floor right so the first two I'm like oh he wants to move
money there that's okay you you could appropriate it anyway so I let him make a couple amendments but then he wanted to uh make uh an amendment dedicating meals tax to go directly into an account and I'm like
whoa whoa whoa I got up respectfully of course and said with all due respect the select need to discuss the policy our financial management policies before we make any decisions at town meeting because I don't I have to be conscientious of the budget at the same
time to make sure that town meeting doesn't do something that's not allowed by the Department of Revenue or I want to have make sure that the select board as well as the advisory committee making a recommendation have some type of uh what's the pro what's the word I'm
looking for uh policy before we make that move and have town meeting appropriate but if it's minor stuff minor things you know so that's an example example I was at a town couple Town meetings ago and any other sort of more uh non-
toown meeting issues in in Templeton that have been divisive around expenditures libraries um chicken chicken dogs so I I I did have one thing actually I one of the
board members got upset with me because uh we had a abandoned half burn down building so we established a demolition revolving fund and I worked uh to uh we had to get special legislation for which we received from Governor Baker um and then
signed by the general court and then what it did is it created this demolition revolving fund and that we appropriate some free cash into it and I had enough funds to uh put it out the bid tear down the building but it ran into a problem when they when the the hygienist
that was doing the asvestis check he missed the section and so when they're trying to take take down the building they're like whoa we we we gota we gotta remediate this the right way so I ran past the contract end date and I think he he he wanted me to go after
them for liquid damages and I'm like it's not their fault it was an issue that occurred and you have to treat vendors with some dig and respect you know they they worked with us we got it done at the end of the day we knocked it down and we ended up selling the property through the proper
uh purchase uh roughly I think a little over 70,000 to G perty but we spent about 110,000 the ter ter down but that's an example of addressing problem properties utilizing tools thinking of ways where you could get these things done because you see it so often in a
lot of communities where you have these abandoned buildings and what do you do with them um so that that was an example another one where it's got contentious over the contracts I never went out Dam still thund I just you may have
already asked my question I wasn't read let me ask you the question you can say I've already told you that you whatever but uh the question is uh can you give us an example of a work related problem that you've never have never encountered before and I suspect that's one of them
and um how did you educate yourself and involve other people who eventually handle this issue maybe you already answer question you can try it again or think of someone else where I have to educate myself on issue TR to
think so we had some issues with the regional schools and I had to educate myself on the process for considering all options whether we withdraw whether we expand and that was an educational
experience I was on the school committee so I have some experience with that but we were getting unsustainable increases so I had as the administrator to establish a working group to explore all options it wasn't a popular decision and I took some pretty nasty feedback um but
it was the decision I had to make as a Chief Financial Officer is we were getting million dollar increases from my last assessment and I have to explore all options as the Town Administrator so I made that decision uh it was received well by the district but
I had to do what was best for the town of compet and that's my fiduciary responsibility so I I to educate myself more on that process because when I was in chig we didn't have a Regional School District so what was the outcome it's still on
Yelling it's actually part of the reason my last day in templeton's March 17th I had to make a politically unpopular decision so [Music] okay good Melissa so um kind of negotiating
collective bargaining how would you describe your negotiation style um and then um what strengths what are your strengths and weaknesses there's another question too F strengths negotiations talking about
people I enjoy it weaknesses patience um but I love unions I I bargained all my unions over in Templeton they're all they all negotiated uh they have settled contracts and uh quite frankly I think it's important to treat people uh at the
table they have to trust what you're saying to them and and it's a given take right they're not going to get basically I'm not gonna get everything I want you're not gonna get everything you want but what could the town afford that is the question what could the town afford and that's my job so we can make it work
okay if we can but when I when I do the bargaining I do ground rules at the beginning and I usually do it where we have to agree on everything both both uh the union for myself I established ground rules right at the beginning
patience and you actually already as answered the next question how do you apply these skills to Collective Bing but you did already answer that question how many unions do you have here if you mind me asking you question teachers and two two UNS
um okay can you tell us about a time that you moved your department or team forward and um is there anything you would do differently let's say you were uh for
example um you wanted to Institute a new a new policy or or procedure that might not have been popular um it had to do bring people together that that's a good question
what I learned uh is you have to engage your select Bo one that's what I've learned in my time you know being with the town of Templeton because I was elected too so I I understand you get a lot of people that go up to you if you're at the
grocery store if you're at you know bringing up their concerns with in the community it's really to could you kind of yeah it's just it's sort of how did how did you move the the team forward or let's say how did you move the select
board if you're if you had a different way of doing things a different approach and you wanted to steer them in another direction did did you have to do that and and if you did how I would present
