Swampscott Select Board Backs Town Administrator With Bonus Approval

SWAMPSCOTT, MA — The Select Board praised Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald's ambitious agenda, positive outlook, fiscal responsibility and progress toward key initiatives in providing a positive review for his performance during the 2023 fiscal year and approving a discretionary bonus in his contract during its last meeting.

Board members did urge Fitzgerald to be more willing to delegate responsibilities and increase communication as a way to see more projects to a conclusion while being able to tackle the bigger issues facing the town during the discussion surrounding the evaluation. The vote to approve the full allotment for the discretionary bonus was 3-2 with Select Board members Doug Thompson and MaryEllen Fletcher expressing a preference that an amount at less than 100 percent would be more appropriate.

Select Board Chair David Grishman in his overview cited Fitzgerald's guidance of the Hawthorne property purchase, RFP for the Hadley School re-use as a boutique hotel commercial property, creation and promotion of community events to bring residents together and engage with downtown business, and his part in helping the town to a Triple-A bond rating as positives during the year that ran from July 2022 through July 2023.

He also cited Fitzgerald's willingness to adjust when the town's efforts to hire new public safety personnel stalled in the wake of its departure from civil service to a plan that resulted in the swearing in of seven new police officers and two new firefighter recruits at its December meeting — though some of those efforts came in recent months after the previous fiscal year.

"The last couple of years have been the most difficult year of my tenure in public life," Fitzgerald said. "I think that any municipal CEO would say the same thing. These jobs are becoming more and more impossible. The acrimony, the vitriol, it's hard.

"But I do get bolstered by the progress that we make on a civic level."

He cited the completion of the new K-4 elementary building project this spring as a rewarding result of what can sometimes be very difficult processes filled with disagreements and criticisms.

"It's important that we continue to come back, and whether or not we agree on anything, I do think it's important that we recognize that we find common ground," he said.

Fletcher, who has publicly challenged Fitzgerald on a number of issues — most regularly public safety hiring, school funding and the clean up of King's Beach and the town's sewer contamination issues — credited Fitzgerald for his positive attitude and respectfulness even at times when they disagree as "something that I admire."

"I think the No. 1 takeaway from all of us is the idea of delegation and time management," Select Board Vice Chair Katie Phelan said. "To your credit, Sean, you have created a strong team around you that has the ability to take on more and that will afford you more time to take on more important things.

"I think we are all very excited about that pushing us even further with how we handle things in town."

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