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First Steps Taken Toward Selecting a Town Manager in Clinton

The six-member Town Manager Search Committee (TMSC) that will be tasked with helping to find Clinton’s first town manager has been given its official charge from the Board of Selectmen (BOS).

The TMSC is composed Hank Teskey, Carrie Allen, Dennis Donovan, Anselmo Delia, and selectmen Phil Sengle and Tim Guerra. The group was named following several BOS meetings held in executive session in January and February.

“To find a qualified professional town manager, the BOS has been clear there will be a significant amount work in the short window of time for those serving on the TMSC,” First Selectman Christine Goupil said. “The search committee is not tasked to find long-term solutions to the challenges of our municipality. Instead, they need to understand the complexities of the challenges, both historically and for the future.”

At a BOS meeting on Feb. 13, Sengle said the committee had been given “a good list of things that need to be done,” and that the group would be seeking input from other towns with town managers such as Simsbury.

Goupil said that the that one of the search committee’s first orders of business will be to work on a request for proposal (RFP) for a professional search firm to assist in the process. Once a firm is selected, the TMSC will work with that search firm to find candidates.

The search firm will also assist the TMSC with written summaries for each qualified candidate, the coordination of interviews, and assist with developing the criteria by which each candidate will be evaluated.

The remainder of 2019 will prove to be a busy year for the TMSC. Last November, residents voted to approve a proposed charter change that required that the town adopt a form of government in which a town manager acts as the town’s chief executive and takes on many of the duties currently handled by the first selectman. Those in favor of the move cited reasons such as a belief that a town manager would bring professionalism to the job, as well as reduce the influence of partisan politics on running the town.

The manager will be overseen by an elected seven-member town council, which is able to hire or fire the town manager.

The new charter goes into effect in November 2019.