BREWER, Maine — More than 100 people applied for two job openings with the city — assistant city manager and executive administrative assistant — and two were hired, City Manager Steve Bost has announced in a memo to city councilors.
“We received 40 candidates for the assistant manager position, and 70 candidates for the executive administrative assistant position,” he said.
Andrew Varisco, who has worked for U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe since August 1998, was hired to replace Assistant City Manager James Smith, who took a job as the manager of Rockland last month. Varisco starts May 1.
Alison Beane, a University of Maine employee since November 2006, starts Tuesday as the executive administrative assistant, replacing Patricia Gero who has held the post for the last 25 years.
Gero has assisted three city managers during her employment, which ends Tuesday when she retires. City leaders recently held a going-away party for Smith, who was the assistant city manager for the last five years, and on Friday held a retirement party for Gero.
Friends and department heads gathered for Gero’s party and “several spoke of their experiences with Pat over time,” City Councilor Larry Doughty posted on his blog. “I often referred to her as the ‘gatekeeper.’”
Doughty suggested that Gero write a book about her Brewer experiences, and Bost quickly chimed in, “not too soon, Pat,” which caused those gathered to break out in laughter, Doughty wrote.
Bost wished Smith and Gero the best with their futures and said he expects great things from the new hires.
“I hope you will join me in welcoming these two very talented individuals to the Brewer team,” the city manager said.
Wow Larry taking people from the Umaine system. You get them all trained and Bangor will get them forsure. Brewer must be a learning curve and and Bangor is the stepping stone.. Thanks Brewer.
Isn’t that how Bangor got Betsy Webb.
Yes it is, about time for her to go too
All the “great” things she get credit for . The not so great things are totally overlooked. I would bet if that was one of the kids that dropped out of school in the Greenleaf case the outcome would have been much different. Pay her $144,000 /year with a decent school budget and Bangor still has one of the higher drop out rates in the state of Maine.
Does not matter, University is gonna start laying off people, keep the eye out for it coming soon
Bangor should outsource to Brewer. Council, management, everything.
“More than 100 people applied for two job openings with the city — assistant city manager and executive administrative assistant — and two were hired, City Manager Steve Bost has announced in a memo to city councilors.”
What a dud of a lead. Of course two were hired — there were two openings! You might as well say “The city of Brewer hired two people for two job openings.” (Yawn.)