DeVellis Calls For More Control Over Town Manager's Evaluation

FOXBOROUGH, MA — Town Manager Bill Keegan may have received a great review from the selectmen, but it's the negative comments that Selectman Jim DeVellis wants to see.

In a lengthy, sometimes contention discussion, DeVellis criticized Assistant Town Manager Mary Beth Bernard for only including comments from four of the five selectmen in the summary report. While DeVellis said he can't see who wrote what, he believes that the absent comments were written by former Selectman Ginny Coppola, who he said wrote a lengthy comment with constructive criticism and what he called, helpful comments.

"Now we can’t see who wrote what but there was one of us who wrote a lengthy review and it was not positive, and we may disagree with it, or we may agree with it but that person took a lot of time to detail discussions that they’ve had with her or his opinion, and we never saw it," DeVellis said.

Recalling past evaluations prior to Keegan's and Bernard's arrival in 2014, DeVellis said that the selectmen had control over the process, which is now done by the assistant town manager.

"The assistant town manager is running the review and controlling the information that comes back to us. I don’t think that’s the process we want," DeVellis said.

Chairman Chris Mitchell said if a negative remark on a report goes public, there is no way to dispute the comment. Bernard said she has used four comments for the past two review summaries, including a negative comment for the 2017 review.

"The summary document is a compilation of scores to show that the town manager was either satisfactory, above satisfactory, below satisfactory," Bernard said. "It was 90 percent positive, which is what this shows."

"If I just see keep up the good work, it’s useless," DeVellis said later in the discussion.

While DeVellis was interested in what other board members had to say in their reviews of Keegan, other selectmen are unlikely to stop at Town Hall to review the full review.

"The only one who cares what all five of us has to say is (Keegan). If I want to know that, I’ll go to his office and look at the whole thing. It’s there. If I want to see it I’ll go see it," Selectman Mark Elfman said.

Keegan said that he sees the entirety of the review, not just the summary that's crafted for public discussion.

"Each individual board member makes their own evaluation. I take all those comments very seriously, that’s the whole purpose of it. There are ways you can summarize anything you want. I take the negative comments, I take the positive comments, I use them all constructively," Keegan said.

But DeVellis still felt that Coppola's comments should have been included on the summary because of her six years on the board.

"I think they were very helpful comments and I think we had a right to see it and I think we had a right to discuss it," DeVellis said.

The board voted 3-1 to approve the evaluation, with DeVellis voting against the motion because he felt the process was incomplete. Selectman Leah Gibson abstained from voting because she was not a member of the board during the process.

Mitchell said he would sit down with Bernard and review the evaluation process.

Image: File Photo