MASHPEE – The Town of Mashpee is conducting a search for a new town manager. Joyce Mason has been working for the town for more than 30 years, rising up to the position of town manager. She is retiring on July 17.
A five-member screening committee, scheduled to meet for the first time next week, has 90 days to present three to five candidates to selectmen for a final decision.
Mashpee Board of Selectmen Chairman Wayne Taylor said the committee will have a lot of autonomy in the search process. “That group will get together and decide how they want to proceed, whether that will be with an outside independent source bringing in candidates or whether they want to do that themselves.”
The committee is made up of selectmen Andrew Gottlieb and Carol Sherman. Christopher Avis is the appointee from the Mashpee Finance Committee. Town Moderator Jeremy Carter and Mashpee Human Resources Director Kathleen Moore, who is expected to be appointed by selectmen at their meeting Monday in their dual role as the town’s personnel board, will round out the committee.
According to the Mashpee Town Charter, the screening committee has 90 days to forward no less than three and no more than five candidates to the selectmen. The selectmen then have 20 days to make the final decision.
“We’d like to, if at all possible, get someone by June 1,” Taylor said. The idea behind that start date, Taylor said, is for the incoming town manager to have a chance to work with Mason “to get a feel for what the town is about, where it is and what needs to be focused on right off the bat.”
Mashpee Town Clerk Deborah Dami is planning to convene the first meeting of the screening committee on Tuesday, February 24, at 4:30 p.m. At that meeting, she will swear in the members of the committee and the group will choose a chairman, vice chairman and secretary. “I’ll hand over the gavel,” Dami said.
Dami said that because the process for choosing a town manager is in the town’s charter, it can only be changed through a vote of town meeting and a vote of the voters at large. This year’s Mashpee town election is on May 16.
Changes to the charter approved at last year’s town meeting, according to Dami, include the addition of a member from the town’s Economic Development and Industrial Corporation (EDIC) and a member of the school committee.
Mason moved up to her position as town manager, starting as a secretary in the board of selectmen’s office to an administrative assistant to then Town Administrator Robert L. Writenour Jr. When he left to become town manager in Falmouth, Mason took over as Mashpee’s top town official.
