MANCHESTER — The Selectboard, having lost its regularly scheduled Tuesday night meeting to a nor’easter that dumped 2 feet of snow or more on the region, has scheduled two meetings to handle business.
First, and most pressing, the board will meet at 8 a.m. Monday for two items of business that can’t wait: Reorganizing the board after last week’s Town Meeting elections, and officially appointing Scott Murphy as the new town manager and approving his contract.
Murphy, a Bennington resident and former town manager in Ludlow and Wilmington, is expected to start work in Manchester on Monday. He’s signed his side of a year-to-year contract that will pay him $115,000 his first year.
The annual Selectboard reorganization takes place the meeting after Town Meeting, as the board chooses a chair, vice chair and clerk. Those offices are now held respectively by Ivan C. Beattie, Greg Cutler and Jan Nolan.
Murphy will take the reins from interim Town Manager Leslie Perra, who is also the town’s human resources officer.
Perra stepped into the role when John O’Keefe, who had been manager for 16 years, left for a position in the Williams College athletic department.
The board also has scheduled a meeting for Tuesday at 7 p.m., in which it will take up the remaining items from the agenda.
That includes the annual Unsung Hero award, which honors volunteers who make a positive difference for the community but rarely get public recognition for their efforts.