To The Editor,

Newtown has traditionally been managed by an elected first selectman. While our population has remained relatively flat for the last twenty years, over that time support roles such as a purchasing agent and the facilities manager have been added to help the first selectman.

Toward the end of Dan Rosenthal’s tenure, we on the council recognized the need to attract qualified candidates capable of administering the town and increased the salary for the position. We were also considerate of the public service aspect of the role being the primary focus, rather than a lucrative career move that may draw candidates for the wrong reasons.

With that in mind, two months into the new term, why does the first selectman now need to hire an operations manager? There is no proportional salary reduction in the proposed budget to reflect this offloading of responsibilities.

There has been a suggestion for a charter change to a town administrator or town manager model of government. This would involve hiring an unelected professional expert to run the Town. There is some merit to this model, and during the last Charter Revision we made similar arguments for making the Board of Finance an appointed body, focused on specialized skillsets and insulated from the partisan politics that dissuades otherwise qualified candidates. However, the voters rejected that proposal, sending a clear message that they want direct input as to who makes decisions for Newtown.

Regardless of whether you call someone an operations manager, town manager, or town administrator, it amounts to hiring someone to manage the day-to-day operations, thus “allowing the first selectman to step back.” Yes, hypothetically the roles or oversight could be different, but in practice it’s the same responsibilities handed off to an unelected bureaucrat.

Voters elect the first selectman to run the town, not to delegate that responsibility. If we want to change to a hired administration model, that should be done democratically through charter revision before anyone is hired so the voters can have a say in how our Town is governed, and it should not start until the following term. Hiring an operations manager in this budget cycle is putting the cart before the horse and taking away the voters’ input into our form of government as intended under Home Rule.

If this role is filled, who is naive enough to believe that person would not be the leading candidate for a town manager role if the voters were to approve such a charter change (after spending thousands on another performative search process, of course)?

If the voters do not approve said charter change, it seems we may still get a bureaucrat handling town operations either way, the choice being if it is with or without a well-paid figurehead.

Ryan Knapp and Philip Carroll,

Former Council members

Newtown