facts facts and I I like one pagers because they're very simple follow and and their bullet points uh I would go in that approach when it comes to looking at making a decision and if it's really unpopular proba it might be two three
pages and what was the response Oh I thought this was a theoretical question my bad now now give you an example of of something that yeah um
well we really have anything that I could recall that's thought in my head to be honest okay yeah I'm not going to BS you yeah okay yeah all right good thank you more don't get relaxed yeah he's very um how would you describe your
approach the role of the Town Administrator how would you measure your own success what indicators indicators would you look for in the first year and what about in five years that they need would there be different indicators so if I could kind of answer that in
part sure because one thing I'm really proud of is uh we took an old elementary school and we put it out to bid and we brought we're bringing the baleville school Apartments 49 of the 54 units are affordable housing in the Commonwealth we have a crisis with affordable housing
it's something that needs to be addressed and it's really engaging the community and for folks to really be supportive of this crisis we have a crisis but there's opportunities because if I had to take that building and tear
that thing down probably would have been a million dollars no joke a million but instead we're making the bille school apartment complex project which is a $40 million investment in the community I've seen their project they did in Bridgewater MPC development beautiful project those are the things I want to
bring to shoots Barry I want to be able to take or use whatever I can pool wise putting out the bid if you have any old buildings I don't know and bringing using these opportunities whether it be bringing the Cannabis industry or
affordable housing it's it's serious it needs to be addressed and I feel like that's that those would be my priorities and fringing and all that new grow is there anything else in terms of your that you would hope to achieve
let's say you know beyond um that keep keep the finances down well continue the finances I think that's the most important thing in my my opinion the M does make sure you have a balanced
budget okay so um how would you approach a large project which needs to be completed um do you have any specific experience to drop on with a large project I AG with the bable school par project putting that out the bid um
coming up with a developer design ini agreement what what I do is it's small steps because if you look at the whole thing you're going to get stressed out so I do it in small steps okay I know everything about the building got to get all this specifications together put the
bid package together see what interests are out there maybe even put together a disposition committed right it's all taking small steps but having those deadlines meeting them and to at least get it done with in a couple years or have some type of time
frame and what if it lacked funding that's always a challenge resources would you yeah we have a bridge in town that um we tried doing a Deb exclusion for the first time went up for vote it failed by two votes um and quite frankly we spent about you know roughly $200,000
on the design that's that's a challenge like if you don't have the funding then you have to look for grant opportunities that was a bridge yeah yes a bridge in town really disappointing when it failed but I I understand people you know
people want to keep their taxes low so I I I get both sides they feel the states by going to come take care of the bridge but State can only bck so much and only so many so much resources out
there okay I'm going to just um I want you to consider the following situation your elected board at a public meeting appears anxious and ready to vote on an important policy decision that you firmly believe would be detrimental to the town the issue had
not been discussed previously what would you do how would you do it was it on the agenda uh I don't have the answer to that question can't do anything let's see it was on
the agenda you put it on the agenda um do you create the so that means I'm involved with preparation of the okay with with with the chair with the chair okay all right okay so you have it on
the agenda but you have a very reticent board they don't understand it's something that maybe needs a timely um [Music] decision um if I didn't agree with it though if you didn't agree with it I would try to delay delay is your friend
and how would you do that I would say I need to get more facts on this look look into uh because sometimes you don't want to make decisions on spur at the moment we I was talking about town meaning changing numbers and all that when decisions like that are made there needs
to be thorough research and that's my job as the agent the board is to provide the board with as much information as possible now granted whatever decision the board makes the board makes and I have to fulfill what you decided it's not my job to counter you or I don't
undermine you know what my job is to support you and if you made that decision I have to embrace that decision whether I agree personally or not thank you welcome which leads to my favorite question I asked many boards when we appoint somebody um can you give
an example where you have had oh I'm sorry can you give an example where you have had to make a decision uh that you personally disagreed with for the better of the town or larger good or in this case I guess followed
through with one that you didn't just you may have disagreed how do you go about settling that for yourself I try to take out my personal feelings with the performance of my ities and I have to separate the two um
so I I don't recall a time where I had a personal uh issue because I try to really separate that my personal feelings are my personal feelings with me doing my job I'm doing my job I think it's very important that I separate
those two there's probably been a time that but I just don't recall specific this me good question ready to run answer so um what would you do if a select board member was consistently trying to
circumvent established procedures talk to the chair our audience thought that was funny talk to the chair thought that was funny that's what I do talk to the chair I mean I'm not gonna I'm gonna try to talk to that Member First give him an opportunity you
