‘Stealth’ candidate Steve Williams steals show

BELCHERTOWN – After interviewing three candidates last week, the Belchertown Selectboard unanimously opted for a fourth, Department of Public Works Director, Steve Williams.

He will become the town’s first new Town Administrator in over two and a half decades, replacing long-time Town Administrator Gary Brougham. Brougham is retiring in early June.

The search for a new Town Administrator included a $10,000 allocation to hire Community Paradigm Associates, a consulting firm, to help with the search. A screening committee narrowed the search down from 20 candidates to three, each of whom was interviewed last Tuesday.

Scott Szczebak, Thomas Guerino and Brian Domina were each interviewed for an hour. At the end of the evening, the board opted to wait to decide until its meeting on Monday, May 1.

Szczebak currently serves as director of human resources in Wellesley, Guerino as the executive director of the Greenfield Housing Authority and Domina as the town administrator in Whately.

Beginning their deliberation, Selectboard member Ron Aponte reviewed each candidate’s strengths and weaknesses.

He said Szczebak had good communication skills, contract experience and HR experience in general. Some negatives included that his experience wasn’t a perfect fit for the town, due to experience in a city like Chicopee, which has a different municipal organization and demographic.

Szczebak also has experience in Wellesley, which is a more affluent community than Belchertown, Aponte said. He also did not possess experience as a town administrator.

“One of the things I noticed is he was a finalist in East Longmeadow in Feb. 2022, and Spencer in 2021, so that’s his third bite at the apple,” Aponte said. “That makes me a bit nervous. You want to see if, he’ll be looking to jump to something bigger and better than Belchertown.”

Aponte said Guerino has experience as a town administrator with a strong skillset. He also knew characteristics and optics about Belchertown. Aponte said he found that Guerino was a finalist in several town administrator searches including Somerset, Middleton, Hadley and Longmeadow.

He said he was concerned that Guerino was “override happy” after he mentioned four debt exclusions and two overrides inregards to addressing particular financial issues in the municipality he was working for.

The third candidate, Aponte said, was also very skilled and had done his homework on the town.

“One of the things probably because of the way Whately is, not having a large staff, he had a great breadth of knowledge and experience. He probably wore 10 hats on any given day,” Aponte said. In the same vein, Aponte said he was concerned about whether Domina could delegate.

He said Domina also knew about the Chapter 30B question about procurement procedures and experience with grant writing.

Following his review of the three, Aponte said in the past when selecting a finalist from a group of candidates he typically knew which person he was strongly leaning toward, but did not have that feeling in the case of this town administrator search.

“Let’s be honest, this is the most important decision a board can make. Then I had an epiphany. There’s a fourth candidate, a stealth candidate if you will,” Aponte said. “He has the experience, the skill set, the proven leadership, and the exceptional work ethic. He knows the town like the back of his without a doubt.”

He proposed Williams be appointed to the position.

Selectboard member Jen Turner originally was shocked by the proposal, saying that she was speechless.

Selectboard Chair Jim Barry said he wanted to continue the conversation about the three candidates before contemplating Williams.

Selectboard member Ed Boscher said he did not see a standout candidate of the three, but he could live with Szczebak.

He said he wasn’t sure how he felt about Williams being a “stealth” candidate, but had faith in Williams’s abilities.

Similarly, Turner said she favored Szczebak for a number of reasons, including that he would be the best fit for the culture in the town.

“With the HR perspective, I think he could offer a lot, especially as we have a new HR department…I know the town of Wellesley is not exactly like Belchertown, but he lives in a surrounding community (Palmer) and familiar with out town,” she said. “Without direction from the town, he talked about economic development. I felt like he could handle our budget pretty well.”

Barry said he was between Domina and Guerino.

“They had enough experience as town administrators to know what their job was and what they were getting into. I made notes about each of their answers to the questions and I reviewed the answers, then tried to put some scores to the answers,” Barry said, “What it came down to was that

Brian was scoring higher than Tom on a number of issues. What struck me was that one of the first questions he talked about was his passion for government.”

He said he had experience in the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission as well.

Barry said something that struck him was that Domina said people who worked in municipal government make a difference and don’t just have a job. They’re being evaluated every day for what they’re doing to serve the public.

Barry added, however, that he was not 100% happy with any of the three candidates and was open to Williams as a fourth “stealth” candidate.

Selectboard member Peg Louraine said if she had to choose between the three candidates, she was leaning toward Domina.

“But if I had been offered Mr. Williams as a candidate,” Louraine said. “it would have been a no-brainer.”

When asked if he applied, Williams said he had, but did not get an interview with the screening committee.

Williams came before the board and spoke about his 30 years of experience in Belchertown, 25 of which has been spent as the director of the department of public works.

“I’ve managed departments bigger than a lot of small towns with a $36 million budget, capital projects, a huge inventory of buildings and stock that we’ve managed,” he said. “I think my institutional knowledge of Belchertown is probably second to a very small group here.”

Williams said he knows the town is facing a lot of challenges, but he “has never turned his back to a challenge.”

When asked how he would close the gap on the town’s financial deficit, Williams said the town needs to be able to identify the town services it’s willing to cut should the budget need cuts.

“I think by any means we should close it one year. I think we need to have a plan and start to work towards that goal…We need to close that gap, but we need to maintain our services and make sure this is still a good place to live,” Williams said.

He said he would have a difficult time shuttering departments if there was a possibility to take methodical steps to close the structural deficit.

Following the discussion, the board unanimously approved appointing Williams to the position, barring a background check and contract negotiations.

In an interview with the Sentinel, Williams said the experience was “surreal.”

As a life-long resident of the town and having served on numerous boards and committees that have selected previous police chiefs, fire chiefs, building committees and more, Williams said he takes great pride in the accomplishments of those he played a role in hiring and in the town itself.

“It’s still sinking in, even when it was first mentioned, I think that the idea was going to gain any traction,” Williams said. “I’m happy and certainly hope there will be a smooth transition and the employees keep doing the work they do and be supportive of me so we can continue to work together going forward.”

He said one of the first orders of business will be attending the Annual Town Meeting next week and making sure that there will be a seamless transition to the next DPW director as there is a lot of projects going on.

Williams said he plans to stay in the town for another decade and hopes he can accomplish what he sets out to do and leaves the town in a better place than when he starts.

“One advantage I have is that being here as long as I have, is that I know all the players and there will be a quicker transition,” he said. “I’m looking forward to working with the various town boards, committees, departments and, importantly, the town employees. I hope I will have their support and I will do the best in my ability to support them.”