image description — Kenneth Walto waits as the Board of Selectmen approves his interim town administrator contract. Walto begins on Thursday as Town Administrator Jay Green prepares to leave for Lenox.

Adams Board Appoints Retired Dalton Town Manager as Interim Administrator

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff
05:50AM / Tuesday, December 10, 2024Print Story | Email Story

ADAMS, Mass. — The Board of Selectmen on Monday named a former Dalton town manager as part-time interim administrator.

The vote to appoint Kenneth Walto was 3-0, with Selectman Joseph Nowak abstaining and Selectman Richard Blanchard absent.

He will step in for Jay Green, who has been hired as the new town manager in Lenox. Green starts his new job on Jan. 15, 2025. Walto begins on Thursday with Green aiding in the transition over the next month.

The appointment came after two executive sessions on contract negotiations. The board had expected to finalize his contract last Monday, according to that meeting's agenda.

"We have with us here attorney Corey Higgins [of Mirick O'Connell], who has helped the Board of Selectmen with the development of the agreement between the town of Adams and Mr. Kenneth Walto, who has been selected to serve as the interim town administrator," said Selectwoman Christine Hoyt at the special meeting. "We did just wrap up an executive session and had successful negotiations."

Walto will be paid a salary of $1,800 per week (with the first week pro-rated) until such time as a permanent town administrator is hired; there are provisions in the contract for either he or the board to terminate that contract.

He retired from Dalton in 2020 after 19 years; prior to that, he had worked in the Pittsfield Community Development Office for nearly 20 years and as operations manager for the Brien Center.

This is the first time he's stepped into another community as an interim though he's worked part-time for the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission the past two years.

Walto said Hoyt had called him to have coffee and talk about the post. "I found her persuasive," he said.

He was one of four applicants for the interim post but the other three dropped out before being identified.

Hoyt also informed the board on the next step for hiring a new town administrator. She said she would have the request for quotes for a search consultant available by Friday in their mailboxes and asked if that was enough time to review by next Wednesday's meeting. They agreed it was.

In other business, the board referred an Open Meeting Law complaint from resident Catherine Foster dated Dec. 3 to town counsel.

Tags: town administrator,

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Letter: Progress Means Moving on Paper Mill Cleanup

Letter to the Editor05:00PM / Wednesday, February 11, 2026

To the Editor:

Our town is facing a clear choice: move a long-abandoned industrial site toward cleanup and productive use or allow it to remain a deteriorating symbol of inaction.

The Community Development team has applied for a $4 million EPA grant to remediate the former Curtis Mill property, a site that has sat idle for more than two decades. The purpose of this funding is straightforward: address environmental concerns and prepare the property for safe commercial redevelopment that can contribute to our tax base and economic vitality.

Yet opposition has emerged based on arguments that miss the point of what this project is designed to do. We are hearing that basement vats should be preserved, that demolition might create dust, and that the plan is somehow "unimaginative" because it prioritizes cleanup and feasibility over wishful reuse of a contaminated, aging structure.

These objections ignore both the environmental realities of the site and the strict federal requirements tied to this grant funding. Given the condition of most of the site's existing buildings, our engineering firm determined it was not cost-effective to renovate. Without cleanup, no private interest will risk investment in this site now or in the future.

This is not a blank check renovation project. It is an environmental remediation effort governed by safety standards, engineering assessments, and financial constraints. Adding speculative preservation ideas or delaying action risks derailing the very funding that makes cleanup possible in the first place. Without this grant, the likely outcome is not a charming restoration, it is continued vacancy, ongoing deterioration, and zero economic benefit.

For more than 20 years, the property has remained unused. Now, when real funding is within reach to finally address the problem, we should be rallying behind a practical path forward not creating obstacles based on narrow or unrealistic preferences.

I encourage residents to review the proposal materials and understand what is truly at stake. The Adams Board of Selectmen and Community Development staff have done the hard work to put our town in position for this opportunity. That effort deserves support.

Progress sometimes requires letting go of what a building used to be so that the community can gain what it needs to become.

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