know but I'm not you're my bosses right so I can only do so much much you're elected by the community so but I will try to talk to that member then I would speak with the chair if I felt like I was not getting anywhere and then maybe documented I don't
know email or something um so just lastly do you have any questions for us yes how how was your budget looking I guess I'll let Gabe uh address that sorry I didn't mean throw that up
relased your information um we have challenges um it is mostly done at this point we're waiting for school numbers and so the Final Cup we have a very early town meeting April 26th so we are down on the
final stretch um and the next few board meetings and people please watch um where they are going to work out how they how fund the budget so there is a deficit that we're trying to close and we all start out that way I don't know if a town that doesn't have one um and
dealing with the school and their budgets and their needs um is what we're doing so we're almost there and um and that's about all I want to say I mean besides the deficit part it sounds like it's moving along but I understand what you're saying you have to work your way
through it right we're working our other questions and what kind of nice restaurants do you have in n we we have the Leever Coop we're um just down the road but no shsb has no
essentially no commercial establishments I mean we have a couple of you know contractors um but we have no stores we did the shoot for Athletic Club oh sorry yes we have the shits faury
Athletic Club um which is um is a used by the community is also there's a bar in there they and sometimes there are town events there the library know has um events and food
is prepared but there's no there's no if you want to go get a sandwich I don't even know the co-op hasn't General Store newand General Store yes that's and that is equidistant to you know to the right I never think of it I never think of
going that way but so if I get hired I'm bring my own lunch on yeah you probably order it the night before just tell have it ready you start at 7 in the morning can your way in yeah that's true there's a Dunkin' Donuts
right that pass by in Orange so any other questions I think I'm covered I'm going to do some more research and in shoots vary um in addition to what I've already done and I want to thank all of you for your time and Gabe for your service because I know
how challenging being a public service you're subject to a lot of criticism um but I want to to say you it's I appreciate all you do and thank you for this opportunity it Tru means a lot to me and I probably should give you non gray resumes and it sounds like you are
available after March 17th is that correct that's correct okay um and uh yes my I guess my resumate turned out great because I took a picture I apologize for that figured it out so thank [Laughter]
you app it thank you so much nice to meet you again to meet you have a good evening you too you can anybody elsee there you go thank you you're welc
AC I was gonna use a 12 oce weightlifting but then I yeah I icri people the closest thing you could have to a town own bar not a bar not a town own but pretty
close Okay multiple days for week Friday sometimes Satur Tuesday Monday no lunches don't open till yes but
I you can take it and then if you want to share it with um anybody else I just yeah yeah yeah what is the what um knee
thing I am having trouble with my knee I have a torn meniscus that they fixed but the problem with it is doesn't grow back when they cut it no know you get Artis we I have terrible arthritis and it's acting up because yeah um
reading your book is is yeah I have something you can borrow to it out of you um but it's been acting up and the and when I just went to the he said you're not ready for and went here he said to me question I'm gonna
ask her to ask it El can you ask your question could you please tell us who of the public room with you I'm sorry I can't see who is in the room with you yeah I'll give you a rundown it's um Penny Kim Michael Z Merl um Mand thank
you Gale fiker Tom sefor the next candidate uh Gabe and the three of us is that helpful thank you yes very helpful appreciate that I wish there was a way we could
make the room part of the camera larger but I have not found the Sol for that that's okay thank you Hy if you're ready yeah we're ready hi Haley um I'm Rita frell co-chair of the select board Alissa M son also coair
Eric stalker um okay so welcome um I want to thank you for your interest in the position of Town Administrator um so this evening the three of us will be taking turns asking um same list of
questions that we did to the other candidate and um just so you know the process uh after we complete um the interview the select board will be going into executive session to discuss um
our uh opinions and make a decision and then we'll be coming back into Open Session to um announce that decision assuming we we make one this evening uh hiring will be contingent upon uh
reference checks and a successful negotiation with the candidate so we're going to go ahead and get started with Melissa yes thank you for coming um why did you apply for this position and can
you tell us something about yourself that we would not be able to learn from your resume and there's a followup book um so I applied to this position because it's the next logical step um for the past six or so years I've been the senior center director well half of that
in ammer and then the other half in Bernardston um but I've been really interested in progressing to you know Town manager Town administrative level um and so to kind of prepare myself for that I started about a year or so ago an NBA program through Springfield college
and I will be finishing the the mass Municipal suff leadership certificate program this April or May um so I've been kind of setting the the academic framework you know I have a lot of you know adjacent experience if not directly
as a Town Administrator but when you're a department head you're making similar sorts of decisions uh what you wouldn't know on my resume H well I said this in my first interview uh you wouldn't know that I'm the oldest of five kids and you wouldn't know that
I grew up in a working class household or that I'm the first person in my family to go to college um but all those things are super important um and they've been a big driver in me always self-starting and wanting to do better and wanting to set a good example for my
siblings and on a more fun note um I don't put on my resume that I love craft beer and particularly I love tree house um especially their summer concerts I like always the first one in my family to a college so you know yes what three
