Menard gets to work as East Longmeadow’s interim town manager

Aug. 25, 2016 | Chris Goudreau
cgoudreau@thereminder.com

Interim Town Manager Denise Menard, now on her second week on the job, hopes to ease the transition into the new form of government for residents and town employees.
Reminder Publications submitted photo

EAST LONGMEADOW – Interim Town Manager Denise Menard is into her second week on the job as the top hired official in the community and has begun meeting with department heads to learn more about the town and its goals for the future.  

“My goals are the council’s goals and I know one of the top priorities is there are some vacancies that need to be filled under the current new form of government, the [human resource] HR director being one of those, [and] the finance director being another,” Menard told Reminder Publications on Aug. 19, her third day on the job.

Menard said she has yet to meet with the Town Council to discuss the timeline for hiring a finance director or human resource director.

“I got the sense that they wanted that begun right away,” she explained. “And I’m already doing salary surveys and looking at the space needs for adding positions … So I’ve pretty much hit the ground running here with starting to implement the hiring of an HR director first because that’s an added position that needs to somehow fit in the building. I don’t even know if the budgeting is in place for it, but I know that the council is very anxious to get that started.”

She added she plans to help transition the community into the new form of government with sensitivity to the changes in East Longmeadow.

“It’s a change for the residents here and it’s a change for the employees,” she noted. “So we all have to work on it together.”

Menard, a former first selectman of East Windsor, CT, said she’s excited to work in the town and to serve in an instrumental position, which voters made a reality.

She added she plans to apply for the permanent town manager position.

When asked why she would like to continue her role in a permanent capacity, she noted, “I think I can do a lot of good things for the community – truly that’s the reason. It’s a lovely community and the employees here are great. So to be able to work in a nice community like this and have the good employee base and just bring it together, it’s what I did as first selectman of East Windsor and I would like to help East Longmeadow with that process as well.”

Town Council President Kevin Manley said Menard’s contract includes a clause for renewal and another for a 30-day probationary period.

When asked if the 30-day probationary clause was included due to the controversies surrounding former interim Town Administrator Gregory Neffinger, who was fired by the Board of Selectmen, Manley stated, “It certainly brought to our attention that we needed good protection for our town, especially with the investments that we’re making.”

Manley said Menard’s salary is $120,000 annually, which results in $40,000 for the four-month period.  

Menard said she believes the residents need to have faith that its governing body is working in their favor and she would work to accomplish that.

“I think you do that by … open government and certainly Massachusetts does have some great laws about transparency, but there are still ways that if you don’t believe in it that I suppose you could get around it. I’m a very firm believer in doing things in the open,” she explained.

She added she’s met with at least seven department heads at the time of the interview, including Police Chief Jeff Dalessio. She said she’s spoken with him about the Police Department hiring four new officers.

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