Town Council to Hire Consultant to Assist Search for New Town Manager

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Watertown Town Hall

For the first time in more than a quarter century, the Town Council will be looking for a new Town Manager, and they will get some help in finding the Town’s next chief executive from a consultant.

Town Council President Mark Sideris gave the first details about the Town Manager search at Tuesday’s Town Council meeting.

“The manager’s search is going to be a multi-step process,” Sideris said. “This is something that no body on this council has ever dealt with. We have been fortunate to have our manager for more than 29 years, here. Thank you, Mr. Driscoll.”

The first step in the process, Sideris said, will be for the Council to create the Ad Hoc Committee for the Town Manager Search. The members will be Sideris, Vice President Vincent Piccirilli, and Councilor Caroline Bays, who is chair of the Personnel Committee.

The first item on the ad hoc committee’s to-do list is to create a request for proposals (RFP) for consultants to help the Town search for a new Town Manager.

“In speaking to several people, including the Town Attorney and several others, we are going to need help with this, and this is the first step in the process,” Sideris said. “There are people who do this out there. We want to create something that we can then move this out quickly so we can vet the people applying to help us do this search.”

Among the things Sideris anticipates that the consultants will do will be to facilitate community meetings, as well as meetings with each councilor, and, perhaps, with Town department heads.

The first meeting of the Ad Hoc Committee for the Town Manager Search will be held on Tuesday, July 20 at 6 p.m. in the Council Chambers in Town Hall. The lone item on the agenda will be the creation of the RFP to begin the manager search. The meeting is open to the public but it will not be on Zoom, Sideris said, due to the number of meetings going on.

The Ad Hoc Committee will decide what the RFP will say, and where it will be distributed.

Sideris said that he has already spoken with two consultants who would be willing to meet as soon as next week. They would provide some examples of what the search would look like.

Councilor Tony Palomba asked if the Council need to allocate funding for the search. Sideris said there have been no expenses so far, so there is no need to approve funding, yet.

“We are going to try to get an idea of what the costs will be by doing this process,” Sideris said.

One thought on “Town Council to Hire Consultant to Assist Search for New Town Manager

  1. This is a big and important task. Good that the Council is being proactive and seeking expert assistance to help with the process!!

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