things um what are three things that are most important to you in a job um good communication I think that's everyone's answer but it is really important um right now the team that I work with my staff I've hired all of them and we have
ex we're like always talking um whether that's at work after work we leave at 4:00 we don't get in our cars until 4:30 because we're all talking in the parking lot um so once you have that kind of comfortable relationship it really does make all the difference um I also like
just you know people who have a sense of where they want to go you know one of the things that stood out to me about Sho faas you have those long-term plans you're thinking about climate change you're making plans for the future um those are things that I find really important I'm not not a big fan of
indecision um the third thing I like when people I work with have a good sense of humor that's that's critical I think you if you're going to be somewhere for eight hours a day you need to enjoy what you're doing and the people you're working with um can you describe your approach
to communication with and managing staff so again this staff um I've hired all of them and I work with three full-timers and one part-timer and then we also have I think about 30 or so volunteers um it's talking a lot um
typically what I do to save time is if it's something that everyone has to know that's like an email or a teams message so that that can just get deiminated very quickly um but my style just you know you try to mirror people you try to be where they're at you know um you pay
attention to the little things so that when you're communicating with someone they understand that you've paid attention to what they're saying lots of active listening um communication really is mostly listening um so you have to understand that when you're going into it and then you know I think back for SE
kindergarten you treat people the way you want to be treated and you should communicate with that respect and um what would be your first steps if you were to be appointed sh various Town Administrator I would meet with as many people as possible you know
the first 30 60 days I want to meet with as many people in town as I can as many department heads as many committee members um and then also people and you know you work with the F call you work with other communities uh thankfully I already know some of the key players in
Amish but I would say really the focus is on establishing those connections because if you don't lay that groundwork your job will be so much harder um after that and have you been in a situation where you had to do some intervention
with your team to make it stronger and give us an example of that um so there have been occasions where I have had to terminate an employee uh the most recent of which we I had hired someone to be an activities coordinator you know just set
up activities schedule programs that sort of thing this individual so excited about the job he came and talked to me like every every week you made a decision we made a decision um and so I did offer him the position but what became very clear to me after he started
was that there were some memory issues and the quality of his work was not what I would have expected from someone with his experience and so I started working very closely with him you know if I wanted him to do something I would walk it through with him give him write
things down but somehow even in the F minute walk from my office to his death he just wasn't it wasn't being retained um you know he was asking staff the same question so I documented everything you know we did some warnings some Progressive things
and then eventually I said to HR you know I've got a real problem here you know the six months probationary period is coming up and unfortunately there's just nothing I can do to make the situation work and so that was one of the harder conversations um you know because here you are telling someone who
was a professional and um that they were having those kind of problems but he did acknowledge that that was some because concern from his family as well um so I think he he took it as well as you can but it was certainly a hard conversation just this maybe some
related question just a more general question the same thing but um just what what's your what would you view as your leadership style how would you build an effective working relationship with department heads and elected officials so I always tell people you know I don't want to micromanaging
I want you to be able to do your job and have the autonomy that you need to do your job you know you are the professional in that role um the things that are important to me are you know creativity um you know being independent being self-starter um you know those are you
know if you're ever in a pinch if you're creative if you have a small budget if you have aging equipment and you've got to make de with what you've got being creative can be very handy um and so I just I reinforce that and meetings you know I let them know I'm new I there's a
lot of things I don't know eventually that will not always be true um but I want to learn from you in the beginning I want us to have a good rapport I want you to feel like you can come and talk to me you know when I'm in my office the door is always open and even if I close it I can guarantee you someone will
still knock on the door CU they know they can come to me um it's a blessing and curse but okay um so um tell us about your experience with Municipal Finance including budget preparation and Grant applications and
management um so budget preparation for the senior center I'm responsible for that we you know I just submitted the budget not too long ago um in amorist it's about a $400,000 budget for um from the town appropriated side and then
usually about another 3 to 400 in what I have to get U you know donations or grants so yes I have a lot of Grant experience um you know the last one I was able to acquire we did a EV with pbta to expand transportation service to
older adults um that one was like $35,000 um I've gotten other grants for modernization for new programming meals programs um you know State ear marks working closely with our state reps uh my the budget that I worked with in
Bernardston was higher because I was responsible for building maintenance so that typically was maybe like $12 million when you factor in be the elevator and all the electrical and that sort of thing but you know again um in preparing for this interview I did I did a pretty
