Maybe Whitefield needs a town manager, not an expanded board of selectmen.
The suggestion came from resident Jim Fitz-Patrick at a public hearing Monday on the question of whether to enlarge the present board from three to five members.
Fitz-Patrick also rebuked officials for trying to implement the change without more public notice and discussion. The question will be decided at the polls Nov. 2.
“This [hearing] should have happened before the ballot was printed. You’ve got the horse behind the cart,” he said.
Selectmen voted to pursue the enlarged board at its regular meeting Sept. 13 and the ballot was printed within the week.
Former town clerk Karen Stultz agreed the board needs help, but she asked, isn’t that extra help supposedly available in the administrative assistant’s job description, which includes being secretary to the selectmen? At present, Selectman Frank Ober takes the minutes.
Chairman Steve McCormick said delegating tasks to the office staff is limited. “It’s not like they’re sitting there doing nothing.”
He said the extra two board members are needed because duties could be better split among five members and there would more likely be a quorum to vote. As for the extra cost, that hasn’t been decided, McCormick said. It’s possible the present $12,000 allocated for three salaries could be divided among five, or the total could be increased to $20,000.
Ober noted, “Some of you folks came in and complained about your [property] assessments.” At least one selectman and sometimes two attended meetings between landowners and the assessors’ agent.
“They were eight hour days some of us devoted [to the process],” he said. Ober also has “spent a lot of time,” he said, conferring with lawyers and bank officers on other town matters. “With five members, you wouldn’t need everybody tied down all the time.”
Selectman Sue McKeen said, “We simply don’t have enough time to get things done. I think it’s harmful to the town. We are the assessors. That’s a pretty heavy burden.”
Addressing the town manager idea, McKeen said she didn’t know where the money would come from. “We think a five-member board is the most expeditious bang for your buck.”
Citizens committees have been useful in researching and developing proposals for the select board to consider, but “people are busy, finding them isn’t easy,” said McCormick, and members tend to be many of the same people each time.
Steve Smith, describing an assessors board of five Whitefield citizens, which he has been promoting, urged, “The more we can diversify our town government, we’ll be better off. We need to participate in our government by serving on these boards. Assessing is not rocket science. It’s common sense and today we don’t have it.”
He calculated the town has spent $50,000 on a part-time assessors’ agent in the past six years. “And what have we got? We are over assessed by 30 percent,” Smith said.
McKeen commented that selectmen have asked five citizens to serve on an advisory assessing board and their charge will be defined by early next week.
Genevieve Keller, assuming it was the “assessing crisis” that drove selectmen to seek enlarging the board, asked if there could be a time limit on the new arrangement. “You could revisit it in three years and find out if we still need it.”
McCormick said reducing the board could be addressed at town meeting time by voting on the municipal budget.
In recommending a town manager, Fitz-Patrick responded to remarks made by Leila Haddad, who said she’d like to see townspeople “rally to keep the town running smoothly.”
Fitz-Patrick said, “That worked in 1950, but in 2010, with all the regulations, we’ve got to have a professional town manager. A town manager will make money for the town,” and the position need not be full-time. It needn’t cost anywhere near the $60,000 to $80,000 one resident estimated, he said.
If voters approve the question on Nov. 2, candidates would be elected March 19, 2011 and the transition to a five-member board would take effect.
