The three candidates vying for the Great Barrington town manager position (from left): Jonathan Elwell, Liz Hartsgrove, and Marie Ryan. The Selectboard interviewed the three candidates at Town Hall on Tuesday, Sept. 30. Screenshots by Shaw Israel Izikson.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThe first candidate the Selectboard interviewed during their September 30 meeting was Jonathan Elwell.<\/p>\n
A native of Brattleboro, Vt., Elwell most recently served as the general manager of the Electric Department of the Town of Lyndon, Vt., from March 2022 to February 2025. He previously served as the village manager for the town of Enosburg Falls, Vt., from September 2004 to February 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like to help this community move itself forward and try to make it become an even better version of itself than it is now,\u201d Elwell told the Selectboard in his opening remarks. \u201cI know that you guys probably have a lot of plans that you have discussed over the years. I just looked at your master plan to see some of the things that were discussed, and I would take it as a great honor if you ended up selecting me to do my very best to help the community move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Selectboard member Garfield Reed said he is concerned that Elwell spent less than three years working at the Electric Department in Lyndon, Vt. \u201cI also noticed that you had many hats and you had many different jobs there,\u201d Reed said. \u201cI was wondering about your length of time [at the department]. If you started something here, would you see it through to the end?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI would be committed to fulfilling the agreed upon contract between myself and the Selectboard, whether it is three or five years\u2014whatever you guys want to do,\u201d Elwell responded. \u201cMunicipal management is where my heart is; that\u2019s what I studied specifically for. That [Electric Department] job was a really great experience for me, and I have nothing bad to say about the community. It was a really good experience, but now I\u2019m looking to come back into municipal management as a whole, and not looking specifically at just a department.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCan you speak to an instance where, in any part of your career, where you\u2019ve come into a new position, went through a process of learning and understanding, and then decided that you needed to make a specific change in a policy or a protocol?\u201d Selectboard member Philip Orenstein asked Elwell. \u201cAnd that change may have been met with some objection, but you nevertheless decided to go through with that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a municipality that I worked for that, when I first started there, they were not doing annual evaluations of employees or any evaluations of employees,\u201d Elwell said. \u201cI am a strong supporter of doing that. I think it\u2019s important for the organization and the employee. Even if they are a little resistant to it at first, employees need to get feedback from their employer about how they are doing, both good and bad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elwell said some of the employees for the municipality, which he did not name, were \u201cnot very keen on this idea.\u201d \u201cIt took a little bit of time to push this idea forward,\u201d he said. \u201cI told people, \u2018Well, it\u2019s coming. I\u2019m not going to force it on you immediately, but I\u2019m telling you it\u2019s coming, and we are going to do this.\u2019 After about two years, I got people warmed up enough [to the idea] and I decided, OK, everybody has been warned. In the end, I was able to convince [the employees] that in the long run it was going to be a good thing for everybody, including union members. We got [employee evaluations] built into the next set of union contracts.\u201d<\/p>\n
The next candidate interviewed by the Selectboard was Buzzards Bay, Mass., Assistant Town Administrator Liz Hartsgrove, a native of Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n
Hartsgrove has served as Buzzards Bay\u2019s assistant town administrator since December 2022. She previously served in several roles for the town of Barnstable, Mass., including its consumer affairs supervisor from August 2014 to June 2018, the assistant director of planning and development from June 2018 to March 2021, and the town\u2019s deputy director of asset management and its licensing director from March 2021 to December 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m kind of at a crossroads in my life and as well as my career,\u201d Hartsgrove told the Selectboard. \u201cI\u2019ve gone as far as I can on the Cape in the current spectrum. There are only 15 towns on the Cape, so that means there are only 15 opportunities for people. It\u2019s very hard for me to have an opportunity for a town manager role. My husband just recently retired, and we are becoming empty nesters in a few months, so my husband is basically now portable. We\u2019ve decided that this is a great opportunity to reimagine our next chapter in our life, and this position is a really wonderful fit for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reed asked Hartsgrove whether, if she were hired, \u201cthis is something you are going to enjoy for a while then move on?