Spaniard’s Bay Town Hall to get minor reorganization

By Olivia Bradbury / Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

One of the last decisions of the outgoing Spaniard’s Bay council has been to try to redistribute the workload for senior staff at the Town Hall.

At its public meeting last month, council approved a motion to advertise for a new position of director of public works and public relations with the aim of redistributing administrative work more evenly, as presently it mostly falls to the town manager.

Mayor Paul Brazil said the town is growing, as is the demand for services. 

“The compliance regulations and administrative oversight on everything that we do has increased to a greater requirement than it was when I got involved with council 12 years ago,” said Brazil. 

The administrative work connected to grants, reports and the like require a lot more oversight and detail, he said.

“Most of the new generated work has fallen in the lap of our town manager,” said Brazil, “to a point where it’s overwhelming and a lot of the things that we’re hoping to get done end up being on the lower end of the priority scale.” 

With the introduction of a director of public works and public relations, council hopes to relieve the town manager of some of that workload and prioritize a broader range of tasks and issues to be tackled. 

“The director of public works and public relations is responsible for overseeing the daily operations of the public works department, ensuring that all maintenance, repairs and public infrastructure projects are done completely, efficiently, safely, and in accordance with the Town’s priorities,” said Brazil. “This role also involves administrative oversight of office operations including payroll processes as well as assisting the town clerk and manager with public relations, grant writing, and various municipal administrative tasks.”

Brazil said the Town planned to post the position internally for a week and if it’s not filled to advertise it externally.