Winchendon Narrows Town Manager Search

Winchendon Narrows Town Manager Search Decision is now down to three applicants

Damien Fisher News Staff Writer WINCHENDON  The final candidates in the running to be Winchendon’s next town manager are the current town manager of Salem, New Hampshire, Townsend’s town administrator, and the former city manager for Portland, Maine. Selectmen were presented with the resumes of three candidates selected by the Town Manager Search Committee, which has been working with acting Town Manager Bernie Lynch to fill Toy Town’s top job. The committee started with 37 resumes before narrowing the field down to the three presented Wednesday night. Keith Hickey is the current town manager in Salem, New Hampshire, a town of 29,000 residents with a $49 million annual operating budget, which excludes the education budget for the town. Mr. Hickey, who currently lives in Greenfield, New Hampshire, has been the manager in Salem since 2011, and has had managerial experience in Merrimack, New Hampshire, and Bedford, New Hampshire. He also has municipal financial management experience. Mark Rees, from North Andover, served as the Portland, Maine, city manager from 2011 to 2014, managing a city of 65,000 with a $220 million budget, He served as the North Andover manager before that from 2000 to 2011, and had had the position of chief financial officer for Framingham, town manager on Northbridge, and town administrator in Ashburnham from 1987 to 1991. Andrew Sheehan is Town­send’s current town administrator, taking over the position in 2010. He’s been assistant town manager in Westford, and assistant to the city manager in Lowell under Mr. Lynch from 2007 to 2009. Mr. Sheehan also received a certificate in local government leadership and management this year from the Suffolk University, where Mr. Lynch teaches. All three candidates have managerial and financial management experience, one of the keys to the position when it was posted. The board has made it a goal to find a manager with strong financial management skills. That skill set has been urged by the Massachusetts Department of Revenue which is overseeing the town’s $3.4 million in special borrowing legislation to get out of debt from last year’s financial crisis. The town found itself in debt due largely in part to errors in the employee health insurance trust fund, as well as overspending of trust fund accounts in the school department. Long-time Town Manger James Kreidler resigned in April after voters approved a $300,000 severance package to release him from his contract. The board will interview the three candidates next week, on Tuesday and Wednesday night. Those interviews will be open for the public to observe, but not participate. A public vote by selectmen on one candidate is expected to follow the interviews, though it will likely happen on Monday, Nov. 9.