By Bella Osgood
EAGLE TIMES PUBLISHER
EAGLE TIMES STAFF
And Rich Girard
NEWPORT, N.H. — The Newport Board of Selectmen has chosen three residents to serve on the Town Manager Search Committee, which the it created after Town Manager Hunter Rieseberg vacated the position. Rieseberg served as town manager for six years.
In addition to resident members, the committee will include Finance Director and interim Town Manager Paul Brown, one department head, one non-supervisory employee, two selectmen and a member of the Newport Chamber of Commerce. The chamber is expected to name its representative Friday.
Board of Selectmen Chairman Barry Connell said the two most important traits for the three chosen resdients are an understanding of the town of Newport and how it operates, in addition to having time to commit to the task.
Twelve Newport residents applied for the three positions, including Virginia “Bitty” Irwin, Chad Howe, Bert Spaulding Sr., Christy Whipple, Ken Denis, Dick Wensel, Herb Keller, Tim Beard, Todd Fratzel, Jane Rastallis, Mallory Starcher and Ben Bartlet.
After the list of candidates was announced at Monday’s meeting of the Board of Selectmen, Spaulding withdrew his name from consideration, saying, “There is more than enough people who have applied. I just planned on being a spare tire.”
Rather than vote on the nominees in public session during Monday night’s meeting, the board took the names into non-public session so each member could rank their top five candidates. The board chose Virginia “Bitty” Irwin, Christy Whipple and former Selectmen Herb Keller.
While the board has yet to name the other members, Selectman Jim Burroughs said the committee should be chosen sooner than later.
“Every day and week is important to us. We have a condensed timeline as it is,” he said.
Rieseberg had originally planned to leave the position at the end of the year but agreed to an earlier departure so the town would have a better pool of candidates from which to choose his replacement.
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