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08/13/2012 12:00 AMWESTBROOK - More staff time for organizing senior activities and helping seniors is the reason the Board of Selectmen recently made the town Senior Center director a full-time, 30-hour-per-week position. Previously, the job was defined as a part-time, 20 hour per week post.
The selectmen also voted to split off from the Senior Center director the responsibilities of social services coordinator. That position, previously assigned 20 work hours per week, was reduced in scope to a 7- to 10 work hours per week job.
The opportunity to separate the Senior Center director responsibilities from that of the social services coordinator job arose due to the resignation in June of Sharon Lessard. Lessard had worn both hats, working 20 hours per week on each.
The two new vacancies were posted last month to ask for candidates to submit résumés and qualifications. A short list of finalists was selected for each post by a screening committee that First Selectman Noel Bishop appointed.
The Board of Selectmen, in consultation with the Senior Center Management Committee, was scheduled to conduct interviews with the finalists for each position on Monday of this week.
Filling the vacancy left by Lessard's departure and hiring to fill other vacancies on the Senior Center staff has also generated petitions, discussion, and some controversy, too.
Shortly after Lessard resigned, Bishop received a petition signed with about 100 names asking that a particular individual replace Lessard. Bishop listened to the signers' concerns in a meeting in the Senior Center and then decided to conduct an open search to generate a list of possible candidates for the post.
Some seniors and members of the Senior Center Management Committee objected to Bishop taking the lead in the search, believing it was a role the center's by-laws assigned to them.
The committee members also found fault with Bishop's unilateral action to both re-define the vacant Senior Center kitchen coordinator job and then immediately hire someone to fill it. He took this action, according to those serving on the Senior Center Management Committee, without consulting or giving notice to the committee even though the center's by-laws assign the Management Committee this responsibility.
Prior to hiring the new temporary Senior Center kitchen coordinator, Bishop re-defined the job as a 12- to 15-hour-per-week position that pays $16 an hour. Previously, the job was an eight-hour-per-week position and paid $12.50 an hour.
Bishop has said he was optimistic that the selectmen would make their hiring recommendations this week.