WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Select Board plans to interview two candidates for the interim town manager position on Monday with hopes of picking a temporary occupant of the corner office on April 5.

 

At Monday's meeting, Andrew Hogeland informed his colleagues that the town had received about a dozen applications for the short-term position. He said six seemed very well qualified, and from that smaller group, two dropped out before the initial interview.

 

Hogeland and Hugh Daley interviewed four candidates and chose two to have sit downs with senior members of the Town Hall staff late last week.

 

Hogeland did not identify the two finalists but suggested that the board schedule public interviews with each on Monday, March 29. The board is scheduling a meeting one week later to make a decision.

 

The hope is to have the interim town manager in place by the end of April, when Town Manager Jason Hoch intends to step down. Hoch reminded the board on Monday that he will be available during May to help with the transition period.

 

Given the expedited nature of the search in the wake of Hoch's Feb. 19 announcement, the members of the select board agreed to manage the search process on their own. Two other ongoing searches, for a permanent town manager and interim police chief, will involve search committees drawn from the wider community; the latter search group held two meetings last week.

 

Hogeland said Monday that a half-dozen residents had submitted questions they would like to see asked during the interim town manager interviews, and that the members of the board will have those questions in advance of Monday's interview. The one-week break between interviews and decision is intended to give time for the public to provide feedback to the interviews via phone calls or emails, Hogeland said.

 

Elsewhere on the candidate search front, the board decided that Daley and Jane Patton will serve as co-chairs on the search committee for the town manager, which will be facilitated by the recruiting firm HrGov.

 

Anne O'Connor, who is chairing the advisory group reviewing interim police chief candidates, said that panel hopes to start reviewing candidates on April 5.

 

"The committee has met twice in its first week," O'Connor said. "The first was to get the lay of the land and discuss the process for an accelerated search as distinct from the full-time chief search. The second meeting was to get input on the job posting and finalize it. The advertisement for the posting is going out today and tomorrow.

 

"I would say the wealth of suggestions and thoughts already shared by the committee is going to be really useful for this work now. I think it will also be a great product to hand off to the permanent chief search committee. … My impression is that the hiring process for a chief has typically been a fairly closed process. This is an opportunity for community input. And in this process, our efforts to include diverse voices is robust. It's not just a committee of recruited members; it is a broad-based group of qualified volunteers from the community. And the committee has a shared goal of finding the best interim chief for Williamstown. They also represent and are trusted by different stakeholders in the community."

 

Much of the focus of Monday's meeting was on the most recent controversy arising from the Williamstown Police Department and a report from acting Chief Michael Ziemba about his efforts to address the misconduct of WPD personnel.

 

In other business on Monday, the Select Board received from and referred back to the Planning Board three zoning bylaw amendments that the planners are proposing for the annual town meeting warrant. Two would reclassify small areas of town from their current zoning to more accurately reflect their historic use; one is the result of more than a year of conversation in town about the production of cannabis.

 

Monday's vote by the Select Board, largely a ceremonial action required by state law, allows the Planning Board to hold an official public hearing on all its proposals on Tuesday, April 13. Planning Board Chair Stephanie Boyd presented the planned articles to the Select Board and reminded all residents of the FAQ document the planners created to explain the cannabis bylaw and the ability to provide direct feedback by emailing planningboard@williamstownma.gov.

 

The Select Board also heard a request from Norman Quinn, the owner of Countryside Landscaping to amend the by-right land uses in the town's Limited Industrial zoning district to include self-storage units and "cultivation and processing of retail and wholesale aggregate, soil and nursery stock."

 

Town Planner Andrew Groff told the Select Board that he thinks Quinn's request is in line with the intentions of the Limited Business district.

 

All four zoning proposals were merely referred back to the Planning Board for public hearings and final preparation for the town meeting warrant. The Select Board will have the opportunity to make advisory votes on the proposals at a later date prior to the annual town meeting.

 

Hoch announced Monday that the town meeting is officially scheduled for Tuesday, June 8, at 6 p.m. at Williams College's Weston Field, the second straight outdoor annual town meeting for the town.

 

That means, among other things, that Monday, April 19 (50 days before the meeting) is the deadline to submit warrant articles by citizens' petition, Hoch said. He hopes to have the warrant finished and ready for the Select Board's consideration by its meeting on Monday, April 26, and before his departure from town hall.

 

"If the wheels come off the wagon, your actual notice requirement is something shockingly close to the meeting," Hoch said. "I think it's a week ahead of time. … April 26 is a soft deadline."

 

The annual town election is scheduled for Tuesday, May 11, at Williamstown Elementary School, Hoch said, which falls within the commonwealth's extension of no-excuse vote by mail provisions implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Hoch said applications for a vote-by-mail ballot are available on the town's website; those ballots should be available in late April to send out to voters who request them. The ballot dropoff box used last year remains in front of Town Hall for voters.

 

"We're not looking at in-person early voting," Hoch said. "[Town Clerk Nicole Pedercini] notes that turnout for September's primary was low for early voting. … Right now the building is not open to the public. It seems like the value of going through that exercise was small given the other options [for voters]."

 

In person voting on May 11 will be at Williamstown Elementary School.