Lanesborough Town Administrator Search Panel Gets Unexpected Feedback
LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — The Town Administrator Search Committee has been soliciting feedback from residents through an anonymous survey and received some unexpected results.
On Friday, the committee discussed three themes of concern that were identified in the responses: communication and transparency, taxes and finances, and personnel concerns.
It is not the committee's role to address these concerns so it will be summarizing the themes of the responses and submitting them to the Selectmen. Members hope the feedback assists in the search for a new town administrator and makes the town staff aware of the criticism.
Though the purpose of the survey — and the committee as a whole — is to assist in finding a new town administrator, committee member Kristen Toole was glad that people felt comfortable enough to share concerns in their responses.
"I'm just really honored that people feel comfortable sharing their feedback with us, I don't know if this kind of thing has ever been done before in a search committee so I think it's really important that we assess this information," she said.
"And that we bring it to the select board so that they can take steps that need to be taken, so that's really my view of what our role in this, we collect the data we present it to the select board."
It was submitted by 94 residents online and 100 by paper.
Toole said she doesn't want to make town employees feel less supported by releasing the full responses to the survey, which makes providing the Selectmen with a summary of the conclusions a viable solution.
Going into an executive session with the select board to discuss them was also suggested, but committee member Mark Siegars said that is not allowable under the panel's role.
Siegars emphasized that it was important not to give the board the full survey responses. He said when the committee first spoke about this couple of weeks ago, it was discussed that deliberations would be "burned" at the end of the process.
"So the answer is no, there's no more discussion, because if you're going to do that, then you're going to have to make it this entire process public, and now we have human resource legal issues to deal with," he said about presenting the Selectmen with the answers.
"No, the answer is no, I'm not gonna let you guys violate the law."
Panel member Barb Hassan clarified that they were not intending to violate the law in any way, as they were just brainstorming.
"I want to not break any laws, but I want to make sure that the value of the content is used to make the best selection and fix the broken that we are all talking about," she said. "So I don't want the intention to say we should undo what we agreed to I wanted to say a lot of people are giving up themselves to us, of their personal beliefs of what's broken, and how can we legally make sure that we utilize it to the best of our ability, legally."
The group considered that having an executive session where the themes were discussed between the search committee and inviting the Selectmen would be appropriate but made no formal plans to do so.
It was also speculated that the surveys showed the townspeople wanting a town administrator with creative solutions to problem-solving with things like the empty Berkshire Mall and supporting small businesses.
This week, the search committee will be reviewing the resumes of 18 candidates with the hope of narrowing it down to eight who will move on to the next round in the next two weeks. In late June, former Town Manager Kelli Robbins announced her resignation after three years on the job.
Submissions for the position close on Friday, Aug. 20.
This meeting was the last of its public meetings, as the rest will be under executive session.
Committee members also spoke about the importance of having a professional, outside eye for resume review and are trying to work with Paradigm human resource services for professional consultation.
On Monday, the committee will go to the Selectmen and ask for no more than $7,000 to contract with the company.
"Bringing in an outside expert is an action that will build trust because though," Toole said.
"It's like 'OK, we're hiring this professional to do this, we're taking ourselves out of the control piece of it, and we're bringing in someone who really knows what they're doing.'"
Lanesborough residents are encouraged to fill out the survey to assist in the process.
Tags: search committee, town administrator,
