WILLIAMSBURG — The Select Board voted unanimously on Wednesday to appoint Santo Tomasine as its administrative assistant, picking him for his background in software, funding procurement and leadership.
His contract runs through June 2027, with a salary of $24,180. Selected from a pool of four candidates, Tomasine replaces Elizabeth Van Iderstine, who left the role in May.
“Being a part of the town was very interesting and exciting to me,” Tomasine said shortly before the board took a vote. To this, Select Board member Paul Wetzel replied, “You’ll be right in the center.”
Tomasine was a faculty support coordinator for information technology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst from 2008 through 2018. At the onset of the pandemic, he retired early and threw himself into volunteering.
Among his volunteer work has been doing accounting for the Masons.
Other experience includes data analysis at UMass and a short stint as an adjunct professor in the business department at the University of Vermont.
Tomasine has been a resident of Williamsburg for the past 20 years and lives right down the road from Town Hall.
During the vote, Select Board members and Town Administrator Thomas Bernard said Tomasine’s software background will be valuable as the town updates its aging website.
“The pace of the website redevelopment is even faster than we anticipated,” Bernard said. “We are talking weeks, not months.”
His leadership and teamwork experience were also lauded.
“That’s an asset, working with different people, different groups,” Bernard said.
Since Tomasine was the only candidate brought before the board for a vote, the names of the other candidates have not been made public, Bernard said.
