After an objection over who the board is not choosing to appoint, Rochester’s Select Board Monday had to delay for two weeks its action to form a Town Administrator Search Committee and find a replacement for Glenn Cannon, who is leaving the town position after the May 13 Annual Town Meeting.
Select Board member Brad Morse motioned that the committee to find Cannon’s replacement will consist of himself, Financial Director and soon-to-be Interim Town Administrator Suzanne Szyndlar, former Town Clerk Paul Dawson, Finance Committee Chairman Kris Stoltenberg and resident John Egger.
Personnel Board Chairperson Kristen Nash objected to the reason she could not also be appointed. Cannon said Town Counsel has informed him it is because she is a member of the Personnel panel. “You would have to resign from the Personnel Board,” he said.
Nash fought back, arguing the language in the town’s Personnel Bylaw does not exclude members of boards that run for a short term, then are disbanded, such as is the case with the Personnel Board. “It is discriminatory,” she said. “It is ludicrous. I don’t think that what you are doing here is the intent of that bylaw.”
Nash asked the board to seek a written opinion from Town Counsel on the issue. Select Board Chairman Paul Ciaburri motioned to seek that opinion before voting the actual appointments. Morse insisted that his motion to appoint his original five names remain in play. The two board members ultimately approved continuing the appointments to the May 20 meeting; board member Adam Murphy was not in attendance.
Cannon, who became the Rochester town administrator in March 2022, is leaving the position on May 14 to accept the same job in Carver.
In other action, the board approved and signed the contract for Rochester Police Lieutenant Donald Kemmett to become interim police chief for a time to expire when a permanent chief is hired. The previous chief, Robert Small, announced his retirement last month, effective June 28.
The Select Board approved a one-year extension of the Regional Old Colony Communications Center contract that places the town’s public-safety-dispatching services in Duxbury.
The Select Board awarded Citations in Recognition of Residents to Pat Joy and Roxanne Costa for saving a fellow senior’s life through CPR at the Senior Center on April 18. The board said later that a larger ceremony honoring the two is being organized by the Fire Department and the Council on Aging.
The Select Board continued until June 3 its public hearings to approve installation of an Eversource utility pole and a new manhole cover on Rounseville Road and a new Verizon utility pole for 198 Clapp Road.
The board approved the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) agreement that will allow the town to apply for ARPA grants. It then approved Financial Director Suzanne Szyndlar as the grant process’s authorized reporter and town Treasurer Ashling McLoughlin as authorized representative.
Cannon announced that the state has now approved the Special Town Meeting article passed in January that will allow Scott Weigel to continue as fire chief beyond the mandatory retirement age of 65. Cannon has said the chief wishes to stay on to see the completion of the Public Safety Facility project. The article reads that he may not stay in the position past age 67.
The Rochester Select Board will meet next at the Annual Town Meeting on Monday, May 13, at 7:00 pm at Rochester Memorial School and reconvene for its regular meeting on Monday, May 20, at 6:00 pm at the Senior Center, 67 Dexter Lane.
Rochester Select Board
By Michael J. DeCicco