Bellingham Select Board Interviews Two Town Administrator Finalists Tuesday Night

BELLINGHAM — July 1, 2025 — Bellingham Select Board interviews two town administrator finalists in structured sessions. The board questioned Michael Ward, Clinton's town administrator of more than 30 years, and Anthony Souza, currently assistant town manager in Oxford, in back-to-back one-hour interviews Tuesday night, with two more candidates scheduled for Wednesday. The process was run under protocols from the Colin Center, the town's search consultant, with no followup questions permitted and identical questions posed to each candidate; recordings were to be posted online Thursday through ABMI. Key topics included navigating a potentially lean FY27 budget, a proposed 1,600-unit country club development, a 400-megawatt battery storage facility, and a $36 million PFAS water treatment plant. The board could deliberate and select a finalist as early as Wednesday, with contract negotiations — pending a criminal background check — potentially completed at a July 7 executive session.