ADAMS, Mass. — The Selectmen have voted to negotiate a contract with consultants Community Paradigm Associates to help with the town administrator search.

 

The board voted last Wednesday after an executive session to negotiate a contract not to exceed $10,000 with the Plymouth nonprofit that will aid the town with its so far unsuccessful town administrator search process.

 

"In my opinion, a consultant will help us with outreach with the goal of increasing the potential pool of applicants, communicating about the strengths of our area, and keeping us on track with an aggressive timeline to complete this search," Selectwoman and personnel subcommittee member Christine Hoyt said after the meeting.

 

Former Town Administrator Tony Mazzucco left the job in late 2017 to take the post as general manager of Norwood. During the past year, the personnel subcommittee formed a Town Administrator Search Committee and allocated money to properly advertise the position.

 

It was posted in January and town meeting even approved a higher salary cap of $95,000 to make the position more competitive but in early summer, Hoyt announced that not enough qualified applicants had come forth and the search committee was disbanded.

 

During this time, Community Development Director Donna Cesan has taken on the role of interim administrator and this has left her own department short staffed.

 

Town officials did toy with the idea of hiring a consultant at the beginning of the process, however, they opted to do it on their own to save money.

 

Once Community Paradigm Associates is on board, Hoyt said the process will be reactivated with hopes to have someone in the job by January.

 

"Community Paradigm Associates is aware of the board's desire to start this process soon with the goal to bring in a new administrator in January 2019," Hoyt said.

 

The town has worked with Community Paradigm Associates in the past as it was brought on through the Community Compact program to facilitate discussions to encourage better communication between Adams, Cheshire and the Adams-Cheshire Regional School District.

 

The rest of Wednesday's Selectmen's meeting was mostly dominated by public comments about the recent flooding. The Selectmen did ratify the hiring of Tanya Guerin as a library aide/cataloguer and congratulated the Maple Grove Civic Club on reaching 80 years.