deep dive um in your finances and again one of the things that I really like is just that clear everything is presented and the care that goes into that um you know it can not every Community is that forthcoming but I really liked that about shoots bery and certainly one of the my top priorities would be working
with the superintendent and you know getting a handle on the school budget because that is going to be an issue for many years to come and I think you have to know that going into it um you know I did a little bit of reading on a statutory method and how you know it seems like this community is advocating
more vigorously than others for that um so I I think I've gotten enough of a shallow understanding that I could pretty easily just you know speak with you and other people on the board and get a deeper understanding with the with grants there's deadlines and there's a a lot of
management behind the scenes finding new ones how do you go about managing kind of that behind the scenes as you're applying for Grant uh it's tough um you know and I think you have to be realistic you know sometimes people think oh it's a grant and that's just a free check but it's not you know like you said there's a lot of work um you
know so I try to familiarize myself with Grant Cycles you know for example I know every spring or summer mcoa M aging is going to offer a whole slew of Grant okay so I'm going to set aside some time for that uh one thing I had mentioned in my first interview is I think AI helps a
lot with that you know you don't have to slog through all the research it can pull it for you or you can give it the sources that you want it to use and it can do that analysis so that alone is like a huge timesaver you know you don't have to put so much into that on the
front end and then you just want to be of course checking the work and making sure that you're hitting the deadlines and there's going to be monitoring that's going to have to happen in auditing um so just you know I write everything down in my my planner that is pretty old school of me but that's what
works um and so yeah you know you just have to check in with yourself a lot sure thatat well I just had a followup question about the building maintenance that you did in burnston what what buildings were you responsible the
powers Institute uh where the senior center was housed and it was also the building where the historical Society was up in the attic okay and so what did you have to do I was responsible for making sure that all the you know the
electrical those bills were paid um we had kitchen equipment that needed to be maintained we had the elevator was a huge expense um you know working with the highway department for clearing out the driveway um it was several years ago so
it's not like front of my mind but anything you can think of building wise when something went wrong I had to follow the repair man and come get to fix it um and I guess my my other question is you had a you know discreet portion
of the larger town of Amor's budget which um you know uh is is much much more substantial than the town of shutesbury how familiar are you with the kind of overall um
the overall Town budget in am so the overall budget I mean I read it I definitely go through it um I spent more time kind of preparing for this community just looking at how you know you get so much of your tax levy from the property taxes I think a lot even
higher than Amis which is still pretty high um so that's obviously a concern and you know certainly for me knowing you've got people on fixed incomes you've got you know families who might be struggling um you know how do you B that particularly when you offer things like your senior tax work off program
that money has to come from somewhere um you know where the class that I'm in right now is all Finance so it's looking at budgets looking at how do you best make Cuts how do you submit Capital planning um so that's a class that I'm really interested in and um you know
it's giv me a little bit more broader experience and did you have to present before either the ERS Town Council or the they have a finance committee I thankfully don't have to go to the fulltime council meeting but I do a
budget presentations with the finance committee which then they take thank you um so I have a question regarding Community engagement and um how you
would plan to engage with um Town residents Community groups to understand their concerns so this is not just like as an introduction right but like as a continual thing yes um well an amers Paul does the cup of Joe's so he'll go
to little different coffee shops you could do something very similar with your library here um you know not knowing how social media Savvy people are but that's a great Outlet too uh if you've got people on either like next door or Facebook who are active on that
you know do Flyers um you know I think there's a lot of examples out there and I certainly appreciate that you know if you don't hear from people you don't know what you don't know and you don't know what direction folks might want the town to go in um you know so I would
probably one one thing I do like doing is open houses you know there are big projects that are going on have an open house and have people come in and you know you could have different departments there talking about their roles or big initiatives um so yeah I think you can I like to do a mix of
formal and informal probably more heavy on informal uh I think that's for you that some of your best discussions and if there was a contentious issue that seemingly dividing the community how would you approach that so Amis has lots of
contentious issues really I have lots of experience to draw from um I think the most the most important thing is you always have to keep your pool once you lose your your pool you lose the whole game um you know so just one I mean people
have person rights so you have to balance that out too but I think that you can set some expectations and you can set a culture where people know that you know you have to be at least a little respectful you know I've had people call me all sorts of names and now I'm really good at saying you know I
want to have this conversation with you but this clearly is not the time you know let's meet again when cooler heads prevail um you know so I'm definitely not afraid of that I worked my very first job after graduating UMass was at Craigs store shelter it's the only wet
