Former Amesbury Mayor To Become New Marblehead Town Administrator

MARBLEHEAD, MA — The Marblehead Select Board will meet Wednesday to vote on a contract for new town administrator Thatcher Kezer after the Board voted unanimously to appoint the former Amesbury mayor to the position.

Kezer, who served as the chief operating officer for the city of Framingham from 2018 to 2021, also recently retired as a lieutenant colonel in the Massachusetts Air National Guard.

The Select Board interviewed Kezer as the lone finalist for the position after two other finalists pulled their names from consideration before the public interview.

"He was always going to be a finalist," Select Board Chair Jackie Belf-Becker said of Kezer. "It is not what we anticipated. But we're lucky to have a stellar candidate before us."

Belf-Becker said the Search Committee considered reopening the search, but that likely would have delayed hiring the new administrator until the fall, and that "there is no guarantee there would be someone better."

Select Board member Erin Noonan, who was also a member of the Seach Committee, endorsed moving forward with Kezer's interview despite the lack of other finalists.

"I feel fortunate that we have a candidate that (the Committee) who we were unanimous in that we all felt strongly about," Noonan said. "I don't want to dim the light of this candidate at all."

Kezer has spent more than 25 years working in municipal government at the local, state and federal level. He served as mayor of Amesbury from 2006 to 2013 and also worked for the Edwin J. Collins Jr. Center for Public Management as well as MassDevelopment overseeing the redevelopment of the former Fort Devens in North Central Massachusetts into a residential and business community.

He told the Board during the interview that his experience as an officer and municipal manager at different levels makes him well-suited for the Marblehead post.

"No matter what decision I make someone is going to yell at me," he said of lessons learned. "I'd rather get yelled at for doing my job than not doing my job."

He told the Board he intends to spend the first 90 days in the town learning about its budget history — which includes a structural deficit that will almost certainly require a tax override in 2023 — and strategic plans as well as talking with town employees and other stakeholders.

"I don't want to go in and make changes for the sake of making changes," he said. "I don't want to blow up something that's working well.

"It's like a sandbox. You can tell what's on the surface. But looking at what's underneath is more interesting. It takes time to do that digging."

Belf-Becker said there were 19 applicants for the post following Jason Silva's resignation in January. John McGinn, a former town administrator, has served in the role on an interim basis for the past four months.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)