Great Barrington — The Great Barrington Selectboard interviewed town manager candidate William Riccio at the board’s special meeting on Tuesday, July 22.
The position has been vacant for over seven months, since then-Town Manager Mark Pruhenski left to take over that position in Middlebury, Vt. The Selectboard formed a Town Manager Screening Committee in January and hired Community Paradigm Associates of Plymouth, Mass., for the search.
In the first round of the search, 15 candidates applied by the mid-February deadline, from which the committee whittled the candidate pool down to Angie Lopes Ellison and Marc Strange. Ellison previously served as the town administrator of Fairhaven, Mass., while Strange is currently the town manager of Ludlow, Mass.
At a meeting in late April, the Selectboard voted to pass on the two candidates.
The Selectboard proceeded to reform the committee, which started its screening process all over again.
At the July 22 meeting, Bernard Lynch, founder and principal of Community Paradigm Associates, told the board that the town received nine applicants for the town manager position this time around.
After multiple interviews, the committee narrowed the pool of candidates down to two. “But one of the finalists had to withdraw due to family issues, and they were also coming from the western part of the country,” Lynch told the board. “They could not relocate due to those issues.”
However, Lynch said that the committee is very impressed with Riccio, who is currently the director of public services for Newport, R.I. According to his resume, Riccio’s professional career began as a staff highway and traffic engineer for municipal and state highways at Vanasse Hangen Brustlin Inc. in Providence, R.I., where he worked from June 1988 to September 1989. From February 1990 to November 2007, Riccio served as a project manager and a highway engineer at the Rhode Island Department of Transportation. Riccio has served as the director of public services for Newport since November 2007.
“What got me interested in local government was when I was asked to finish the term of someone who was sitting on my hometown’s planning board,” Riccio told the Selectboard. “I was just two years out of school, and I was gung-ho to help out my hometown.” According to his resume, Riccio served on the Johnston, R.I. Municipal Planning Board from 1995 to 2008 and served as its chair for eight years.
“I see a lot of parallels between Great Barrington and Newport, on the surface,” he said. “Although Newport is a little bigger, we both have a component of second homes, which is huge in Newport. We also have similar challenges with affordable housing components and all of the things that relate to that.”
“I’m not just looking for a job, I’m looking for a place where I’ll fit,” Riccio told the board. “We can go anywhere and do a job, but I’m at the point in my life where life is just as important as the work. I live an active, healthy lifestyle. I do a lot of biking, a lot of hiking. I can fit here just as well as my abilities to help lead you all forward to meet the goals you all establish as the governing body.”
“Can you describe to us what your first three months of being town manager would look like as far as getting to know the team and how you would proceed starting out?” Selectboard member Eric Gabriel asked Riccio.
“I like to use the adage of a dry sponge being tossed into a pool of water,” Riccio said. “The light would probably not be off much in my office. As bad as that sounds at the forefront, it’s going to be a lot of meetings and lots of meeting people. The more, the better. It’s a lot of listening up front. I will ask questions to gather data and not to show somebody what I might or might not know.”
When asked about the topic of affordable housing by Selectboard member Philip Orenstein, Riccio responded, “It’s a challenge here, as it is anywhere.”
“There’s no silver bullet on this, but I think the whole Airbnb topic has negatively affected real estate across the board,” he said. “People can’t live in communities because other homes are looking like hotels. That’s a taxing conversation. I think that this should be grounds for looking at those [homes] as businesses and [taxing] differing rates.”
Selectboard member Garfield Reed asked Riccio, “What ordinary or creative ideas would you have to enhance revenue or reduce costs [for the town]?”
“I wish I had the definitive answer, but we generate taxes to provide services,” Riccio said. “So to reduce costs, you either have to reduce services or you have to find ways to do things differently to save money. I need to take a much deeper dive into the community. I’ve always looked at capital programs and stuff, but you have to be cognizant of needs, and also understand the needs and wants. Sometimes you have to take care of the needs before you get to the wants. But again, there’s no one answer.”
Selectboard Chair Steve Bannon asked Riccio how he would support the retention and expansion of existing businesses and how he would support the attraction of new companies to enhance the tax base “while preserving the town’s historic charm.”
“I truly feel that’s one of the similarities with here and in Newport,” Riccio responded. “You want to enhance, preserve, and recreate [Great Barrington’s] history. [It’s about] staying connected with the chamber and staying connected with local business leaders.”
The Selectboard has scheduled a special meeting for Thursday, July 24, at 4 p.m., to discuss whether to hire Riccio. The meeting is scheduled to be held remotely via Zoom.
The Selectboard did not discuss ongoing legal issues between the town and Housatonic Water Works or the legal battle between the town and marijuana dispensaries over Host Community Agreements during the July 22 meeting.
