Bourne town administrator to propose goals for coming year
BUZZARDS BAY – Six months on the job as Bourne town administrator, Marlene McCollem is working with the Select Board to set priorities and goals in the new fiscal year.
That executive level guidance may come Aug. 12 at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy when board members participate in their annual retreat — in part to make sure the outcome comports with the upgraded town charter — do strategic planning and discuss comprehensive wastewater work. Just for starters.
The board is mindful of continuing transition in top municipal jobs over the past two years, as well as the need to chart a new future with Wareham over Buzzards Bay wastewater treatment and citizen opposition to a proposed regional sewage outfall into the canal at Taylors Point.
Departures and related job searches have framed and frustrated Select Board efforts to create some form of executive level succession planning.
Assistant Town Administrator Glenn Cannon, who had been acting town administrator, left this past spring for a job as town administrator in Rochester. Town Administrator Anthony Schiavi left in November 2021 and Acting Administrator Tim King left in December 2021.
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McCollem is also working without an assistant town administrator.
Hiring for that position is currently on hold, but there are other top-level jobs to be filled now that a human resources director has been hired and an information technology office manager is in place.
Board will review goals July 26
To prepare for the August retreat, McCollem agreed to list goals she thinks tie into the town’s strategic plan and forward them for selectmen’s review on July 26.
Select Board member Mary Jane Mastrangelo on July 5 said the list would serve as a veritable “State of Bourne that has so many moving parts right now” but with some “coming together.”
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McCollem said this approach will be “extremely” helpful.
“There are hundreds and hundreds of things I could be doing,” McCollem said. “I have to focus my energies to be effective. Some things might be important, but not the right time. The timing of things needs discussion.”
Select Board member Jared MacDonald says a “simple list” will help the retreat be successful.
“We’ll be able to focus on what needs to come first for the Town of Bourne in terms of priorities," he said.
Fire station, community center among priorities so far
To date, McCollem has focused on the following items:
Helping secure a site for a fire station south of the Bourne Bridge
Hiring the next police chief and filling other vacancies
Coming to grips with the future of Buzzards Bay sewerage in terms of its Wareham connection
Facilitating repairs to that waste system
Considering uses of American Rescue Plan Act revenue
Fixing what continually ails the Community Center; such as blocked toilets.
Efforts to consider a new library, however, are not at the top of McCollem's current priorities. This signal has gone to library trustees.
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It is also becoming questionable if Calamar’s Tides at Bourne apartments, still under construction across from Town Hall, will open to tenants with occupancy agreements this year. Some tenants are newly homeless, having hoped they could have moved into their new places in the spring.
This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Bourne officials to gather next month to set goals for coming year
