Around Town: Selectmen to Review Town Manager’s Performance in April; Update on Sheehan Case Coming & More

Foxborough’s Board of Selectmen has scheduled Town Manager Kevin Paicos’ performance review for April so the existing members can participate in the process before the annual town election on April 30.

“One of the issues we talked about last year was whether it was fair to have new members [of the board] evaluate our town manager when they haven’t worked with him before and have members no longer on the board not be able to review the person they’ve worked with all year,” said Foxborough Board of Selectmen chair James DeVellis. 

The board agreed on March 19 to conduct Paicos’ review in a two-step process prior to the April 30 election.

“There’s two [Board of Selectmen] meetings left – April 2nd and April 16th,” DeVellis said.  “On our next meeting, April 2, [the board asked Paicos] to come in with a self-evaluation, which includes a compilation of quarterly reports of what has been completed and a status of ongoing projects that we outlined in his goals and objectives.”

Selectmen will also provide the board with drafts of their own evaluations of Paicos on April 2.

“We will listen to [Paicos’] self evaluation on April 2 and we will come back on April 16th and do his evaluation,” DeVellis said. “I think that’s the fairest to [Paicos].”

Paicos agreed to the board’s schedule.

DeVellis also addressed the issue of holding Paicos’ performance review in public session, which came up from several residents during last year’s evaluation.

“This issue came up last year, is it fair to do Kevin’s evaluation in public?” DeVellis asked rhetorically. “I think we absolutely have to. Sometimes it’s uncomfortable but he is a public employee and it’s actually part of his contract to have the board evaluate him. It doesn’t meet the requirements to do it in executive session.”

DeVellis said last year, the board evaluated Paicos on a weighted rating system of 1-5. He expects a similar system to be used again in April.

DeVellis added Paicos’ goals and objectives will be looked at in May after the evaluation.

“I wanted to start in May with reviewing goals and objectives,” DeVellis said. “We are not going to do that before April 30 but in May put that on the agenda.”

Officials Look to Improve Town Meeting

DeVellis said he has met with Town Moderator Frank Spillane and several Advisory Committee members to discuss the topic of improving Town Meeting.

As those discussions continue, DeVellis invited another member of the board to join him and selectman Lorraine Brue offered her services.

“[We will] talk about things we can do better at Town Meeting with warrant articles, the way they are listed, etc.,” DeVellis said.

Update on Sheehan Case to be Heard in April

DeVellis said it has been roughly a month since the board met in executive session to hear from police regarding the status of the William Sheehan sex abuse case and it’s time for another update.

“We met on Feb. 26 with the police chief to get an update and I think a month has gone by and we can put them on the docket for April 2 to get a refresher of where they are,” DeVellis said.

That meeting will be held in executive session.

Reporting Child Abuse in Foxborough

DeVellis told the board he would like to expedite the process of putting together a policy for reporting child abuse in town by May 1.

“I think it’s important and I don’t want it to lag behind,” DeVellis said.

Selectmen Lynda Walsh and Brue have provided some ideas and literature to assist in the drafting of the policy and Paicos said he has received some “useful information” to use a template.

Paicos told the board he discussed the draft policy at a recent department head meeting and “should have something to look at” this week.

“It will be much sooner than May 1,” Paicos said.

DeVellis added this policy is for non-mandated employees.

“There are certain employees in the town that are mandated through the schools but this is for the group that doesn’t have a mandate to do that,” DeVellis said.