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you do hire me, you will find that I\u2019m very honest and transparent with my conversations, and you\u2019re asking me to actually forecast something that I don\u2019t know yet,\u201d Hartsgrove responded. \u201cHowever, I am here to commit to Great Barrington. I would not apply if I was not ready to commit, and I would not waste your time applying [for this position]. I don\u2019t see this as a stop-gap [position] in any way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Selectboard member Eric Gabriel asked Hartsgrove how she would keep morale and motivation high and how she would build teams for town employees if she became the town manager.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s vital, and I see it as a missing component from a lot of town managers,\u201d Hartsgrove said. \u201cI\u2019ve worked with about 15 different town managers, and I have assessed the pros and cons of their skill sets. A lot of [the town managers missed skills in] team building, morale, paying attention to your staff, and understanding that you have a responsibility. Your responsibility is to keep the culture in check, making sure that everybody is lined up, and making really tough decisions that many disagree with in your staff, as well as some of the community members. If the Selectboard is instructing me and voting to guide the staff in a certain direction, we have a responsibility to follow through with that. The participatory component of it is very vital.\u201d<\/p>\n
As an example, Hartsgrove cited her time in Barnstable where she \u201cwas instructed to overhaul the [town\u2019s] complete parking division.\u201d \u201cIt has 20 individuals in the department, and an additional 12 seasonal employees,\u201d she said. \u201cIt oversees 500 miles of road in the 76 square miles of town. It issues over 10,000 parking tickets a year. Anything to do with public safety or enforcement has a negative connotation. How can we shift that towards a positive? That was my instruction when I came on to Barnstable, and I involved the entire community for that before I made any decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n
The last candidate interviewed at the meeting was West Stockbridge Town Administrator Marie Ryan.<\/p>\n
Great Barrington resident Ryan is the only candidate from the Berkshire County area. She has served as the town administrator, assistant town clerk, and assistant town treasurer for West Stockbridge since July 2019. She previously served as Great Barrington\u2019s town clerk from June 2007 to August 2019 and from May 2024 to August 2024. She has also served as the town clerk for Richmond from April 2017 to August 2019 and for Monterey from December 2018 to May 2019.<\/p>\n
In her opening statement, Ryan said that she was on the Town Manager Screening Committee two times this year. \u201cAs we kept going through those interviews and trying to get good candidates, the more we did it, the more I kept thinking \u2018You know, I think I should do this,\u2019\u201d she recounted. \u201cThere are so many things in common [with being the town administrator for West Stockbridge] that I felt would be helpful for a transition.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ryan added, \u201cI\u2019m very much a people person.\u201d<\/p>\n
Selectboard member Gabriel asked Ryan about her strategies in building teams and boosting employee morale.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really like to have meetings, but I don\u2019t have them as much in West Stockbridge because a lot of [employees] work part time,\u201d Ryan responded. \u201cBut I do meet with everybody at least once a week. Recently, I had to have the Police Department do something that they really didn\u2019t want to do. But I said, \u2018We\u2019re a team. We all have to work together. You have to help me on this because it\u2019ll help the town, and I think it will make them look better as well.\u2019 I really want to stress the team thing because you look better, you want to look good, and you want the community to see your office running smoothly and being supportive of the community. The only way to do that is to get along. You don\u2019t want to come in and hear people fighting and arguing with other departments and saying, \u2018That\u2019s not my job.\u2019 I would encourage [employees] to be collaborative and communicate.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Selectboard is scheduled to hold a meeting on Monday, October 6, at 5 p.m., to discuss the candidates and possibly vote on selecting a candidate.<\/p>\n
Click here<\/a> for the candidates\u2019 full resumes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Great Barrington \u2014 The search for a permanent town manager continued on Tuesday, September 30, as the Selectboard interviewed three candidates at a special meeting. The position was left vacant in January after then-Town Manager Mark Pruhenski left to take on that position for the town of Middlebury, Vt. Since Pruhenski\u2019s departure, Town Planner Chris<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4781,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[1251,1253,527,149,823,1252,1023],"class_list":{"0":"post-4780","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-interviews","8":"tag-barrington","9":"tag-candidates","10":"tag-great","11":"tag-interviews","12":"tag-manager","13":"tag-selectboard","14":"tag-town"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}