By STEVEN JUPITER
BRANDON—On Monday, the Brandon selectboard appointed four citizens plus Town Clerk Sue Gage to an advisory panel tasked with helping the board evaluate candidates for the Town Manager position recently vacated by David Atherton and currently held by Interim Town Manager Bill Moore.
The four citizens chosen by the board are, in alphabetical order, Brent Buehler, Vicky Disorda, Sharon Stearns, and Sara Stevens. The original motion passed by the board specified “up to 5” members on the advisory panel and these were the four who received a majority of votes from the four board members who participated in the selection. Board Chair Seth Hopkins recused himself from the process because he has applied for the town manager position, leaving Vice-Chair Tracy Wyman to run this segment of the meeting.
Claire Astone and Rochelle Sandler, who received two votes each, were selected as alternates, in case one of the four chosen panelists is unable to participate.
Brandon Town Clerk Sue Gage was added to the panel at her request and at the board’s discretion.
Fourteen people had expressed interest in the position. In addition to the four chosen panelists and two alternates, the applicants were Paula Ashley, Susan Benedict, Carol Bertrand, Marielle Blais, Lyn Desmarais, Jim Emerson, Eric Mallory, and Mitch Pearl.
The advisory panel will not participate in the selection of candidates to be interviewed for town manager, nor will it have a vote in the ultimate selection. The panel’s role will be simply to assist the board by attending the closed-door interviews and posing their own set of questions to each candidate.
The board did not come to Monday’s meeting having already chosen the panelists and alternates. Instead, Mr. Wyman announced that the board had received signals of interest from 14 people and asked those in attendance whether they would prefer that the board choose the panelists itself or that the names be placed in a hat and 5 drawn at random. The concern, according to Mr. Wyman, was that any group of 5 that the board chose itself would be deemed by some to be insufficiently diverse. A random drawing, it was claimed, would assure people that the board had not been biased in its selection.
When Mr. Wyman polled the room, only 4 people were in favor of the board making the selection. The remainder of the 30-odd people were in favor of random selection from a hat.
A debate ensued about “diversity” and which method better ensured it.
The question of diversity has vexed this particular board ever since Ralph Ethier was chosen to fill a vacancy on the board last year over two women, Marielle Blais and Cecil Reniche-Smith. When the citizens panel was proposed by Board Member Tim Guiles in January, the stated goal was to choose a diverse group of citizens to help evaluate the candidates. The definition of “diversity,” however, has proven elusive.
Various attendees offered pros and cons of each proposed method. Random selection might remove any possibility of bias, intentional or implicit, but could potentially result in a panel completely lacking anything resembling “diversity,” by anyone’s definition. Another argument against the “hat method” was that the selectboard was elected specifically to make such decisions on behalf of voters and that random selection was an abdication of that duty.
After this spirited discussion—one attendee said that random selection made “zero sense”—Mr. Wyman re-polled the room, with different results: 18 in favor of the board and 14 in favor of the hat. Mr. Wyman then moved that the board would choose the panelists and alternates. The motion passed unanimously.
Mr. Guiles then read the names of the 14 applicants. The four participating board members exchanged lists of those they preferred until it became clear that Mr. Buehler, Ms. Disorda, Ms. Stearns, and Ms. Stevens had a majority of votes. Ms. Astone and Ms. Sandler were then selected as alternates.
A motion to appoint the four panelists, two alternates, and Town Clerk Sue Gage passed unanimously.
An earlier motion by Mr. Wyman to extend the application window for town manager until March 24 (from February 13) passed 3 to 1, with Mr. Guiles the lone nay vote. Mr. Wyman made the proposal in response to public criticism of the brevity of the application window. Mr. Wyman stated that the board currently has 3 local candidates and 1 candidate from Tennessee, but he would be willing to extend the search. The proposal was met enthusiastically in the room.
In a later written statement to The Reporter, Mr. Guiles stated, “We have 5 good candidates. Here is my ‘sufficiently good’ argument. When you choose a dentist, you choose a sufficiently good one. When you choose where to go out to eat, you choose a sufficiently good restaurant. We have 5 sufficiently good candidates. It is my judgement that we do not need more candidates. I have been elected to use my judgement in exactly this way. I believe that if you asked the other 3 board members that you would find that they don’t think we need more candidates.
It was a mistake to delay the process unnecessarily. It is my opinion that this is not in the best interest of Brandon. It is a false premise that the process was rushed. In fact, some towns make this choice of new town manager very quickly. There is a spectrum. Our original process fell into the range of normal amounts of time.
When you elect a select board you are electing people who are going to make decisions about what’s best for the town. What you got last night was what was best for the 30-40 people who showed up at the meeting. In an attempt to placate a room of people, some of whom disagree with a previous board position, this board has voted to shed the prime responsibility vested in it…. that being to appoint a new town manager. I hope the board comes to recognize its mistake and rethinks its decision to delay the process until the end of March.”
Mr. Guiles clarified in a separate email that the board has received four formal applications for town manager but expects to receive a fifth.
Other business
Interim Town Manager Bill Moore attended his first regular selectboard meeting in the role, to applause from the room. He read a statement of praise for David Atherton, who departed the town manager position on Friday, February 10 rather than on Tuesday, February 21, as originally planned. Mr. Moore encouraged all those who applied for the citizens panel but were not selected to apply for vacancies on other town committees.
The board heard from Andres Torizzo of Watershed Consulting Associates regarding the stormwater catchment system proposed for West Seminary Street. The system would draw stormwater into an underground basin, where it would filter through a sand bed back into the ground. The project was originally proposed back in 2017 as part of a master water-management plan. The design is currently 30% complete. Mr. Torizzo asked the board for the go-ahead to move to 60% design-completion. After questions about maintenance of the system (the town has the capacity to vacuum out the basin as needed), potential disruption to neighboring residences (there will be no blasting), and encroachments on private property (none that don’t currently exist), the board agreed to allow the project to move to the 60% design-completion stage.
Town Clerk Sue Gage announced that ballots have been mailed (school ballots must be requested directly from the Town Office or filled out at the polling station on March 7). She indicated that a number of ballots have already been returned. This sparked a discussion about the merits of the Australian ballot system currently used, which replaced floor votes at Town Meeting some years ago. It was claimed that Australian ballots may increase voter participation by eliminating the need to attend Town Meeting, but they also weakened the deliberative process that Town Meeting fostered.
The board announced vacancies for the Rutland Region Transportation Council Representative and the Deputy Health Officer, both of which David Atherton held before his departure.
The board also voted to appoint Seth Hopkins, as Emergency Management Director, to the Regional Emergency Management Committee, along with Brandon Fire Chief Tom Kilpeck. Mr. Hopkins stated that he and Mr. Guiles had assumed their emergency-management roles only because they had the FEMA qualifications. He suggested that anyone else who is qualified and interested should come forward.
The board certified compliance with Town Road and Bridge Standards and Network Inventory.
The board passed a motion to immediately post roads for thaw because of the unseasonably warm weather creating muddy conditions earlier than usual.
The board passed a motion to take out a loan from the Vermont State Revolving Fund in the amount of $1,519,457 for the wastewater management project currently underway. According to Town Treasurer Sue Gage, the actual loan amount will be closer to $300,000 after grants and ARPA money are applied to the project.
The board approved a warrant to pay $160,898.49 in bills and obligations.
