New Town Administrator Begins Today

Paul Apple officially begins his duties as North Hampton's new town administrator today, bringing a passion for managing individuals and crafting municipal policy to the town during the heart of budget season.

Apple, 45, the current Allenstown town administrator, has spent the past two Fridays in North Hampton learning some of the ins and outs of the community from Interim Town Administrator Dave Caron and town employees.

The focus of Apple's first official day, according to Caron, will be getting Apple up to speed on current town projects — for which Apple's "impressive" vision helped land him the job.

Apple has previously expressed to Patch a desire to get going on the job, explaining that he'll put a big emphasis on people as he gets "acclimated as quickly as possible" during a busy time of the year.

"When I first became involved in local government, I found there were so many different voices throughout the parts of the process," said Apple, a Kentucky native. "Part of the process is involving people and ensuring their voices are heard and going out into the community and listening to what they have to say. There are definitely managers that run an organization 'top-down.' That’s not my style... If you try to run a project from the top down in a New Hampshire town, I think that’s a disaster. All good management… comes from the bottom up."

Jim Maggiore, the chairman of the North Hampton Select Board, publicly commended Caron earlier on his work as interim town administrator, which will be ending soon. Maggiore said Caron "was filling big shoes," but has "done things wonderfully," "efficiently" and "effectively" since taking over for departed Town Administrator Steve Fournier in September.