NAHANT — The Town Administrator Search Committee is working hard to bring a qualified list of candidates before the Select Board for their approval going forward.
Committee Chair Skip Frary spoke with The Daily Item to discuss latest updates on the process.
“We’re just about two-thirds of the way through the search process,” Frary said. “The committee was formed back in May, we met and organized and reviewed a job description and came up with an advertisement.”
He explained that the committee operates under the Town Administrator Act passed in 1992, which required the committee to advertise the job in certain ways.
“We had to advertise in a national newspaper, a state-wide newspaper, a local newspaper, and a couple of trade publications,” he said. “The deadline for that was July 31.”
Frary continued, saying the committee received 22 applications, and declared that the window for applications had closed after its meeting on Aug. 4.
“Out of the 22 applications, we then met over two different meetings to vet people,” he said. “We evaluated their applications, and asked people to submit a cover letter, resume and a salary history. … Some were ruled out for not having enough experience, and we went through three different rounds of vetting with the committee.”
The committee then sent the remaining candidates five essay questions, “just to give us a feel for how the person feels and their management abilities,” Frary said. “That will help us to evaluate them, and based on those answers, we’ve been doing continual vetting of the people.”
During the end of the first week of September, Frary expects to gather the answers to the questions from the remaining candidates. The committee will then meet in the second week of the month to review the answers and discuss who they feel is qualified to proceed forward.
“Our charge from the special act was to present three candidates for the Select Board, who will hold their own interviews, and they may conduct further screenings,” he said. “But our job is to run the ad, screen the applicants and come up with three candidates.”
Frary added that another element of the committee’s search has been getting feedback from the community on what they would like to see in their next Town Administrator.
“We asked people what they were looking for in the candidates, and also asked town employees to submit information to us,” he said. “Based on the letters we’ve received from town employees and the public, we take all that into factor as we come up with finalists.”
