Town manager search committee completed

MIDDLEBORO -- The committee tasked with helping to select the next town manager has been chosen.

Middleboro Select Board members at their May 11 meeting selected three at-large positions to add to the five members already chosen.

The newly named at-large search committee members are Nancy Kefalis, Ed Medeiros and MacDonald Sprague.

The original plan was to add two at-large candidates but when the board members’ final selection ended up in a three-way tie, they agreed to expand the board to eight.

Kefalis is a member of the Planning and Zoning boards. “I believe my ability to conduct thorough and dedicated research could be an asset,’’  she wrote in her letter requesting appointment.

Medeiros has served on a variety of town boards, including the Fire Station Building Committee, Public Works Building Committee, Zoning Board and has served as Planning Board chair.

Sprague, who owns his own business, acknowledged that he “may not have as much institutional knowledge’’ as some other contenders but said he values his position as “someone that isn’t an insider. I represent much more of our community in that way.’’

 The newly selected at-large candidates join the five previously chosen by the select board.

 The choices were: John Barrella, Finance Committee member, selected by William Pike; Joseph Mandile, recently retired town planer, selected by Chair Teresa Farley; Randy Gagne, former Middleboro library director, selected by Brian Giovanoni;  John Burbage, president of the Oak Point Homeowners Scholarship Fund, selected by Vice Chair Thomas White and Emily Surrette, management analyst for the Town of Lakeville, selected by Tracie Craig-McGee.

The committee will work with consultant Municipal Resources Inc. to bring the top contenders for town manager to the select board, which will make the final decision.

Their final choice will replace James McGrail, who left the post earlier this year to serve as town administrator in Harwich.

Joseph Perkins, the town’s former police chief, has been serving as interim.