By Dolores Sauca Lorusso

A citizens’ petition on the May 1 town meeting warrant will ask voters to establish a seven-person committee of residents to interview the finalist for the town manager position. This panel would be separate from the semifinalist committee established by the select board, which includes representatives from town boards.

Opting not to advise unfavorable action because members “value the public’s position,” the advisory board recently decided to recommend no action because the select board already has the authority to appoint committees, members said at a recent meeting.

“This is a big decision for the town; people want to be involved in this major change,” said Ann Marie Papasodero, the sponsor of Article 23 on the warrant. “The residents are very vested in this decision.”

“I applaud citizens’ petitions. They are an important part of running the town, but I am not sure this is the best way to do this,” said advisory board member Jay Polito. “It is an open process; normally time is put aside, on the agenda, for public input.”

“The public is not always comfortable getting on the agenda,” said Papasodero. “I wanted to give the community a way to have their voices heard.”

According to the petition, the seven-person citizen committee would ask the finalist for town manager one question each, and the applicant would present his or her qualifications and reasons for applying for the job.

“The town manager makes a lot of decisions on our behalf…It is imperative to make the right choice the first time around, and the community wants to be involved,” Papasodero said. “We understand at the end of the day the select board makes the decision.”

Papasodero said she chose to have seven members on the finalist committee because the consultant hired by the town to conduct the full search, Community Paradigm Associates, suggested either five or seven to avoid a stalemate.

“Paradigm said they have had a lot of citizens committees get involved with these types of searches, so in the end everyone gets to say their piece,” she said. “We pay them for their expertise; I am just following their steps.”

The petition for the finalist committee was filed before the select board committed to appointing two citizens to a committee to interview semifinalists. Papasodero said she asked at a select board meeting if there could be a citizens committee, but at that time “they were unsure of any citizen participation in the selection process,” so she went forward with the town meeting petition. Eleven citizens applied for the two available slots to screen the semifinalists.

“I am impressed with the residents’ desire for involvement,” Papasodero said. “They love their town and are concerned with how it will go forward in the future.”

Among those 11 applicants was Papasodero, who said she “wanted to get involved in the process in any way possible, so why not apply to be one of the two citizens on the semifinalist committee?” However, she still believes the committee she proposes has value.

“There is a need to get even more community members involved in the process,” she said. “The finalist committee can do that.”

The semifinalist committee will be made up of two select board members (Greg Grey and Irwin Nesoff), one advisory board member (Patricia Cormier), one school committee member (David Twombly) and two community members. Community representatives will be appointed by the select board on Monday, April 24 and the first meeting of the group is set to take place on Thursday, April 27.

The finalist committee proposed by Papasodero would be made up of residents, with the primary goal of “gathering more information to give the select board a broader view by allowing seven citizens to each ask the finalists a pre-selected question.”

Current Town Manager Philip Lemnios, who will be retiring at the end of June, said “final interviews are held publicly. Some boards take public questions, and some don’t; the process without that is already tense enough for the applicants.”

Papasodero said the intention of the finalist committee would “in no way” be to add stress to the candidates, and that questions can be submitted over the Zoom platform if necessary.

“We weren’t going to come in and go gangbusters,” she said. “The select board can present the questions; just looking for an avenue for them to be heard.”

“The select board has expressed concern over the time necessary to interview and appoint members to the citizens committee,” Papasodero said. “They liked all the candidates they just interviewed… so don’t reinvent the wheel. Call some of those people back; there were more than enough.”

Advisory Board Chair David Clinton commended Papasodero because she “saw a hole and decided to fill it,” and said that there are ways the public’s voice can be heard in the process.

“Regardless of the outcome (at town meeting), nothing is going to stop you from putting those questions together to present them to the chair of the select board for dissemination,” he said.