Swampscott's Senior Planner Search Intensifies Amid Myriad Projects

SWAMPSCOTT, MA — Swampscott is renewing its push to fill the town's senior planning position as it looks at a series of significant development projects.

Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald said at Wednesday night's Select Board meeting that filling the position has been a challenge amid the current municipal employment environment and that the town is reposting the opening as the Assistant Director of Planning at a "salary that is a little higher" in hopes of enticing candidates.

"I don't think there's been a period of time when we've needed a senior planner more," Fitzgerald said. "We have busy projects. Not just the Hawthorne redevelopment but also the Glover, and the broader economic needs of Vinnin Square, and neighborhood protection.

"This is a critical position."

Fitzgerald said when the position was previously posted the town received "zero applicants." He added that efforts to "recruit" a planner from another community were also unsuccessful despite having what he called "a very competitive salary range for that position."

Both Select Board members MaryEllen Fletcher and Peter Spellios said the urgency of the need came to the fore while comparing the Swampscott Planning Board's bumpy public hearing regarding the former Glover Restaurant property — slated to be developed into housing — with the relatively smooth sailing of the Marblehead Planning Board's hearing on the Glover.

"Marblehead closed its hearing and issued its decision on the Glover and we're talking about getting (the Swampscott public hearing) extensions past March," Spellios noted.

Fitzgerald said that investments in community and economic development are critical to the town's future tax base.

"We look at Vinnin Square and anybody who thinks that, as a campus that was defined in the 1950s, still works for 2023 is reading an old textbook," he said. "Economic development and the need for conversations around planning and master planning have never been more important."

(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.)