Faceoff is one of those words tailor-made to stir up excitement, and the faceoff between two candidates for the Lynnfield Town Administrator job tonight deserves to draw an audience when the Board of Selectmen begins interviewing the contenders at 6 p.m. in MarketStreet’s Al Merritt meeting room.
Board Chairman Christopher Barrett and his fellow selectmen have an interesting decision to make. One of the contenders for outgoing Administrator James Boudreau’s job is Robert Dolan, the mayor of Melrose who was first elected in 2002. The other finalist is Robert Curtin, a well-known name around town and assistant to the town administrator for the past eight years.
The contenders’ contrasting backgrounds and experience puts the selectmen at a crossroads when it comes to deciding the direction the town should go and who is best suited as administrator to take it in that direction.
Curtin knows Lynnfield inside and out as a town official and local newspaper editor (Lynnfield Weekly News). He knows the selectmen, the priorities they have set and, most important, he knows what Lynnfield people think about and how they feel about the town.
Mayors don’t often seek out town government jobs but Dolan has managed to survive a screening committee and hiring consultant review to be a finalist for the administrator job.
His long tenure in office speaks to his popularity in Melrose and his understanding of municipal affairs. Being mayor of even a small city involves gaining a working knowledge of state and federal government and making connections with legislators, even members of Congress.
It also means grasping an understanding of budget crafting, state and federal laws that translate into expensive local mandates and gaining experience with labor unions and liability laws. All that experience doesn’t mean Dolan can jump from a mayorship to the administrator’s job with seamless ease.
Curtin, on the other hand, is the candidate who can simply walk a few feet from his Town Hall desk to the one now used by Boudreau. He is also, in many respects, the person best positioned to know the pressing matters now occupying Boudreau’s inbox and Curtin knows the concerns, including finances, sure to be priorities in 2018 for the Board of Selectmen and the new administrator.
Town government is inclined more often than not to subscribe to the time-honored “if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it” school of thought. With Boudreau headed to presumably greener pastures on the South Shore, Curtin is certainly equipped to keep Lynnfield on a steady course. Then again, with plans for a new library underway and a public safety building on the horizon, maybe a candidate with city government skills is a better fit for the administrator job.
The selectmen will have plenty of questions to ask Curtin and Dolan but the most important questions will be the ones they ask each other. They were elected to serve on the board with a mandate from town voters. Now they must ask themselves and their fellow board members how they should carry out that mandate when it comes to hiring a new administrator.
