WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. – Two finalists for the position of town manager made their case to the Select Board on Friday afternoon.

 

On Saturday, the board will decide whether one of them makes the grade.

 

Each was interviewed for a little more than an hour at town hall before an evening event at the Log on Spring Street, where community members had the opportunity to hear remarks from each candidate and meet them in person.

 

Select Board members said they would welcome comments from community members after the televised interviews and informal Friday evening “meet and greet.”

 

The candidates, Robert Menicocci and Alex Torpey, each started the more formal interviews by telling the board in his own words why he is the right person for the job.

 

“There are a multitude of things, but I think it breaks down into a couple of key categories,” Menicocci said. “The town needs to run. You need to have the experience to deal with the complexities that come at an organization – the financing, the budgeting, the core pieces of what makes an organization like this click are critical.

 

“The other part of the work I’ve done over time that would really suit the community in terms of some of the challenges it faces now involves the depth of being able to understand and synthesize issues and formulate public policies out of that.”

 

Torpey also said he brings a strong background in budgeting and finance work and understands how those concerns on a day-to-day impact the long-term position of a municipality.

 

He also talked about wanting to repair the relationships between town government and residents that were damaged in the wake of 2020’s revelations about events in the Williamstown Police Department.

 

“There is some community trust building to be done right now and making sure everyone in town feels they can participate in government and then actively engaging them to participate,” Torpey said. “Transparency is important, but it’s too passive a word. You can put [information] on a website, and that’s transparent. But that’s not engaging with communities that haven’t been engaged with before.”

 

Friday marked the second time in seven months that the Select Board has interviewed candidates to occupy the corner office. After a pair of October interviews, the board voted not to offer the position to either candidate.