Grafton’s town administrator search seeks residents’ needs
The Town Administrator Screening Committee has 8-10 weeks to find five candidates who are ready to shape the town of Grafton.
The winner, chosen by the Select Board at the end of the process, will inherit a town that is reshaping its fire department, trying to attract new business, and has had recent financial difficulty that prompted a Proposition 2 1/2 override.
And on top of it all? The COVID-19 pandemic is still happening.
Meeting for the first time Monday, the committee met with Bernard Lynch and other representatives from Community Paradigm Associates, the search firm charged with finding appropriate candidates. Within the next six weeks, the firm plans to complete a profile of Grafton and its needs, advertise, and conduct initial interviews.
“It’s been 10 years since you last hired a town administrator,” Lynch said. “Grafton has changed. Every town has changed.”
For at-large members Stephen Burke and Chris LeMay, there’s a little deja vu. Burke, who has a background in administrative hiring, chaired the TA search committee that ended in the hiring of Tim McInerney while LeMay, a former selectman, took part in the search for both McInerney and his predecessor, Natalie Lashmit.
Finance Committee Chair Mark Haddad was appointed chair for the new group, while School Committee member Elizabeth Spinney was voted vice chair and Library Trustee Karen Ceppetelli was named clerk. Others on the committee include Heather McCue, Finance Committee; David Robbins, Planning Board; Ed Prisby, Select Board; and Jim Sullivan, member at-large.
The committee agreed that the public needs to be involved in deciding what skills and priorities the next town administrator needs. While Lynch spoke of holding a public forum — on Zoom, naturally, due to the pandemic — Spinney suggested using a Google form to gather information from a wider group, while LeMay stressed that senior citizens without computer skills needed to be in the loop as well.
“Whatever way we do it, we need to gather information from the community,” LeMay said.
Robbins noted that gathering public input is more difficult now since, rather than just placing an ad in a newspaper, few Graftonites now subscribe and get their town information from social media or websites.
“You have a small group of people in town who take an interest in community government who will respond,” he said.
Haddad was confident the committee would be able to tackle its charge.
“I’m really excited about this, I know we’re going to do a great job and give the selectmen five candidates they’re going to have a hard time deciding on,” he said.
