Great Barrington — The town has been without a permanent town manager since the end of 2024 when Mark Pruhenski left to become town manager of Middlebury, Vt. Since Pruhenski’s departure, Assistant Town Manager and Town Planner Christopher Rembold has served as the interim town manager.
On Tuesday, February 4, the newly formed Town Manager Screening Committee met for the first time. The Selectboard formed the committee at its regular meeting on January 27.
Representatives from Community Paradigm Associates, of Plymouth, Mass., which the Selectboard previously hired as consultants for its town manager search, attended the February 4 meeting. Company founder and principal Bernard Lynch told the committee that the position has been advertised with the International City and County Management Association, the New York Municipal Association, the Women Leading Government Association, along with “every municipal manager and assistant manager in the state.” “It’s been advertised, posted, and distributed,” Lynch said. “We are [also] doing in-person recruitment, and that’s a big part of what we do. We don’t trap; we hunt. So we are hunting candidates, making calls, and sending emails to people. We’re trying to find anyone who is interested. One thing we need to talk about in Great Barrington, and we talk about this in other communities as well, is you need to kind of rethink what your candidate looks like. By that, I mean that maybe you don’t hire someone who’s necessarily been a town manager before or an assistant town manager. Maybe you look at a department head.”
Lynch added that the town should also look outside of municipal governments in its search for a new town manager. “I’m not a huge fan of that, because I think municipal government is a unique field,” Lynch said. “But I think we have to look at if there are people in the business community or the private sector. The problem with the private sector is they operate by different rules. The idea of having to comply with open-meeting laws, public records laws, and competitive bidding isn’t something that necessarily happens in the private sector. But what is helpful is if we can find someone who might be a private sector employee but has municipal sector experience as a volunteer or an elected official.”
Lynch told the committee that he has already received five applications for the town manager position and that there might eventually be up to 10 to 12 applications, adding, “but don’t hold it against me if I am wrong.”
Committee member Fred Clark said that it still may be difficult for the town to find a qualified candidate considering the challenges the town is currently facing. “If anybody [does a Google search] on Great Barrington, they come up with bridges, water, and things like that,” Clark said. “How do those things balance in a candidate’s mind when they think, ‘Hey, if I come into this job, will there be a support system for me? I’m not going to be coming into a train wreck.’”
“This is a challenging conversation to be having in this forum,” Lynch told Clark. “If you Google [search] Great Barrington, there’s a lot of challenges there. Some candidates thrive on challenges. Some candidates want to dig into a challenge. When you have a community that’s having some problems, it attracts people who want to be able to come in and make a difference. It also discourages people from applying. Some people would prefer to simply work in a stable community where there are no issues and no problems and they can make sure the lights go on and everything just moves forward smoothly. You’re not a train wreck, but you’ve got issues.”
As for, Lynch added that the state of the job market for town managers “is not particularly positive for municipalities.” “It’s been very much a seller’s market over the last six or seven years,” Lynch said. “[In that time], roughly 80 percent of the communities in Massachusetts have turned over their town manager or town administrator, which has created a tremendous demand for people [in] these positions. Getting candidates for these positions is challenging in all parts of the state and all geographic areas.”
Lynch said that hiring a town manager in western parts of the state, including Berkshire County, is also a challenge. “Lennox just hired a new town manager, but they had to go out [for a search] twice to look for one,” Lynch said. “Williamston had to go through a search twice because they couldn’t find candidates.”
Lynch cited multiple and varied reasons why it has become hard for municipalities to find a permanent town manager. “It’s become even more polarized in local government within the last few years, and social media hasn’t helped,” Lynch said. “The loss of newspapers has hurt because there isn’t enough information out there that people can look to to understand local government. Times have only gotten more difficult.”
The committee has scheduled an executive session for Friday, February 28, at 4 p.m., to review submitted applications. Further dates have been scheduled in March, including Thursday, March 6, and Wednesday, March 19, for candidate interviews.
While the committee’s role is to screen and interview candidates, it is ultimately the Selectboard that hires a town manager.
According to an advertisement posted on the Massachusetts Municipal Association’s website, the deadline for applications for the town manager position is Tuesday, February 18, at 3 p.m. The advertisement lists that, while the current annual salary for the town manager position is $162,000, “Salary for the successful candidate is negotiable, commensurate with qualifications and experience.”
