Former town manager considered for TA search

The conversation about whether to switch to a town manager form of government heated up Tuesday night as selectboard members and residents attempted to answer some of the questions surrounding the issue that has been looming for months.

The selectboard has now determined it will consider hiring Charlotte resident and former Shelburne town manager Lee Krohn as a consultant for the process.

“We’ve already had the conversation with Lee Krohn. He can do what we need to have done,” selectboard chair Jim Faulkner said. “We have not hired him. It was just a friendly conversation. He’s very interested in doing it as a consultant only.”

Krohn was hired in December 2018 as Shelburne’s town manager after a 7-month stint as interim manager. He is formerly a senior planner at the Chittenden Regional Planning Commission, and previously spent 24 years in Manchester in a variety of roles, including interim town manager, planning director, zoning administrator, tree warden and E911 coordinator.

As Faulkner sees it, the town has three “buckets” before them which must be decided on well before Charlotte’s current town administrator, Dean Bloch, vacates the position on Oct. 31.

“One bucket is a job description for an administrator, and the next one is a bucket that has information related to a town manager,” Faulkner said. “And the third bucket was to include what the state statute says. So what we do is we have three different items we’re working on.”

Faulkner said that, over the last week, he has been conversing with Krohn about the possibility of him taking care of those three items, melding them together and presenting the findings to the public and selectboard.

The item will be discussed at the June 12 selectboard meeting, where a proposal from Krohn will be presented, along with ideas where the selectboard plans to find the money in the budget to pay Krohn, should the decision be finalized.

Some residents expressed that managing the three “buckets” really isn’t a task that’s difficult, and the whole process should now move past “needing more information” since this is the second special meeting the selectboard has had to discuss the matter.

“I’m not sure what your scope of work is that you’re going to assign as a consultant to Lee Krohn, but it’s all there,” Peter Richardson said. “It’s all in black and white. You guys are making problems where they don’t exist. You’re bringing questions into a context that is much clearer than you’re giving credit for.”

After some back and forth, Faulkner let out an exasperated plea.

“Honest to God,” he said. “We’re working on solving the problem. Can there be some way we can get along in this process?”

Another resident, Ruth Uphold, said the performance of the selectboard in the last year wasn’t “stellar.”

“It was the back and forth on the (town) garage. There was the Town Meeting that was canceled despite the majority of amount of towns successfully holding theirs. And there was the failed budget,” she said. “I think something needs to change going forward, and that means a town manager.”

Uphold added, “Should you elect to take this step, I would view it as you (the selectboard) taking responsibility for the missteps of last year and making a commitment to better going forward.”

Faulkner replied, “Thanks for the comments.”

Members of the ad hoc group circulating the petition for the switch that sparked the conversation has said all along that the goal is not to usurp power from the selectboard or offer criticisms about their performance, but to instead take the opportunity to reexamine the efficiency of the town’s current form of government.

“This is a great time to think about, do we want to go on the same path?” resident Peter Joslin, a member of the group, told the selectboard. “It’s not a question of being critical about you. I’m really saying, is it working for you the way it is now?”

For now, the group has agreed not to bring the petition — which has garnered more than 200 votes — before the town clerk to force a vote, opting instead to work in conjunction with the selectboard to inform the public and determine the best way forward.

However, if the selectboard does ultimately decide to continue on a town administrator form of government, board member Lewis Mudge questioned, “Are you going to put this to a vote no matter what?”

Lane Morrision, a member of the group, said, “Let’s not answer that right now. Let’s see what the progress is. We don’t want to make that threat. Hopefully we all can work together on this.”