At the Town Board meeting on Wednesday, October 23rd I called for information to be made available to the public regarding hiring practices, specifically what positions must be posted internally, for how long before making them available to the public, and how positions are advertised. As is typical, there was no answer provided as part of the public meeting.
At the October meeting the Deputy Clerk Amanda Zawada was hired to serve in the newly created Executive Secretary to Enforcement, Planning, and Zoning position and Andrew S. Nicolaus was hired as our new Deputy Clerk. To be clear, my concern has nothing at all to do with these people, but the process. I have found Ms. Zawada to be nothing short of professional and helpful in all my contacts with her and I have no opinion or experience with regards to Mr. Nicolaus.
The speed at which these hires were made points to a process that is perhaps not as thorough and transparent as it should be. The Executive Secretary position was only created one month ago, via action of the Town Board at its September meeting. While both positions were advertised on the Town website, and the Executive Secretary position posted to Indeed, these job announcements are not prominently featured on the website and could not have been posted for long given that both hires were accomplished within one month. Furthermore, the Deputy Town Clerk position did not include a job description or any information on pay range. If elected, I would certainly be asking our Town Attorney if this is a violation of New York’s pay transparency laws.
To address my concerns, the Town Clerk advised me – privately, and not as part of the public meeting – that the Deputy Clerk position is an appointment of the Town Clerk, subject to Town Board approval. Clerk Howe then shared that, in addition to the posting on the Town website, she had solicited potential applicants via her personal Facebook page. Ultimately the reader will need to decide if this is an issue, but appointed or not, I believe the Town deserves to have the benefit of casting a wide net and securing as many applications as possible to find and hire the best candidates. Those candidates should not, in my opinion, need to be within, or affiliated with, personal friends or community connections of any elected officials or town employees.