shelter in I think at least western Mass my very first night on my own as shelter manager someone came in intoxicated threw a chair across the room and tried to get into a fist fight with another gentleman and I was the one who had to separate them and keep control and tell
the student volunteers what to do and it's just been great ever since the HS keep coming good thank you nobody select me's ever thrown a [Laughter]
chair anyway um maybe this may you've already told us one one difficult situation can you can you give us an example of a work rated problem that you've encountered you never faced before and how did you educate yourself on how to deal with it eventually how did you deal with it I
think it's told us one example yeah I've got lots of examples but one of the ones that was most challenging for me when I first got into municipal government so I had one from working at the survival center where I had interned in the food pantry then I volunteered then I got to
run the food pantry and when I went to Bernardston you know in at the St everybody knew me everybody knew me from when I was still in undergrad to when I had progressed they didn't know me in bernston and I got a lot of well my granddaughter is older than you so I
don't have to listen to you and it really it taught me how to not Advocate but just stand up for yourself and say you know that may be true I'm younger and I will always be younger but there still is a level of respect that has to come with that there still is an
understanding of what the policies and procedures are and while I'm certainly happy to talk with you about them and maybe we can change something you know there has to be some base level of acceptance and that was hard for some of the folks I worked with it was really tough for them to see me as their
supervisor um and with that you know I just go back to what I said earlier you document it might be a new employee it might be a legacy employee but you you start your paper trail you're good and your bad because they can all be bad all the time um and then you just start that
Progressive chain and hopefully things Rectify themselves before you have to get to a more serious level thank you um how would you describe your negotiation style what are strengths and weaknesses and how do you apply your skills in the margeting collective
marketing situation so I I've only mock I said this in my first interview I've done mock collective bargaining um but I do have two Union employees and I have a fairly good Poker Face I'm very stubborn so I count those
as strengths when you neg um but I can also see reason you know I might go into it thinking okay this is what I want but then as you're talking maybe that's a trade-off I could make you know maybe that's something and I'm
definitely not afraid to say well I need more time to think about that you know curving yourself from just immediately saying yes or no one way or the other just buying your time buying yourself extra time to think um and go a long way so
um okay um can you tell us um give an example of a time when you had to um move your department or or team ahead on on something that they might not have been real excited um about and um you
know how did you go through that process proc so not quite my team but so we have a nonprofit group the friends of the Mr Senior Center and since the pandemic their fundraising capacity has gone significantly down um you know where
once they may have been pulling in $50,000 in a fundraiser now it's more like 10 or 12 for the year so when I first started we would mail our newsletter to 3600 houses so that what that entailed
was you do the newsletter but then you set aside two weeks to fold and tape and package everything for bulk mail well it ended up costing somewhere usually in the ballpark of 25 to $30,000 a year now if
you're bringing in half of that the numbers don't add up so I was the unpopular one who said we need to stop this we have to Pivot to all online we cannot afford to keep doing this um and I still hear people say how much they
don't like that and I sympathize and you know we do have some in paper or some that we mail um but for me that was a simple numbers decision we can do this but at such a great cost that it's not worth it um and again you know stood my ground on that I
wasn't going to falter because it was super important um and so yeah you know I just held the line of we need to be fiscally responsible we can't can't make this guy decision anymore can I ask it's it's sort of not on here
but who is your direct supervisor Paul B oh so you work okay so how would you describe your approach to the role of a Town Administrator and how would you measure your success in that role um maybe for the first the first year and maybe five
years into it what if there was a difference the way it measures sucess first year probably just no fires right if everything the wheels are on the good no but um more seriously just having an understanding you know like again 30 first 30 60 days I want to be
meeting with people I want to be analyzing your your past budgets I want to be looking at your bylaws you know particular your Sol War by um you know I want to get a pretty concrete sense of where we're at right now um and then throughout the year just be working on
you know you have to understand why things are the way they are before you can try to make improvements unless it's really obvious but that's not always the case um you know and in 5 years I would hope that we can certainly come to some better agreement about the Regional
Schools I would like to see have a plan of how we're going to deal with aging infrastructure um and then be looking at you know I like what you're doing with digital Equity I think we can push that a little farther and I think that you have to there has to be some plan for
how we're going to address keeping people in their homes and not you know out taxing them while bringing in some new Revenue sources whether that's grants or something else but that that certainly would take five years to try to accomplish um and then I'd see where
else you want to go great thank you um how would you approach a large project which needs to be completed um do you have any specific experience to draw on so I like to approach not U you
know you want to break it down you want to delegate I think that's such a that's a skill I wish I had really pushed myself to utilize earlier in my career um you know you want to build a good team of people who can tackle the problem with you but not so great a team that you're just talking and you're not
