CCB MEDIA PHOTO
Members of the Barnstable Town Council subcommittee CAMPP, the Committee to Analyze Management Practice and Policies, discuss the town manager job description at their final meeting. From left, Frederick Chirigotis, Sara Cushing, Jim Crocker and Will Crocker.
HYANNIS – Barnstable Town Council President Jessica Rapp-Grassetti announced at the Barnstable Town Council meeting last night that she would be forming a Town Manager Search Committee.
The announcement comes as a committee she formed this spring, the Committee to Analyze Management Practices and Policies (CAMPP) wrapped up its charge last night.
Town Councilor James Crocker of Osterville, who chaired the committee, said the CAMPP committee’s two charges were to update the town manager job description and to make a recommendation on whether to hire an outside consultant to conduct a town manager search.
Crocker and Councilor Sara Cushing of Marstons Mills, the vice chair of the committee, presented the draft document of the town manager job description to the council last night as the subcommittee’s final report.
One question came on the report. Councilor Jennifer Cullum of Hyannis asked why the current Barnstable town manager, Thomas Lynch, was not asked to speak to the committee as they worked to rewrite the job description.
Crocker said the document is to a tool for the employer, who is the town council, and should be shaped by the employer, not the employee, who is the manager.
Rapp-Grassetti said she did not think the council needed to take a vote to accept the report and so no vote was taken.
As the second part of the committee’s charge, Crocker said, the committee was recommending that if there is a search, an outside consultant should be hired.
Lynch told a CapeCod.com reporter earlier this week that he is interested in keeping the job and he said he was surprised that the town council president was planning to form a search committee.
Rapp-Grassetti told CapeCod.com yesterday morning that she learned that Lynch was interested in the job for the first time from a CapeCod.com article posted yesterday. She did not mention that interest during last night’s meeting.
When asked during an interview earlier in the day whether she would be negotiating a contract with Lynch, Rapp-Grassetti said that would be the purview of the entire council and it should be in open session. She said the new town manager search committee could take up the matter.
After the CAMPP committee report presentation, Rapp-Grassetti said earlier in the year, she had made an announcement that she wanted to keep on track and moving forward per the town’s human resource director’s advice given the town manager’s contract is expiring next year.
“The contract of the current town manager expires in a little less than a year by a few days. So on the advice of [human resources director] Bill Cole, CAMPP was formed to help shape the job description. And on the heels of CAMPP committee, I will be forming a town manager search committee so we can keep the process moving forward,” Rapp-Grassetti said last night.
The CAMPP committee held its final meeting last night before the town council meeting to approve its final set of minutes before disbanding.
The members of the CAMPP committee, as appointed by Rapp-Grassetti were, besides James Crocker and Sara Cushing, Frederick Chirigotis of Centerville, William Crocker Jr. of Centerville and John Norman of Marstons Mills.
Lynch, 69, became interim town manager after the previous town manager John Klimm was placed on leave in 2011. After a career of public service that included serving as state representative and head of the Barnstable Housing Authority, he had been serving as assistant town manager at the time.
Lynch was then made acting town manager with a one-year contract. After the one-year contract expired, he was made town manager with an initial two-year contract. That contract was renewed and he was given another two-year contract a year ago. He is in the middle of that contract, which expires on June 30, 2016.
In a job performance review completed earlier this year, the town council deemed Lynch had “exceeded expectations,” the highest mark on the evaluation.
By LAURA M. RECKFORD, CapeCod.com NewsCenter
