Marblehead board candidates focus on next administrator

MARBLEHEAD – Board of Selectmen candidates weighed in on the replacement of departing longtime Town Administrator Tony Sasso Monday evening.With 17 years served as town administrator, Sasso told selectmen recently that he plans to step down in a year – and questions and statements at Monday’s League of Women Voters Candidates Night revolved around that announcement and its implications for 2011-12 board members.Selectmen candidates who will face the voters in the May 9 town election include former Selectman Harry Christensen, risk management analyst Bret Murray, Cemetery Commission member RoseAnn Wheeler McCarthy and incumbents James Nye, Judy Jacobi, Mike Rockett and Jackie Belf-Becker. Sasso was not at the event.All seven candidates listed replacing Sasso as one of the major issues that will face the town’s five selectmen next year and listed exemplary qualities for his replacement.Christensen said he served before there was an administrator and was on the committee that chose Sasso. “Tony Sasso got (department heads) working together,” he said.”We need someone who will make decisions in the best interest of the town,” Jacobi said. “I wish we could clone Tony Sasso.”Rockett said he would look at candidates inside and outside of Marblehead to find “a creative problem-solver” who was “familiar with all aspects of municipal finance.”Murray said a town administrator will need “five-10 years experience and a master’s de-gree in administration,” as well as communication and leadership skills.Nye pointed out that Sasso’s job can be “24-7,” not a 40-hour work week and said a thorough knowledge of labor laws was needed.Belf-Becker said a town administrator will have to “stretch our dollars beyond their limit” and “hold everyone to his highest standards.”McCarthy called Sasso “a wonderful leader for the town who always treated me with courtesy” and expressed the hope that his successor could work with him.None of the candidates supported rejecting financial overrides from a referendum election, as long as Town Meeting approved them, Christensen admitted that Town Meeting seemed less and less representative of the general population, Nye called it “arrogant to pick and choose.”Nye, Rockett, Jacobi, Belf-Becker and Murray said they supported removing the police chief’s job from Civil Service. “The higher the number of applicants, the better the choices are,” said Belf-Becker.Christensen, the son of a former police officer and brother-in-law of the acting police captain, said he hadn’t decided yet and called the arguments in favor “compelling.”McCarthy opposed it, calling Marblehead police officers “qualified” and stating earlier that she would like to see the question placed before voters in an election.