Bob Menicocci is now over three months into his new job as town manager of Williamstown, Massachusetts. He stepped in after the last permanent town manager, Jason Hoch, resigned after a series of controversies within the town’s police department. A since settled 2020 lawsuit from a former officer revealed decades of misconduct ranging from sexual harassment to racism and beyond. Also resigning was former police chief Kyle Johnson. The situation was compounded by a subsequent revelation first reported by WAMC that members of the police department had illegally searched the files of its critics in the community. After Johnson’s resignation in late 2020, Lieutenant Michael Ziemba has served as interim chief. Menicocci tells WAMC that hiring the next permanent police chief is a pressing issue and he hopes to do so by the new year.
MENICOCCI: That has been a vacancy that we've had for some time. And I know, just with my onboarding in July, there's some urgency that folks want to get this issue resolved in a short period of time. But what I also felt was important is for me to have an opportunity to get to know the lay of the land here, get to really get a finger in the pulse of how folks were feeling about the issues that had transpired in the past. And what I've done over the past few months is to be able to get out in the community, meet with various organizations, various community groups, town stakeholders, things like that, to really get a sense of how folks are expecting to proceed with this recruitment. So, we had put out a request to the community recently around gearing up and getting ready for recruitment and asking for volunteers to participate in our interview panels for our police chief, and we're anticipating a release of the actual recruitment, hopefully, very soon, probably sometime next week we'll get that out on the streets and begin that process of recruiting over the next few months. So, we know that's a big issue that folks, the community was very interested in moving forward from, and I think we've been able to have a lot of great input and hear from the community around the best ways to proceed and get the situation, get the healing done, and get the situation moving forward.
WAMC: When you talk about that input, give us a sense of the tone of the input you're getting. Like, what are you hearing from these groups that's going to inform the next part of this process?
It starts with, gosh, we, you know, we're really disappointed that this happened in our community, it's not what we expect. And let's not have that happen again. So it's really setting the framework for how we move forward, how we ensure that there's transparency moving forward, that there's accountability, and that there's true standards being set for what what's expected of not only of the law enforcement here, but just really all of the town services. How do we move forward in a way that helps boost trust, recover the trust that had had been lost, and move forward in a way that folks are comfortable with around the accountability and transparency? So I think that's kind of the key of what we what we've heard from folks, but also, the underlying piece of the conversation around diversity, equity, and inclusion, and the work that's been happening here in the community to really figure out a pathway forward to address issues of the past, to really think about diversity and equity and inclusion and how we frame that today so that it informs all the work we do going forward, and that expectations will be very clear for the new leadership in that particular role, but also just all of our roles in terms of what, how we're expected to work with the community to deliver on the work that needs to happen here.
Let’s turn to the operational side of things. Based on your weeks settling into the community, what’s your take on how the town of Williamstown itself is operating?
What we learn all sorts of small communities is that there's an incredible amount of work done and there's a few hands at it doing all that work, and I think what would I look forward to being able to do in the near term as we develop our budget for the next fiscal year, but also looking forward to a longer horizon as we also will be diving into develop, I think, a really solid kind of capital planning budget too, but it's really to look at what's being asked of communities, and here in Williamstown, the work that's being asked of our town staff and how do we best support all of that? We know that the work and what's expected out of government, it's never something that gets simpler over time. It generally gets more and more complex, there's usually a higher overlay of more rules, more laws, more regulations, and it's really about understanding how we balance all of that and deliver on it. So operationally, it's taking a hard look at the budget through this upcoming budget process, balancing that with what's happening economically, which, there's certainly a little bit of uncertainty, too, and we want to make sure we're very responsible stewards of the of the funding that we receive here to do our business. And really get that grounded in, as we were saying earlier, just moving forward in terms of some of our operational goals, and being very transparent about that, sharing that work with the community, and kind of doing that that cooperatively so that everybody is on the same page and understands the work that needs to happen.
At this point, do you have any sense of where balancing might happen, or what line that line items might get scrutinized during this process?
I think it really comes down to, you know, our finance committee is certainly interested in taking a fresh look at, just, what it is we do, you know? And what is the cost of doing business, what are the services we deliver, and doing a check-in to say is this all the right things that we're doing? And maybe it is, you know? Maybe we find, like, yeah, everything is perfect, we’ve got the right staff to do the right things that the town expects, but if not, you know, in terms of doing that examination and polling the community around that, it's an opportunity to revisit some of that and make some of some of that change. I would also say we take a hard look at our technology opportunities, things like that, too, to see if there are ways we can operate a little more efficiently and just make sure what limited money we have goes to the initiatives that the town is looking to support and move forward with. For example, I think our select board has been setting its priorities for the year, and they took a hard look at the impact of the pandemic over the few years, impact on issues that were hitting the community at the time, and they're really focused on wanting to move forward and really thinking about how we rebuild, and we re-strengthen community and do community building, and thinking through strategies of that. So possibly there would be the desire to address things there that make us money. If we want to create, let's say, recreational opportunities for the community to come together, to maybe put some facilities in place, things of that nature, we're going to have to take a hard look of at how we can prioritize that sort of initiative that the select board has, and figure out ways to fund that, to do, I think, the important work they've indicated, which is, let's, let's strengthen the community, let's rebuild trust around the work that's happening here. But let's also come back together, hopefully, where we are with- I won’t say post-pandemic, but, you know, in a, hopefully, a better place, a better phase in our endemic and really create opportunities for folks to come together and reconnect. Things of that nature.
Turning back to the police chief search, can you break down how exactly the public will be involved in this process moving forward?
Sure. So, we're currently taking volunteers to participate in that in the interview process. So, folks should definitely, if there are community members who want to participate in that, they should reach out to me and my office, and we're collecting that. My hope would be is to get this posted, and we would run initially, let's say, for a four-to-six-week period as we get our recruitment posted out there in the world. We're hopeful that we get lots of strong candidates, and after that initial search period, we would engage in the interview process, which would hopefully be a couple of weeks process, and in the end, hopefully be able to be making an offer and having someone in the seat by the first of the year or so.
Bob, anything else I should know about the goings on of Williamstown and what you've been up to over the last few months?
I would just say, for me, it's been a great opportunity to get to know the community as someone who's come in from the outside. There are just so many strengths here in the community, and there's just such a strong, really, volunteer effort. We have many different projects, many different committees who help support the small, small paid team here at town hall, and I think that that level of commitment and engagement is really incredible. It makes the work exciting. And it's just nice to have folks who are really engaged and really wanting to do the work, to have lots of great ideas of how to better the community, and to roll up their sleeves and actually get a lot of the work done. So that's really been a great part of getting to know folks here. And just seeing the level of commitment and the level of work that our committee members and our volunteers kick in to really help support us. It's a really kind of a community team effort. That's just so impressive.
