Georgetown May Hire ConCom Agent

GEORGETOWN – After almost a year without a conservation agent on staff, the Conservation Commission (ConComm) voted last week to negotiate a contract with a “highly qualified” candidate.
Only commission member Logan Umberger voted against the motion by member Rebecca Chane to allow chair Carl Shreder and members Rachel Bancroft and Chris Candia to negotiate an employment contract with the candidate they had interviewed.
At the ConComm meeting last week, Shreder spoke glowingly of the unnamed candidate, saying she is a certified wetlands scientist, who currently works for an environmental consulting firm and teaches wetlands delineation. She has worked for several different towns and has served as chair of a town’s SelectBoard.
She has already read Georgetown’s wetlands bylaw that governs the town’s regulation of environmentally sensitive land, he said.
“For some reason, she wants to work here,” joked Shreder, who is known for his sarcasm.
The town has been without a conservation agent since Steve Przyjemski resigned in January after 17 years as the town’s agent. In his letter of resignation, he cited a “hostile” and “unprofessional” work environment at Town Hall.
At the time, Town Administrator Orlando Pacheco said Przyjemski was “not pressured to resign,” but most commission members viewed his resignation as the latest casualty in the on-going battle in Georgetown over regulation of new construction that encroaches on wetlands.
Prior to Przyjemski’s resignation, the SelectBoard had voted not reappoint Laura Repplier and Rebecca Chane to the Conservation Commission. Repplier had served nine years on the commission and Chane had served six years. The selectmen also declined to appoint Ida Wye, an experienced landscape architect and former U.S. Department of Agriculture employee, who applied for one of the vacancies.
Chane and Wye have since been reappointed after the SelectBoard was reorganized.