The selectmen on Tuesday night decided on what format they’ll use for interviewing the four police chief finalists on Monday, November 16.
Each candidate will be interviewed individually and in random order for 30 minutes starting at 6:30. The candidates will get to make opening and closing statements, with questioning by the selectmen in between. The selectmen will ask the same set of questions to each of the candidates.
The public is invited to observe the interviews, but they will not be able to ask questions of the candidates. At the end of the interview period, selectmen will open the meeting up to public comment.
“I hope there’s a good turnout, so people can see these candidates in action,” Chairman Sal Giorlandino said.
Selectwoman Bonnie Phaneuf stressed that she wants the public comment period “to be a positive discussion that’s going to be helpful to this board.”
The selectmen will make their final decision on Tuesday, November 17 at their regularly-scheduled meeting.
In addition to the interviews, selectmen will factor in feedback from BadgeQuest, an independent assessment center that was hired to provide input on the candidates. BadgeQuest assessed all of the candidates at a session held last Friday at the Community Center.
The assessment involved a number of individual exercises, as well as a joint one. The scenarios were designed to assess budgetary, management, and other skills. One exercise had them role playing with an aggressive reporter.
All three selectmen observed the assessment. Giorlandino said he was impressed by the process, calling it “vigorous.” Retired police chiefs from Waltham, Wenham, and Plymouth participated in the assessment.
RE: “Selectwoman Bonnie Phaneuf stressed that she wants the public comment period “to be a positive discussion that’s going to be helpful to this board.”
Really, how does anyone expect a good part of the discussion to be positive when for the most part its all been negative ! If you had done your job well Ms. Phaneuf, there would be no need to stress the “positive”. I’d be ready to get an ear full
The BOS and a few others turned this process into a circus and you are all the laughing stock of the law enforcement community.
The only thing resembling a “circus” atmosphere is the continued carping and cowardly sniping by anonymous trolls like “One Comment”.
Bonnie Phaneuf and the other Selectmen deserve praise for their stewardship of a process that is long, involved, complex, hard work, and patently thankless.
Mr. Brownell, Really? You either live in a concete bunker exposed to nothing around you or I’d like to have whatever it is you are prescribed.
I think that the final interviews should be like the rest of the process…..behind closed doors. The Selectmen can then announce their choice on Tuesday. I shall not praise anybody, nor shall I kick anybody, but this process has certainly been skewed since the beginning, and the taxpayers just aren’t getting what they deserve. Time to start working on campaign signs
Dear “Really?”
How do you wake up and face yourself in the morning? You crow about “concrete bunkers” from one side of your mouth, while vomiting invectives, conspiracy theories, and ill-will against those who labor on your behalf.
If you don’t like the direction of the BOS and the Police Chief selection process, then have to it, stand up, be a stakeholder, and change it. The only thing worse than those who troll and snipe from anonymity, are the complete armchair ingrates who never venture to correct that which aggrieves them, and – in the process, blame everyone else as the source of their festering malcontent.
Grow up, and Get Better.