getting much done um you know you want to set benchmarks um one of the ways that I like to track what I'm doing as an Excel I'll make a spreadsheet you know I want to do this by this time this by this time and you know this is what I'm going to hope to have these are my
volunteers so I kind of get really um down in the weeds with the details but it's helpful um and then you you want to check in you want to re-evaluate um you don't want to get so myopic that you don't think well let me make sure I'm doing the right
thing and then and then what if that project lacked funding either part of the gr or in the entirety that's a tough decision and certainly one that I I would want to talk with you as a select board and the finance committee about you know how important is this where can
we rank this you know are there temporary funds that we can go after after um you know at the end of the day it's hard and like I said the numbers are going to be what they are but I think hopefully you can catch it with enough time to make a plan B I always
like to have a plan b or a plan C because something will go wrong you got to be able to adapt okay um I'm just going to give you a a situation that and I'd like to hear how you would um deal with it so your
elected board say this select board um at a public meeting appears very anxious and ready to vote on an important policy decision that you firmly believe would be detrimental to the town um the issue
had not been discussed previously what would you do to what would be your approach with with the board it was tricky and it's always context dependent so I like to clarify everything with us to say um hopefully we have built up
enough trust and before that if I said can we maybe talk about this you know let me make one last pitch as long as I can make one pitch I'm happy you know the ultimately I'm working at your hand and what the s for wants to do is what
we're going to do um I just always like to have the ability to say well let me let me frame it from this perspective I do this all the time at work you know whether my staff are I can't believe this person did this to me I'm like well did you reframe it and maybe think about it from a different angle um you know
and certainly if there's anxiety or pressure to do something that's not usually a good way to make a decision um so reinforcing that and just asking for one last chance uh to kind of be my case thank you all right what would you
do if a select board member was consistently trying to circumvent established procedures well first would be a conversation you know just look this is either what's in the bylaws this is what's the state law um you know you
can't be afraid to to have those conversations and to be really direct and you know you're an elected official so it's different um you would hope that you wouldn't have to go to like the state ethics board but
if it was bad enough you know that might be a tool in the toolkit um but I think for the most part people don't want to do the wrong thing um they might think that it they can do it for whatever reason but policies are policies and you
know particularly in public um public government everything should be above bug board you don't want your town people to lose trust in you because then they lose trust in the process and that's not helpful for anyone um so I would bring it back to that and I would kind of you know give him a little guil
[Laughter] trip um so lastly do you have any questions for us my notes there um so now that I talked about what I thought my priorities would be what are your priorities in your Town
Administrator I um well I can speak from a little bit of of things that I've been working with Gabe on um is bringing us a little bit into the technology world and updating some out ofate infrastructure we have here in town hall um and and and
you know I realize that's not something we can do all at once although that would be my hope um but you know slow increments of that one of them is the the newsletter being a combination of imprint and online um and other things
digital file management and things of that nature so that's kind of what I have gravitated on is we've been working so closely in this transition um so it's kind of one of my Lees and I know we have to be fiscally responsible in that
too um I think my priorities um would be to um maybe up the level of professionalism um and to you know I
think it goes hand inand with what Melissa talked about of having good information um you know Finding better ways to communicate with the community I mean already you know I think all of us
spend a lot of time with spent much more time in this transition time but we have a lot going on in shitur um and not just the regular you know kind of routine Town business so for a small community
um there's you know we have litigation we have we're building a library um and so there's a lot on us and I think people don't always see that or understand that um I think this goes for
the for the Town Administrator but yeah I would like to to see how we might improve communication um and uh obviously Provide support to the new 10 administrators so that person can be
successful and take some of the bur away I guess I'd say that um I'd like to I'd like to figure out how to delegate responsibility better than we do not just from us just in general in town and and a sort of a subset of that and I'm not really sure there's an answer to it
but I'd like to try to figure out is it seems to me I mean there's there's very little youth movement in this youth particip particip participation what it back for in government and I I understand all that I mean I have kids and I get the deal you know you get kids
and know but but but you know I don't it seems to me that people used to be more involved so if that's true or if it could be true um that's something I think we should work towards yeah no I think that is true at the MMA conference you people were talking about there is less interest in government and part of
it is because discourse is kind of crumbled particularly over the last several years um so it is a challenge to get people to come out question I add one more thing just sitting in this room for mind um uh the
same um we we have issues with our physical assets so um if you take a look around this room you know I come in here and and cringe every time and we haven't figured out a way we haven't figured out a a
budget um we have a major paper problem in this community as in way too much you you don't have I I know a lot of work has been done there was a lot of research done around um how to deal with but there's no implementation so you
