By Dawn De Busk

Staff Writer

NAPLES — The future temporary town manager of Naples has been officially hired.

On Monday, the Naples Board of Selectmen hired William “Bill” Giroux to step in as interim town manager, effective at the end of the business day on May 12.

Giroux will also be the acting town treasurer and road commissioner — two roles of the town manager.

Previously, the board chose Giroux among retired town managers who, through the Maine Municipal Association (MMA), fill the gap while a town is trying to hire a full-time town manager.

Naples Town Manager John Hawley gave his 60-day notice in his letter of resignation which was dated March 10.

In another recent change of staff, the Administrative Assistant Paula Miller also resigned after accepting a job with the City of Portland. Her last day was this week.

In related business, the selectmen had a discussion about altering the town’s communication policy to not require minutes of meetings since 1.) That information is already recorded in the video of each meeting, and 2.) Staff is short-handed and transcribing meetings has become time consuming.

In the end, the board voted to do away with the minutes by adopting the modification to the town’s communication policy. Part of the vote was to revisit the issue of producing minutes again in another six months.

Hawley said there are less than a dozen Freedom of Information Act requests each year. For now, those people can be directed to the date of a meeting and the corresponding video — if there are no minutes.

“The reason this whole conversation came up is because we are short staffed and trying to figure out the best use of staff,” Chairman Jim Grattelo said. “We have got a clerk who works 35 hours a week. It takes 6 to 8 hours to do the minutes. We tried an outside company to do it. There were so many mistakes. It was inaccurate.”

Martina Witts, who sits on the Naples Planning Board, expressed her displeasure with the minutes being discontinued.

“It makes it less transparent. We rely on written and verified information.  . . .  we have to go back and review two hours of video to find information,” Witts said.

Five of the seven planning board members sent letters or emails stating that they were against the change to the communication policy, she said.

“It is not an efficient way to run town government,” Witts said.

Selectman Bill Adams reiterated that it took six to eight hours for staff to go through recordings of meeting and produce minutes.

Selectman Kevin Rogers found an advantage to watching video of meetings, rather than researching it in written minutes.   

“To me, I would rather fast-forward through a meeting to see how people are interacting. If you watch how people are interacting, you get more out of a situation than reading the minutes,” Rogers said.

Chairman Grattelo took the opportunity to point out the employee changes that are occurring at the town office. He asked for the patience and understanding from the community members.

“For the public watching this on TV tonight, the Town of Naples is going to take several step backwards before going forward,” he began. “We are losing our town manager. In 4 days, we are losing our administrative assistant. The entire town clerk’s office is new. Judy [Whynot] is retired. We are in a very tough situations.”

“This town is going to struggle for several months before we get back on our feet,” he said. “Everyone has to be patient.”