ORANGE — The outgoing town administrator expressed his gratitude to town officials and volunteers for their support a couple of weeks after being passed over for the newly created town manager position.
Matthew Fortier used time designated for his town administrator’s report at Wednesday’s Selectboard meeting to explain that he will continue his duties until Stephanie Hirsch takes the helm in the near future.
“I just want to thank the town for interviewing me and giving me the opportunity to serve for the last seven years,” he told Selectboard members. “Over the next few weeks, I’ll be committed to a successful transition to incoming Manager Hirsch, and I will be continuing the day-to-day administration in my office while also preparing transition documents for the incoming manager.”
Fortier thanked everyone who wrote letters of support for him and Selectboard members for their “candid feedback during deliberations.”
Selectboard members, especially Kelli Gervais, thanked Fortier for his dedication to the town.
Fortier, who lives in Orange, became town administrator on Aug. 21, 2023, resolving a four-month saga that saw two previous candidates get their offers rescinded for undisclosed reasons. He replaced Gabriele Voelker, who retired on March 3 of that year and billed Orange for hours worked as acting town administrator in the interim. Fortier started working for the town as its health agent in March 2020.
Fortier saw the town through various hardships, including remediation of the devastating 2022 fire at the former cereal factory and the fraudulent invoices that drained $338,000 from the town’s coffers in 2023. His wife is Town Clerk Rachael Fortier.
The Selectboard opted to hire Hirsch, a former Eau Claire, Wisconsin, city manager who is relocating her family to Massachusetts. She is now in the middle of contract negotiations.
Orange residents voted 155-12 at a Jan. 12 Special Town Meeting in favor of an article pertaining to the adoption of a town charter to change and modernize the local government’s organizational structure and operation. Six and a half months later, Gov. Maura Healey signed into law a bill formally establishing the new form of government, and Orange’s charter went into effect on July 1.
The charter’s adoption creates a strong town manager role to serve as chief administrative officer and direct day-to-day operations across most of the municipal government structure. A 10-member Town Manager Screening Committee was tasked in May with accepting applications and whittling down the candidate pool to recommend finalists to the Selectboard, which interviewed four candidates.
In addition to Hirsch and current Orange Town Administrator Matthew Fortier, the Selectboard also interviewed former Greenfield Mayor Roxann Wedegartner and former Hubbardston Town Administrator Nathan Boudreau.