know I think if we could go back to sort of policies and plans and say okay you know we had that that group that looked at um at at storage information storage and let's let's revisit what were their
recommendations what what haven't you know what haven't we done we have we have policies that we've adopted and you know we we strugg to like have a comprehensive listing of what are all those policies so sometimes I'm
scratching my head and saying do we have a social media policy I don't remember but I have nowhere to look either and you know we've had a a web committee that's done a tremendous job in in moving us forward and getting our website up and going but
they they have to have the information from us too and they have to you know have the um and we you know we have to follow through so there's a lot of things we need to follow through on and the physical plant is you know it's just
one of them along with bunch of other Stu so the paper is that just old files that haven't been digitized a little bit of that the um my answering your question is I should be able to find it somewhere on a on the
computer somewhere and just be look at it and then not what is it organization okay um we are working on um disposing of all the miscellanous stuff that's hanging around town hall you can now walk into the storage closet
um we started a records um retention issue where people are going through their stuff they're they're going to the state for disposal of their records we don't have places to store these things we do need to explore how to store the
cloud so that our records can be done um that way and accessed that way so it is just the infancy of doing it um is that's actually a good thing especially for an incoming Town manager it is set
the tone yeah um now do you have a Personnel policy Melissa yes do we do have me we also in the middle of revising the old one that is very at of date and we'll be much larger when we're finished um
there's there's a lot of uh things that we have to bring in in into it to to update it we do have something though how many unions like Highway and police because you're Volunteer Fire right yeah so it would be just teachers
union and teach okay no not not not H um I'm just curious do you know how many students in shury are enrolled in the Regional School I can't find that information
anywhere that you have I'm gonna take a guess and say maybe I'll say maybe 120 at the highest level but I think it's less than that okay okay but you're not at the statutory method yet yeah yes we are you
are we are with a fiveyear rolling average modified okay if you give me the job I have a lot more questions about I won't get into that now okay um no I think I think that
pretty well covers it is there anything else you need from me no um just uh I think as I said at the outset we're going to go into executive session now um hope to make a decision this evening
which we will announce then in um go back into public session and um yeah I guess my only other question is um if we were to select you what's your availability how
much look to start on April 7th give myself a couple weeks to wrap things up in amers and then take a break in between I didn't do that last time and I I didn't do it's a good good decision okay I think that's it well
thank you so much for coming for having really appreciate likewise so happy for the opportunity nice to meet you nice to meet you as well all of you as well exective session for the work yes because I didn't bring
my little cheek P oh it's right here it's right here well it was in the room it was um and we used it last time to stick it up on the door go for it that's very good way too much
chocolate is that a down they I don't know for some reason they this was very this chocolate was very popular wa yeah the committe um all right so
um yeah yes so we're GNA vote but you can leave whatever thank you all for coming you can come back I don't well here's what we can't well here's here's what we can do here's the technology thing we can do I'll put
everyone online in a waiting room go home log in you'll be in the waiting room and then when we are finished we will pop you all back how does that work we use a
time oh yeah yeah thank okay good night okay so um thank you we're going to vote to go into
executive session for reason number two to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union Personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions contract negotiations with non-union Personnel um
we will be going back into Open Session um and we need to take a roll call vote to um initiate and make sure everybody who is up there y we do our R we'll do the roll call vote all
right uh do I hear a motion to go into executive session I make a motion we go into executive session I have a motion and a second um all those in favor signify by saying I make peace O'Neal I barl I okay thank you all
right everybody I'm gonna put you if you'd like to stay I'm putting you all in a waiting room so give me one moment second board me this get that up and running okay
there's people in the way there are they where you told them to be yeah there here they come good job and that worked great and I figured out how to put them in the waiting room okay now and
everybody seemingly got home safely looks like good okay um uh sorry it took us a little bit longer um but uh the SLI board shb s board is back in session
back in public session it's uh now 708 approximately 709 um and we wanted to announce that we have um selected Haley Bolton as um shoots Berry's
they're all CL administrator and this is um of course subject to uh reference checks and uh successful negotiation of contract we have notified Haley um that was part of the delay we've also
notified um Adam um and uh she's very thrilled um to uh so I assume she will accept position and we will get the contract underway um and we have uh probably the
you know we have to we have to deal with the start date so we want to make sure she gets time off but you know we're hoping we can uh push it up just a little bit so stay tuned on that and um thank you all for coming this evening um
it's nice to have a a turnout so and appreciate the work of the search committee absolutely who happy some of them are on thank you for that all right um so we are going to
adjourn yes we we did our duty tonight do I hear a motion to adjourn the SL board I will make a motion we adjourn the SLO meeting second second okay all those in favor signify by saying I make peace oal I Stell I thanks again bye bye
thank you everybody thank you