Great Barrington — The Selectboard canceled its regularly scheduled meeting which was set for Monday, December 16. In a brief interview, Selectboard Chair Stephen Bannon explained that the December 16 meeting was canceled because the town missed the deadline for posting a meeting agenda in advance.
The meeting has been rescheduled for Thursday, December 19, at 5 p.m., and will be held at Town Hall and virtually via Zoom.
Pruhenski announced on October 9 that he would be leaving his position by January. He was hired in 2005 as the town’s health agent, and the town hired him as its town manager in March 2019.
The town of Middlebury, Vt., has hired Pruhenski to be its town manager, a role he will assume January 15.
At the December 2 Selectboard meeting, the board reviewed and unanimously approved a town manager recruitment proposal by Community Paradigm Associates of Plymouth.
Pruhenski told the board that he sent out requests for proposals to four executive recruitment search firms in November. He said that he received two proposals in response but included only the one from Community Paradigm Associates in the meeting informational packet. Pruhenski said the second proposal came in after the December 2 meeting agenda was posted. He added that the second company, which he did not name, only included a range of expenses in its proposal.
According to the company’s proposal, Community Paradigm Associates has recruited town administrators for numerous towns and cities in the state. The company plans to charge $12,500 for its services, along with approximately $800 in advertising costs.
The board eventually unanimously approved the company’s proposal.
Later in the meeting, the Selectboard unanimously voted to hire Chris Rembold as the acting town manager. Rembold has served as the assistant town manager and the town’s director of planning and community development since March 2009.
In his motion, Bannon said that Rembold’s contract would stay the same and Rembold’s salary would be negotiated with the town.
Meanwhile, Vice Chair Davis’ last day as a Selectboard member, as per her resignation letter, is December 31. Davis, who was originally elected to the town’s Selectboard in May 2019 and began serving as its vice chair in May 2021, won in the race for the 3rd Berkshire District seat in the State House of Representatives, taking the place left vacant by William “Smitty” Pignatelli.
At the November 18 Selectboard meeting, the board voted not to have a special election to fill Davis’ seat and to keep it vacant until the annual town elections scheduled for May.
Other business
After weeks of discussion, the board decided to schedule its annual Town Meeting for Saturday, May 3.
Previously, the board debated on whether or not to continue to have the annual Town Meeting on a weekday or to move it to a Saturday. The town subsequently issued an online poll asking residents for thoughts about a move of the annual Town Meeting to a Saturday.
Included in the informational packet for the December 2 meeting, the poll results showed that, out of 197 respondents, 68 residents voted that the meeting should be moved to a Saturday afternoon.
Resident and Berkshire Edge columnist Peter Most advised the board that any change in the date of the annual Town Meeting should only be a test. “I don’t think people are in favor of asking that this be a permanent move,” Most said. “But it would be interesting and useful to move it to possibly a weekend to assess whether there will be greater participation with town voters.”
“Looking at the [poll results], it does feel like a bit of a coin toss,” Selectboard member Ben Elliott said. “It’s a very small sample size, and it is effectively split between four options. As Peter was saying, if we want to do this as an experiment, I think the best way to find out whether or not it works, is to try it.”
Selectboard member Eric Gabriel said that he wishes more residents would have voted in the online poll. “But we got 197 [residents to vote online], but it’s not a commanding lead for Saturday,” Gabriel said. “I do think we need to change [the day the Town Meeting is held] in order to get more participation.”
“I have many concerns, not that I won’t support Saturday,” Bannon said. “One being that, if it’s 75 degrees and we do it at 1 p.m. on Saturday afternoon, I hope we get a quorum. The other is that there are youth events [at Monument Mountain Regional High School, where the annual town meeting is held] on that day, the parents that we hope to attract [to the meeting] may be at those events. The most important one, which I said from the beginning, is that Saturday is a religious day for the Jewish faith, and that concerns me. Having it on Saturday night would be a disaster because people do things on Saturday night.”
The board eventually passed a motion to hold the annual town meeting on Saturday, May 3, at 2 p.m., with Selectboard member Garfield Reed voting against the motion made by Davis and seconded by Gabriel.
