One manager finalist chosen for background check

September 10, 2022 | By Lisa Scagliotti 

Town officials met at the library as the Development Review Board was meeting in the Steele Room on Wednesday. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti

Waterbury officials working on hiring a new municipal manager say they have reached consensus on which of the three finalists they would like to hire, but they have only identified him as Candidate #22.

That’s how Select Board Chair Mike Bard and P. Howard “Skip” Flanders, head of the Edward Farrar Utility District Board of Commissioners, described their choice following a joint meeting of their boards that ended just before 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday. The boards agreed to ask the consultant working with them to conduct the necessary reference and background checks as the next step in the process that began this summer.

The decision capped off a daylong process with the three finalists – identified as Candidates #22, #26 and #32 – visiting the town offices for two sets of in-person interviews. The applicants were the top choices from a pool of 32 of which seven were chosen for a first round of interviews held via Zoom last month. The Wednesday schedule also included meeting current Municipal Manager Bill Shepeluk and a tour of the town from Public Works Director Bill Woodruff. 

The evening session was a joint meeting of the Select Board and the EFUD board. The group met in executive session for five hours in the community room at the Waterbury Public Library. Part of that time was to interview each of the three finalists for the position individually. 

The group also heard from each of the six members of a citizen committee that was appointed to be part of the screening process. That group interviewed each of the candidates on Wednesday afternoon, also in executive session. On Wednesday evening after the candidate interviews and prior to the elected officials deliberating, the community members from the second panel were to each join the executive session individually via Zoom to share their thoughts on the candidates. 

Also present in the evening executive session was Maroni Minter, a member of the Library Commission who was on the manager search committee, and Abby Friedman from the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, who was there in a facilitator role. The town contracted with the league to work on the recruiting and hiring process to find a successor to Shepeluk who steps down after more than 34 years in the position at the end of 2022. 

Town officials meet inside the community room at the Waterbury Public Library on Sept. 7 to interview candidates for the municipal manager position and deliberate on their choice. Photo by Gordon Miller

When the evening closed session ended, the elected officials said they had reached a consensus on the candidate they would like to present with a job offer. “We asked the consultant to move forward with the background check on Candidate #22,” Bard said as he was leaving the meeting. 

Flanders said they expect that step to take about a week to complete. 

It doesn’t appear likely that any further details – including the name of their top choice – would be announced at least until that was done. Draft minutes from the joint meeting say the boards agreed to authorize the background check and “to begin discussing terms of employment.” 

The Search Committee has shared few details about the applicant pool other than the number of responses they received and to say that only a few were women, none of whom were chosen for interviews. The three finalists were described as being candidates from Vermont.