This past month, the Upper Valley nonprofit Rethink Local launched a free email list group aimed at helping facilitate collaboration among Town/City Managers of New Hampshire and Vermont as well as the rest of New England states. This will be a place where Town/City Managers/Administrators can share best practices and solutions, ask questions, plan events, request assistance, share RFPs, and ideally, will serve to help bridge between shared challenges in the two states.
Some of the most pressing issues towns face are shared across state borders, such as: retention/recruitment of staff, financing repairs to aging infrastructure, how best to engage people especially in direct democracy forms of government, sustainability and waste management, rising costs, community building and development, housing and transportation, even to how to prevent damage to historic covered bridges by oversized vehicles.
Says Alex Torpey, who founded Rethink Local after deciding to leave his post as Town Manager of Hanover, NH in 2024 to pursue projects that help build more civic engagement resiliency across the Upper Valley and New England: "We're lucky to have so many great organizations in NH such as the NH Municipal Association and the Municipal Management Association of NH, and in VT such as the Vermont League of Cities and Towns and VT City/County Management Association, as well larger organizations like ICMA, and regional organizations like Vital Communities. Our small initiative with this email list, which so far as about 65 managers on it from both states, will compliment those existing efforts and encourage more collaboration between states which may help support finding interesting solutions to some of the growing challenges we all are facing.”
Torpey mentioned that the idea came from two monthly gatherings that have been tremendously valuable to him and others, but which are separated by the Connecticut River. One is a meeting of mostly VT Town Managers hosted by Windsor, VT Town Manager Tom Marsh, and the other a monthly meeting of NH Town Managers hosted by Mike Branley, the Town Administrator of Swanzey, NH. These meetings are crucial for Managers not just to socially interact and commiserate, but to share policy/program ideas and seek technical guidance from their colleagues.
Other local managers have had new ideas to spur more collaboration. One of these is Eric Duffy, the Municipal Manager of Woodstock VT. In 2024, Duffy began the "Municipal Solutions Summit" in Woodstock, VT to create a small-scale interactive space for Town managers/administrators to spend time working interactively together in a uniquely interactive and thoughtful format. Along with Alex Torpey, and Yoshi Manale, the City Manager of Claremont, NH; Eric Duffy is also a board member of Rethink Local.
At this time the email list is open to active, retired, or transitioning Municipal Managers in New England states (VT, NH, MA, RI, CT, ME) with approval from Rethink Local. Please contact Alex Torpey to request access.
Rethink Local supports and thanks many of the great organizations already providing support to Managers and their communities. This include organizations such as:
New Hampshire Municipal Association: https://www.nhmunicipal.org/
Municipal Management Association of New Hampshire: https://www.mmanh.org/
Vermont City/County Management Association: https://www.vtcma.org/
Vermont League of Cities and Towns: http://vlct.org/
Vital Communities: https://vitalcommunities.org/
International City/County Management Association: http://icma.org/
Municipal Solutions Summit: https://municipalsolutionssummit.org/
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.