By Dawn De Busk

Staff Writer

NAPLES — What Naples needs from its future town manager is someone who has a background in planning.

Many a town manager has transitioned from a job in planning, according to Naples Chairman Jim Grattelo.

The growth — particularly in the business sector — that Naples has been experiencing necessitates someone who is skilled at preparing for future growth, he said. Someone familiar with economic development and planning would be well suited for managing the town of Naples, he said. As he viewed it, the next town hire should probably be a planner.

Chairman Bob Caron II said the candidate should be financially savvy.

“Whoever is chosen, in the job description” it should say the applicant is “strong with a budget,” Caron said, since the Naples town manager submits the budget that he then reviews with the budget committee months before Town Meeting.

“Other, bigger towns have different committees that do that work for them,” Caron said.

The Naples Board of Selectmen held a workshop on the process of hiring of a town manager prior to its regularly scheduled meeting on Monday.

David A. Barrett, who is the director of Personnel Services and Labor Relations for the Maine Municipal Association, was on hand to discuss the hiring process with the selectmen.

It was highly-recommended that the town start advertising the position with online job-hunting sites.

The total cost for the advertising was between $600 and $700, which includes a combination of less expensive job-search sites and a pricy but effective job-hunting forum.

“What I do want to talk about is to get into the advertising piece. Most of this is done electronically. That is how people search for jobs,” Barrett said.

“With a typical municipal advertising run: It goes on our website job bank. We have a deal with our Vermont colleagues to put it on their website for free. The national town manager organizations — when managers are job hunting that is where they go — that is about $450. So, about $650 to $700 total,” Barrett said.

“Do put it in the local paper for citizens to see, for nothing more than so they can read it. They will know what we are looking for,” he said, adding the area newspaper will not drive up the candidate pool.

“Live and Work in Maine — that website is generating interest. We can get that in starting this week,” Barrett said.

The game plan was to draft and send a sample job advertisement to the selectmen for approval in a few days “and get it in this week,” he said.