The Selectmen interviewed the three finalists for the town administrator position on Wednesday.

The position has been vacant since April, when former Town Administrator Mark Andrews resigned to take an interim position in Wenham.

The finalists are: Michael Dutton, an attorney and a former Selectman and former town administrator in Oak Bluffs, Martha's Vineyard; Carter Terenzini, current town administrator in Moultonborough, N.H.; Paul Shew, a government consultant and former city manager in Rye, N.Y.

A screening committee consisting of Selectmen Ellen Begley and Cara Winslow, Community and Economic Development Authority Director Salvador Pina, Town Clerk Mary Ann Silva, and designees of the School Committee, Finance Committee, and Capital Planning Committee, was charged with narrowing down the pool of applicants.

The applicants also went through a background check by Wareham Police.

The Board of Selectmen plans to discuss its next steps sometime next week.

The job candidates, who interviewed separately in one-hour blocks of time, were given a few minutes to introduce themselves. Here's what they had to say.

Michael Dutton

Michael Dutton, who moved to Martha's Vineyard after completing law school, has worked on and off as an attorney for the past 18 years. He worked in hospital administration for four years, and, after eight years of serving Oak Bluffs as a Selectman, he accepted a job as Oak Bluffs town administrator. He spent five years in that position.

"Wareham, it seems to me, is sort of at a critical crossroads. I've gone through the Department of Revenue audits, I've gone through your Town Charter, I've gone through your Town Meeting minutes. ... I think Wareham is really struggling for some stability," Dutton told the Selectmen, later noting: "I know a little bit about what it's like to sit in your place and deal with a lot of controversial issues, deal with a lot of instability. Oak Bluffs is a very similar town to Wareham, demographically."

Carter Terenzini

Carter Terenzini has served as an assistant to the mayor and community and economic development in Pittsfield. He was the first town administrator for the Town of Spencer when it changed its form of government to a town administrator and Board of Selectmen, a position he held for nine years. He spent two years as a city manager in Michigan, and currently serves as town administrator Moultonborough, N.H., where he has worked for more than four years.

"One of the reasons that I want to come to Wareham is, I am looking for a new challenge. Wareham poses that challenge for me and that opportunity to excel," Terenzini said.

Terenzini also applied to be Wareham's town administrator five years ago.

Paul Shew

Paul Shew, who has held management positions in Barnstable County and the Town of Franklin, most recently served in municipal government as city manager for Rye, N.Y. He currently works for a consulting firm.

The questions

Each member of the Board of Selectmen asked each candidate two questions. Here's a recap of some of the questions and responses.

Selectman Peter Teitelbaum posed a hypothetical question: "You're the town administrator in Wareham and one of [the Selectmen] storms into your office and demands you fire a town employee over some perceived slight. What do you do?"

Michael Dutton: "I think one of the things that's very important for a town administrator to do is to provide that separation between the politics and the operations. ... I think my job is to sit down and say, 'what's your problem with that particular employee?' ... [and] make it clear that I'm not going to run out and fire that employee just because one person on the board told me to."

Carter Terenzini: "The bottom line is, I'm not going to do it. What I am going to do is ask what happened ... [and] observe all the rights that that employee has and take the appropriate personnel action based on what's in their [personnel] folder ... and I'll report to the board in the appropriate manner. If it results in a firing then that's from the process ... that I took deliberate and appropriate action."

Paul Shew: "The first approach is to try to dial the situation down. Obviously, it's an emotionally-charged situation. ... If you can get people to count to 10 and slow it down a little bit, that helps resolve many of the issues." If it doesn't, he said: "find out if it's a legitimate problem or if it's just something in passing."

How should the town administrator go about managing under the Town Charter and town bylaws, as well as the wishes of voters at Town Meeting?

Michael Dutton: "I think it is critical that the town administrator, [and] anybody that comes to work for the town, review[s] the Charter, understands where they fit in ... and then [recognizes], there's a difference between the Charter and the bylaws and the way things have always been done."

Carter Terenzini: "Whatever the Charter says, whatever those bylaws are, that's what we have to do. ... You've got to be able to work within the four corners of those documents. ... [But] don't be surprised if I try to find some innovative meanings to what those words say."

Paul Shew: "While I would not hold forth that I know all the intracasies of [Wareham's Charter], I think it's something I could come to understand and comply with."

How would the job candidates promote Wareham as a tourist location?

Michael Dutton: "I think Wareham has incredible potential ... to draw second homeowners and tourists to the area. ... I think one of the things that is critical for this board and your town administrator is to provide a calm atmosphere. A calm atmosphere is an inviting atmosphere. ... Number two, you can look to partner with the state" to find any grant money available for tourism.

Carter Terenzini: "The key to economic development is, what does the community want to be known for and what does it value? ... I think we need to take a step back, see what the Community and Economic Development Authority is doing... look at the master plan. ... A lot of the times this is not about single pieces, it's about pulling it all together."

Paul Shew: "I guess the first question would be, 'What is your brand? What brand are you looking for?' ... I think it might be kind of fun to take a look at it and see what's out there."

How do you handle the many volunteers on town boards?

Michael Dutton: "You can respect the volunteers, you can honor their service, ... you can educate them, that's one of my critical things that I like to make sure happens... that we educate boards and committees and employees" about issues and procedures.

Carter Terenzini: "I think there is nothing greater and richer than the service of volunteers and what it brings to communities. The energy, the enthusiasm." He added that the volunteers should be respected and honored for their work.

Transparency: Is there anything in your background that you'd like to get out in the open?

Michael Dutton spoke of a "procurement issue" in Oak Bluffs. The town had plans to turn an old library into a mixed-use building with affordable housing and retail space. In the process of waiting for a $500,000 grant to arrive, the roof on the library deteriorated.

"We went through our own process, declared it an emergency, and we got somebody, the lowest bidder, to just come in and do the roof," Dutton explained.

Though the law allows municipalities to do such things, the town did not properly notify the Inspector General's office and follow prescribed steps in order to get the work done.

Carter Terenzini: Noting that he is "an open book," he said: "There's a chapter in there that I think I might rewrite if I had the opportunity to pull it off the bookshelves. ... The one thing I will tell you is, don't make the same mistake twice."

Paul Shew said he was dismissed from the city of Rye after a new City Council was elected. "Rye overall was a very rewarding experience. With the new City Council, it was just the opposite. They had some things to say that weren't very kind. I didn't get a chance to say much about it."

What are your salary requirements?

Michael Dutton: "What would be fair to the town and fair to me would be somewhere in the same range as other town administrators in towns of similar size with similar issues."

Carter Terenzini: Salary "will be important to me, but I'm certainly open to working with you."

Paul Shew: "I don't expect the salary that I was making in New York, but probably somewhere in the mid-$150,000 area is realistic for this position."

The finalists had plenty more to say! Check out WCTV's video of the entire meeting, below!