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Marblehead has roughly six months to find someone to run its government, and members of the Select Board made clear June 24 that filling the job will demand hard decisions long before Town Administrator Thatcher Kezer walks out the door. The town faces the handoff at the moment it begins spending the largest tax increase residents have approved in more than two decades, leaving little room for a stalled search.
Kezer retires Dec. 31. The board's immediate next step, Chair Dan Fox said, is to hire an executive search firm to lead the recruitment. Fox asked Chief Procurement Officer Allison Jenkins to prepare a request for proposals for executive search services. The RFP covers the consultant or search team that will run the hunt, not the town administrator position itself.
Fox said the board should move quickly. To have a successor in place around the end of December, he said, the board may need to hire that person by October, in part because a candidate already working elsewhere could need time to give notice. Board member Jim Zisson said six months might sound like a long way off but is not.
Fox suggested the board aim to select a search firm by late July or mid-August. Members plan to take up the search in greater detail at their July 24 retreat, where Fox said they would weigh the qualities they want in a successor, their priorities, a timeline and how responsibilities should be divided between the Select Board and the town administrator. Board member Erin Noonan said applicants and the search firm alike will need to understand those priorities before the process moves ahead.
Fox said Kezer is assembling what he described as a "big book" laying out what the job entails, along with guidance for whoever takes over. The board also discussed building in overlap between the two administrators and, if needed, bringing Kezer back for a stretch after the transition.
The board discussed the process at length but did not vote to issue the RFP or hire a search firm.
Kezer has said his decision to retire was personal, made before the June 9 override vote and unrelated to its outcome. His tenure, which began in 2022, was defined by repeated warnings about the town's finances, a rebuilding of its management ranks and the override campaign that culminated June 9, when voters approved a $15 million operating override and a $2,298,575 trash and recycling override. Together the two measures added more than $17.3 million in permanent taxing authority, leaving a successor to inherit resources rather than a budget to cut.
For now, the next concrete step belongs to Jenkins, who will draft the request for proposals, and to the board, which expects to settle its priorities and timeline at the July 24 retreat before any search firm is chosen.
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