Above: The Select Board discussed with SFD’s outgoing chief the best process for finding someone to fill his shoes. (images cropped from remote meeting video)
As Southborough’s Fire Chief prepares to head to greener pastures in a month, the Town is working on plans to recruit both his replacement and an Interim Chief.
On December 19th, the Select Board voted to authorize Town Administrator Mark Purple to contract with a recruiter who specializes in municipal jobs to recruit and help narrow down candidates for both jobs, and spend up to $20K.
During past chief searches, the Select Board has typically appointed Acting Police Chiefs from within the SPD’s ranks. In contrast, Southborough has historically hired former chiefs from other towns to serve in interim roles for the Fire Department.
At the Select Board’s December 19th meeting, Chief Steven Achilles explained that since he doesn’t have a non-union Deputy, any of his current employees could be “conflicted” if appointed to temporarily oversee the department. He also said that the department had some really good people who might be candidates but didn’t think they could be up and running at this time.
As for the long-term hire, the Town has formed a committee for prior Fire Chief searches. This time around, they didn’t seem inclined.
In December, Achilles acknowledged that process for hiring him was lengthy. (He was hired in a second iteration of the search.) He benefited, but it wasn’t good for the department. He said that he believed that using a committee at that time had made sense given “the landscape” and that they were hiring a chief from the outside after a long history of only internal hirings. They needed help deciding what they were looking for. He wasn’t sure it was necessary this time.
Former board member Bonnie Phaneuf said that she believed the committee had made the process too lengthy the last time around. She advised against using on.
Members agreed they would wait to see what process the recruiter recommends. They would only look to create a committee if he advised it would help him.
The board asked Purple to hire Bernie Lynch of Community Paradigm. They were happy with his support for past hires and his knowledge of municipal personnel.
Last night, Purple told the board that under public procurement laws, anything over $10K required him to solicit at least 3 bids and accept the lowest bid. As of last night, he was waiting on one more response. He noted that given the small number of players in the business, any of the vendors would check their boxes.
Prior to discussing his replacement in December, board members expressed mixed emotions over Achilles’ news that he was leaving.
Members admired the chief’s leadership and calm demeaner, even in difficult situations. Purple referred to him as a mentor both to his department and to Chief Ryan Newell upon his promotion to Police Chief. They wished him well on what Chair Andrew Dennington referred to as a “Capstone” “dream job”.
Achilles’ official last day is February 7th.
