LIMESTONE, Maine — Members of the Select Board unanimously voted last Wednesday night to take no action regarding applications for the town manager position and to have Interim Town Manager Tom Stevens contact the Maine Municipal Association to assist with the search.
The selectmen met in executive session Wednesday with the five members of a town manager search committee to discuss “a few” applications for the position, according to Stevens. He did not specify how many people applied and could not say why the board did not select any of them, but did confirm that the committee that was formed in late March is now disbanded.
“When the board came out, they didn’t state anything into the record,” Stevens said, “other than to take no further action and to request assistance from MMA.”
Limestone has been without a town manager for roughly seven months, with Police Chief Stacey Mahan and Stevens serving in turn since as interim managers.
From here, Stevens said it could be another “sixty to ninety days” until a new town manager is found, “assuming everything goes well” with MMA’s assistance.
“My experience with MMA is that they work as quickly as they can with communities when doing a professional manager search,” he said. “The process itself is at least a couple months. MMA generally has to have an engagement process and meet with the board to determine what the community is looking for with their manager.”
Once MMA officials get a feel for what the town is looking for, they place ads in various publications and websites for a three to four week period, according to Stevens.
The interim manager said that even though this “is the end of the search committee,” he believed the members all did great work.
“My observation, through working very closely with the search committee, is that they did a very good job,” said Stevens. “They took their roles very seriously.”
