Moving on but staying local
To the Editor;
After 16 years of employment with the Town of Greenville, most of that time as town manager, I will be stepping down September 2, 2016 and will soon after begin a new career in the banking field. It seems surreal to leave this post, as town management has become a large portion of my identity. But that is the very reason it is time to make a change.
When I walk or drive through our community, I look for the condition of sidewalks, of roads; I lament the placement of utility poles in the way of snow removal efforts. I walk into our fire station and remember when all of the town’s services originated from this one location, and how we built facilities for different departments as necessary, one by one.
My children have grown while I have managed our town, and their histories are intertwined. I have a clipping from the front page of the Moosehead Messenger where my step-daughter Courtney and my daughter Ashley helped Dave Hall and I cut the ribbon for the new snowmobile clubhouse on Scammon Road. I remember innumerous Sunday mornings doing the “dump run” with Ashley, stopping at the Town Office and the Fire Station to swamp out the recycling bins and haul away the trash. Ashley would fall asleep in her car seat while I checked roads late at night after wind storms, sawing up trees that fell across the road. In fact, one of my first dates with my wife Amanda resulted in my sawing a downed tree on Varney Road in the middle of a heavy rainstorm (it’s a wonder she’s still with me).
The role of Road Commissioner should be to ensure roads are open after storms, and I recognized that time spent by the PW Department clearing trees during a snowstorm meant they weren’t plowing or sanding roads. Still, we would work together during storms.
When Chris Bussell worked for Public Works, he helped me cut up a giant fir tree in the middle of the night that fell across a guardrail during a snowstorm. We knew there was a guardrail once the sparks shot out when I hit it with my saw. Trips like that always made Red Grenier glad to see me the next day.
For many years Ashley and I helped keep our town office, fire station and library open after snowstorms by plowing with my pickup. Ash was a good “wing girl,” but after 37 times backing up in the same lot, she’d have had enough and would walk over to CN Brown for hot chocolate.
The first project I helped with when I came to town in 2000 was construction of the Gazebo. The Masons built this for the community from materials either donated or purchased with grant funds. Geno and I attempted to assist with our “fine carpentry skills,” but our brethren soon relegated us to pulling nails from boards and going on a beer run for the work crew.
The town employees are like family: we don’t always get along, we don’t all live (work) near each other, and we’ll complain about each other from time to time. But we all face the same seasons, the same municipal challenges, together. We’ve watched as each other’s children have grown and have each clapped for their achievements in school and on the sports fields. We’ve made dinner and delivered it in Tupperware or Pyrex when someone or their family was ill, or after a birth, or after a death. Cindy and Roxanne, Beth and now Wendi, Mark and Paul and Dakota, Jeff and now Jim, Tom and Conrad, Sally and Linda and of course Jack are town employees, colleagues, and dear friends who I will miss, along with everyone else.
To do this job, to serve this town well, you have to be part of it, and you have to care about it enough to sacrifice for it as necessary. Jack Hart will once again serve as interim town manager, God bless him. Jack is a good man and will do a good job with these tasks, as he does with all of his work.
I trust the Board will find a solid professional to serve in this important role after the interim period. My advice to the next manager is this: take care of your roads, take care of your employees, listen to the townspeople, and always stand up for our town.
Work/life balance is a corporate phrase these days which comes to mind: I have tried to correct this balance in the past three years, and I believe I’ve done better than I did in my first 10 years on the job. But this change to a new career will tip the balance in the favor of my children and my wife, and I hope be best for all of us. This is why I am making this change.
My family and I will continue to live in Greenville, and I hope that we will better enjoy time with all of our friends and family. While I will be on the road more than I am now, my hope is that I can come home and enjoy the lake and the mountains and not worry about the budget or how to fix up public infrastructure.
To quote Tom Gravelle, from many years ago while working on a hot day in the Recycling Center: “You know, people come from all over the world just to spend a little time here. The way I see it, I’m already here.” Well said, Tom.
Thank you, Greenville, for everything.
John Simko