CRAFTSBURY – The Freedom and Unity Commission gathered a panel with experience in town management from Coventry, Glover, Burke, Cambridge and Wolcott on Tuesday, Oct. 9. in the Craftsbury Town Hall to look at the pros and cons of two important issues for managing a Vermont town’s business.
“Practical Ways to Grow Municipal Capacity” was the subject at the community forum, offering a facilitated, conversational panel to look first at town’s experience after expanding a select board from three to five members, and second, at the benefits of hiring a town administrator or select board assistant.
Moderating the panel and the discussion was Daniel Solomon, “We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. He said, let’s see what’s worked throughout our region and what lessons we can apply to Craftsbury,” he said.
“It was her [Linda Ramsdell’s] comment to a few members of our Freedom and Unity group about how well a select board meeting in Glover operated that inspired us to organize tonight’s event.”
Panelists, introduced by Solomon as the Dream Team, included Glover’s Brian Carol, a retired school administrator, who served as the town’s administrator for the first six months after Glover moved to that form of town management.
Linda Martin, Wolcott Select Board Chair since 2021, and a board member since 2020, served as town clerk and treasurer from 1986 to 2000 and in the Vermont legislature from 2005 to 2016 After the Wolcott select board increased from three to five, in 2018 she told the board there was a real need for them to hire their own assistant, saying they “needed to get weaned off of seeing the town clerk as their secretary.”
Former Coventry Town Manager Matthew Maxwell, served as that town’s administrator from 2022 to 2025, working directly for the select board.
Former Cambridge Select Board member George Putnam retired in 2016, then served from 2017 to 2023 on the town’s select board. During that time a town administrator was added in 2018 and the select board expanded from three to five in 2019.
Burke’s Jim Sullivan retired from a banking career in 2021, becoming town administrator the next year.
Also joining the panel was Kathleen Ramsey, from Addison County’s town of Lester, a
municipal support specialist with the Vermont League of Cities and Towns.
Following the event, Liz Steel, who attended from Greensboro, said, “So helpful to hear how neighboring towns in the NEK are addressing the increasing demands on the responsibilities of the town clerk. With the need for technology skills, grant writing and administration, emergency management and state reporting, to name a few, the town administrator role was seen as a critical asset to the effective operation of the towns represented on the panel.”
A recording of the event can be found at youtube.com/watch?v=Fo7bMh6hamI.
Paul Fixx is editor of The Hardwick Gazette and lives in Hardwick.
