The Select Board will meet Wednesday morning to fill the remaining three seats on the Town Manager Search Committee.
Residents interested in serving on the committee have until the end of day today, Dec. 15, to submit a statement of interest through the town website.
The board initially said it would vote on committee members at a special meeting on Dec. 23. But at the board’s Dec. 8 meeting, Chair Roger Woods said he was not available to meet that week. He said he also had a family issue that prevented the board from having a Monday night meeting on Dec. 15.
As a result, the board has scheduled another 10 a.m. meeting for this Wednesday.
Responding to a question from Abington News, Woods said the board would not hear verbal statements of interest from the residents at its Wednesday meeting.
“We will be voting based on the applications each candidate submitted and not interviewing each,” he said.
The Select Board is forming a search committee to find candidates to replace Town Manager Scott Lambiase, who is leaving to become town administrator in Kingston.
The Town Charter requires the board to form a seven-member committee to identify candidates, conduct preliminary interviews, and recommend at least three finalists to the Select Board, which will then conduct a final round of interviews and make a decision.
The charter requires a member of the School Committee, a member of the Finance Committee, and five residents appointed by the Select Board.
The Select Board earlier this month raised eyebrows by appointing Woods and Board Vice Chair Suzanne Djusberg to the search committee.
The only town manager search committee conducted under the current structure — the one that found Lambiase — did not feature a sitting member of the Select Board. Searches conducted under previous charters were required to include one Select Board member.
Board member Kevin Donovan, himself a longtime municipal manager, also said he personally would not support committee candidates who currently or previously have served the town.
Michael Maresco, who served as town administrator in Marshfield for seven years, will serve as Interim Town Manager while the search happens.
Donovan said he wants to have candidates interviewed by the end of January and a finalist identified by early February in order to have the person in place to finalize what will be a challenging town budget.
The 2019/2020 search committee had to post the job opening twice after being unsatisfied with the initial pool of candidates.
The School Committee has said it will be appointing Caroline Ellis to the search committee. The Finance Committee chose chair Matt Salah as its representative.
According to the updated charter residents ratified in 2024, candidates for town manager “shall be a person especially fitted by education and demonstrated professional experience which shall consist of at least a bachelor’s degree from an accredited degree granting college or university, or an equivalent amount of senior management professional experience as may be determined by the Selectboard, provided that the Town Manager’s professional experience shall include at least five (5) years of full-time, compensated service in a managerial capacity in public or business administration.”
[DISCLOSURE: The author of this article was a member of they 2019/20 Town Manager Search Committee and applied to be a member of the upcoming search committee.]