Resumes Hint at Questions Facing Town Administrator Candidates

Town officials are on track to choose the next leader of Brookline government before the end of the summer, but voters will likely never have a say.

In accordance with the town's bylaws, the five elected members of the Board of Selectmen are now preparing to interview four finalists – culled from an initial pool of 50 – for the recently vacated job of town administrator. The public is invited to attend the interviews, tentatively scheduled for July 20, but will not be permitted to ask questions, according to Chairwoman Betsy DeWitt.

To help involve Brookline residents in the process of selecting the town's next leader, Brookline Patch is currently working to arrange interviews with all four candidates to see which one would be the best good fit for the town. Some of the candidates, however, are understandably hesitant about talking with the press while still awaiting an interview with their potential employer.

"I don't really feel comfortable at this time doing that, " said Melvin Kleckner, the outgoing town manager of Winchester. "It's kind of a fine line."

The candidate's resumes, however, hint at some of the questions likely to arise in the coming weeks. Two, for example, left their last jobs with little public explanation, while others have had little experience in New England-style municipal government.

"They are four different people with different experiences," DeWitt said. "It's a varied group."

DeWitt said selectmen plan to solicit questions for the candidates from the appointed chairs of Brookline's many in the coming weeks. Some of those questions, DeWitt said, will be part of the interviews in the late July.

In the meantime, all four candidates will be in town next Monday to meet with department heads and get a feel for the town, DeWitt said.

The interview is actually the final stage of a selection process that has occurred entirely behind closed doors until Wednesday, when Human Resources Director Sandra DeBow publicly announced the four finalists.

Starting with around 50 applications, DeBow and outgoing Town Administrator Richard Kelliher weeded out applicants that did not meet minimum requirements, then forwarded a shorter list to a screening committee that included DeWitt and Selectwoman Nancy Daly. The committee further narrowed down the list and conducted around "nine or ten" interviews, according to DeWitt, before settling on the four finalists.

That includes Sanford Pooler, a former administrator in at Newton City Hall who lost his job when his boss, former Mayor David Cohen, left office in 2009. Pooler spent a total of 12 years in Newton, first as the city's chief budget officer and later as its chief administrative officer. In the latter position, which he held for three years, Pooler oversaw 20 city departments that included over 900 employees.

Before that, Pooler served as staff director for the Committee on State Administration in the Massachusetts House of Representatives for eight years. He spent much of the 1980s working for the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group, and also held jobs as a paralegal and clerk to a federal judge. He has degrees from Dartmouth College, the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

"Brookline has a long history of well-managed government that delivers quality services to its residents," Pooler wrote in his cover letter to the Board of Selectmen. "Those residents expect town government to provide excellent government service and to do so with transparency, openness and innovation."

Pooler is not the only candidate coming from municipal government in Eastern Massachusetts. Melvin Kleckner has spent nearly 30 years in top municipal positions in several Bay State communities, serving as the town administrator or manger in Wilbraham, Belmont and Winchester, and the assistant town manager in Arlington. He holds degrees from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, St. Anselm College in New Hampshire and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

But selectmen are also likely to ask Kleckner about his recent departure from his job in Winchester, which was never given a full public explanation. According to articles in the Winchester Star, selectmen opted not to renew Kleckner when it expired at the end of last month and said only that they were unable to reach "terms for an extension" of his contract.

In a statement, Kleckner reportedly cited "differences of opinion related to my management philosophy and style, performance, as well as conflicts over the boundaries and policies of the administration that often occur in local government between town managers and boards of selectmen."

Kleckner's contract was due to expire June 30. In his cover letter to selectmen, he wrote that, "In order to be successful, the Town Administrator must seek collaboration and cooperation from multiple constituencies. I have developed leadership and success in participatory and collaborative management, facilitating policy makers, staff and stakeholders in reaching practical solutions to complex problems."

Selectmen are also considering the application of Julian Suso, the current town manager in Framingham. Suso has had the job since 2006 and currently manages around 850 municipal employees.

Before moving to New England, Suso spent 16 years as the city manger of Mentor, OH, a community slightly smaller than Brookline on Lake Erie. He spent most of the 1980s serving as city managers in Cleveland Heights and Rittman, OH, and spent seven years before that leading a county planning department. He holds degrees from Ohio University and the University of California-Berkley.

The fourth candidate, Oscar Rodriguez, studied at Harvard College and MIT, but has never worked in municipal government in Massachusetts. Rodriguez is an independent consultant who most recently worked for two years as head of the Maryland-National Capital Park & Planning Commission, an organization of 2,200 employees responsible for parks maintenance and urban development in the two counties surrounding Washington, D.C.

Before that, Rodriguez worked in several administrative positions in D.C. city government and spent six years as a municipal advisor to the International City Management Association. In the 1980s and 90s, he worked as a city manager and assistance city manager for several Texas communities, include the City of Austin.

But as with Kleckner, there are some questions about the circumstances under which Rodriguez left his last job, According to an article in the Washington Examiner, Rodriguez was "quietly ousted" from the his position at the Maryland planning commission last December and offered a severance package in exchange for signing a non disclosure agreement.

The resumes and cover letters for all four candidates were obtained through a public records request.