Page 10 - 2022 Annual Report

Selectboard Report 2023

New Town Manager
This November the Selectboard hired Town Manager Noah Bond. Noah hails from East Peoria,
IL and was selected after an extensive and time-consuming search that saw a dozen potential
candidates considered. Noah impressed the search committee with his knowledge, sincerity,
and eagerness to take on the daunting task of running the Town during this difficult time, with a
number of important projects underway. Noah comes with experience in project management,
computer skills and familiarity with mapping programs, all of which were key to his
employment. He will also help the Town make the transition from Cash Accounting to Accrual
Accounting, which will make our CPA auditors happy. We intend to give him every opportunity
to use all the skills he has.
The budget reflects that current Administrator Joel Cope will be staying on as needed for the year
at his regular 20 hours/wk to help in the transition, and with a focus on the larger projects. But
Mr. Cope will be moving on as soon as possible after 34 years of service to the town. Former
Selectboard member Mike Strait will also be on the administrative staff until his assistance is no
longer needed. ARPA funds will pay for Mr. Bond’s position for Nov-Dec, 2022, and all of 2023.
ARPA funds will also cover Mr. Strait’s work.
For those who wonder why the town needs this amount of administrative staff, the answer is first
that several critical infrastructure projects have been more or less forced upon the town to the
extent that one person working only 20 hours per week cannot possibly move these complicated
and expensive projects to completion. That is the reason the selectboard decided to hire a
Town Manager, which position carries legal status that Town Administrators don’t have. But in
the meantime, until a new town manager was hired and brought up-to-speed, some immediate
additional administrative help was critically needed. Since Mr. Strait had been working on these
projects as a Selectboard member and had grant-writing and other skills we needed, he was hired
with his first task to arrange the search for the new town manager.
Since there were applicants from all over the country, the Selectboard approved spending ARPA
dollars on technology that allowed the search committee to interview candidates virtually. This
tech now allows board meetings to be held virtually as well, and those meetings can be accessed
by the public from the comfort of their homes. The board did interview the finalists in person.

The water, sewer and downtown revitalization projects are outside of the normal daily operating
functions of small-town municipal government. These are infrastructure projects that come along
every few decades. Mr. Bond will eventually take over these projects, but for now he will be busy
mastering the peculiarities of municipal government in Vermont, and a number of other tasks. He
has already taken on several projects, including the $148,000 Park Pavilion Project, upgrading
the All Hazards Mitigation Plan, and working on the annual insurance renewal. None of the
town manager applicants had management experience with Vermont municipal government.
Infrastructure projects – Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP)
The Selectboard was in the midst of following through on the downtown revitalization project as
directed by the community in the 2016 VCRD meetings, when the state told us that we needed
to replace the aging water and sewer plants, and clear the sludge out of the lagoons. These
plants are well past their design lives, and replacements are way more expensive than Brighton
taxpayers can afford without state and federal help, but getting that money is not easy.

10 Town of Brighton, VT