Great Barrington — Two candidates have emerged as the frontrunners for the permanent town manager position, which has been vacant since the end of 2024 when Mark Pruhenski left to become town manager of Middlebury, Vt.
At their meeting on Monday, March 31, the Selectboard heard Bernard Lynch, founder and principal of Community Paradigm Associates, of Plymouth, Mass., which the board previously hired as a consultant for its town manager search. Lynch is a consultant to the town and its Town Manager Screening Committee.
At the March 31 meeting, Lynch reiterated that recruiting a new town manager has been a challenging process. “It is a very challenging environment right now to hire town managers,” Lynch said. “It’s very much a seller’s market. There has been such a turnover of town manager positions in the Commonwealth and really around the country, largely as a result of the generational shift as a large cohort of managers have resigned due to retirement or have left their positions. There haven’t necessarily been candidate pools to fill many of these positions, which is why towns are grappling. We’ve been doing these searches now since 2016, and 125 of them across the Commonwealth. We’ve seen a drop in the number of candidates—particularly the number of highly qualified candidates—applying for these positions. That’s been a challenge many of these communities have been facing.”
Lynch said that despite these challenges, the committee reviewed the applications of 15 candidates who applied by the committee’s February 18 deadline. He said that, after some review, the committee selected five candidates for interviews. “The choice [of candidates] was made based upon their work experience in municipal government, their employment history, where they had been and what they had done in those positions, how well they were able to match their experience through their cover letter, and their resume to the position statement and the needs of Great Barrington,” Lynch said. “We also had to consider adherence to the charter requirements that you have in Great Barrington.”
According to the town’s charter, a town manager is required to have a bachelor’s degree in public administration or a similar discipline and five years of full-time paid experience in a supervisory administrative position in municipal government.
However, a master’s degree may be substituted for not more than two years of paid experience.
Lynch said that two candidates have been chosen from this process.
The first candidate is Angie Lopes Ellison, who, according to Lynch, served as the town administrator of Fairhaven, Mass., from February 2022 to December 2024. According to South Coast Today, however, Ellison left her position in late October despite the town’s Select Board renewing her contract until April 2025.
In December, the Fairhaven Neighborhood News reported details about Ellison’s separation agreement with the town.
According to Lynch’s presentation, Ellison previously served as the chief administrative officer of North Adams from November 2020 to February 2022, and as the town manager of Uxbridge, Mass., from January 2017 to May 2019.
The second candidate is current Ludlow, Mass., Town Manager Marc Strange, who began in Ludlow in March 2022.
Strange previously served as a Select Board member from June 2019 until March 2022 when he became the town manager. According to The Community Advocate, he was most recently in the running for the town manager position in Northborough, Mass.
Strange was previously the director of planning and community development for Agawam, Mass., from April 2015 to March 2022.
He also had a law practice in Springfield from June 2014 to April 2015.
The Selectboard voted to interview both candidates on Tuesday, April 15, at 5 p.m. The vote to pick between the two candidates will be on Tuesday, April 22, at 5 p.m.
Click here for Ellison’s LinkedIn resume. Click here for Strange’s LinkedIn resume.
