SOUTH HADLEY — In its first meeting since expanding to five members, the South Hadley Electric Light Department board voted 4-0 Thursday night to reelect Anne Awad as chairwoman.
Member Kurt Schenker, who arrived late, did not vote.
The board also voted to name newcomers Vernon Blodgett and Gregory Dubreuil as vice chairman and clerk, respectively.
The vote for Blodgett was 3-2 as Schenker was nominated and the board waited for him to arrive before casting ballots. Schenker voted for himself as did board newcomer John Hine.
The board then took up the question of how to proceed with finding a new manager to replace SHELD’s long-time leader Wayne Doerpholz, whose contract expires at the end of May.
He has been on administrative leave since last October when he was named in a federal whistleblower lawsuit brought by electrician Robert Blasko Jr. alleging that Doerpholz retaliated against him for raising concerns about bullying in the workplace. The SHELD commissioners, at their meeting last month, decided not to renew Doerpholz’s contract.
The commissioners Thursday decided to issue a request for proposals to identify possible consultants to assist with the search for a new manager.
Hine spoke in favor of hiring a consultant. “I think this is going to be one of the most important decisions we make as a board that will set the direction (for the utility) for many years.”
Awad said she had received a list of potential consultants from the Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Co. (MMWEC), which assists local utilities with purchasing electricity.
Awad said she hopes the board will interview potential consultants at its next meeting May 26. She also set a tentative goal of having a new manager in place by the beginning of October.
Awad, who in her capacity as commission chair has been serving as acting manager, said the board might also look into hiring an interim manager once Doerpholz’s contract expires. She did not specify a timeline or a process for doing that.
Awad noted that the job description for a new manager does not require whoever fills the position to have an engineering degree. She said officials at MMWEC have told her that the trend in the last two decades among municipal utilities has been to hire managers with strong business experience rather than to look for engineers.
But Awad added that since SHELD is one of the smallest of the 42 municipal electric light departments in Massachusetts, someone with an engineering background along with business experience might be a more attractive candidate because the utility only has one engineer on staff.
“We have no redundancy,” she said, which is important because the law requires an engineer to sign off on some documents.
In other business, Awad said that auditors from Melanson Heath, an accounting firm with offices in Greenfield, recently were at SHELD and plan to report to the board in May or June. The board voted last September to commission the financial audit.
The board also voted to hold regular meetings at 6:30 p.m. on the fourth Thursday of each month in the Town Hall.
Eric Goldscheider can be reached at eric.goldscheider@gmail.com.