LYNNFIELD — For the second time in less than two years, Lynnfield has a new assessing manager.
Meredith Stone, a 1985 Lynnfield High School graduate and Middleton resident, succeeds Michael Golden, who resigned after just a year and a half on the job.
Stone’s first official day on the job was Monday. She was greeted by a crew of construction workers and a lot of sawdust.
“It was a great first day, I couldn’t have asked for a better one as they are building an office for me, so that’s wonderful,” Stone said. “With all the COVID restrictions and remote meetings, there will be some privacy on my end when doing Zoom meetings and other things. It will be beautiful.”
Town Administrator Rob Dolan said he is grateful to have Stone on board.
“I commend and thank the Lynnfield Board of Assessors for hiring this outstanding new addition to our Town Hall team,” he said. “Meredith has over a decade of experience in town assessing departments and I think Meredith also looks as this new position as sort of a homecoming, having grown up in Lynnfield and being a proud graduate of Lynnfield High School.”
Stone comes to Lynnfield on the heels of serving as chief assessor and geographical information systems (GIS) coordinator for the Town of West Newbury since May, 2013. Her duties included managing the operations of the assessors department, including overseeing all appraisals.
Stone said, while she loved her time in West Newbury, “Lynnfield was calling me home.
“I grew up in Lynnfield, so it’s my hometown. My heart was with West Newbury for a while. They had a lot of interesting agricultural and different residential areas and the town has really developed over the last two years into a really beautiful community. It was busy and exciting, but I am looking forward to coming into a commercial and residential atmosphere that Lynnfield has, now that it has the venture with MarketStreet. MarketStreet is such a blessing, people come from all over to come and it’s a really really happy area.”
Stone’s goals are simple.
“Excellence. My primary goal is to bring the office on a journey of excellence,” she said. “I know the office has been through some people lately and is in need of someone to rearrange and take control to bring it to a better level. You need to get all the different departments together, we all need to be on the same page, which brings everyone at Town Hall to a better level in terms of being informed and up to date, as opposed to a situation where people are saying, ‘oh, I didn’t know that was going on.’ It’s just a better system when everyone is informed.”
Prior to serving West Newbury, Stone was the principal clerk for the Town of Saugus from 2004-2013, where she processed and researched deeds and transfers from the Essex South Registry of Deeds as well as processing vehicle, boar and specialty abatements.
Stone holds an associates degree in paralegal studies from North Shore Community College (1994) and also earned an associate of science degree from Endicott College in 1987. She was certified by the Massachusetts Association of Assessing Officers for Massachusetts (MAAO) as an accredited assessor in 2011, receiving citations from the town for recognition of her certification in 2011.
For now, Stone is focused on making a seamless transition.
“We are working on getting the office organized and up to date and are getting ready to send out the preliminary second-quarter tax billing, so everything is busy, busy, busy and I’m trying to give them all my paperwork, but it’s a lot of fun. I’m glad to be back home.”
Anne Marie Tobin can be reached at [email protected].
