Board places hold on volunteer positions

BY WILLIAM J. DOWD

The Marblehead Select Board has placed a four-month hold on reappointing over 100 volunteers to commissions, committees and boards — including the Finance Committee — signaling a shift in approach and break from the precedent following the June 20 election that unseated longterm

SAIlING

member Jackie Belf-Becker and replaced her with Bret Murray.

Murray’s motion for the hold passed on a 4-to-1 vote, with Select Board members Erin Noonan, Moses Grader and Alexa Singer in the affirmative. Select Board member Jim Nye was the lone dissent.

“This will hold the existing volunteers until Nov. 1,” Murray said. “It’s not to say those people won’t be reappointed.”

The pause buys time for the Select Board to conduct a comprehensive review and assessment of Marblehead’s Select Baord-appointed volunteer boards, committees and commissions and its reappointment process. The decision represents a distinct departure from the board’s traditional practice of making reappointments and appointments fewer than 24 hours after the annual town election.

“You get elected on Tuesday, and then Wednesday, you’re expected to come in and, in return, vote on all these boards,” Murray said during a 45-minute

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discussion on this topic alone. “I just don’t think that’s fair to anybody having been just elected.”

Although Grader voted in favor, he disagreed with the fourmonth pause.

“I am very much in favor of the Select Board’s seeking to