Two weeks after Town Administrator Darleen Sullivan announced that she would not renew her contract, the select board has voted to approve the appointment of Chad Lovett as new town administrator, pending negotiations.
The select board held a public interview with Lovett in its March 18 meeting—their first interview of a town administrator candidate—and decided to authorize his hiring on the condition that future negotiations over his contract are successful. Plans are in place to draft a contract for Lovett and present it for negotiation in the coming weeks.
“It's not the final confirmation of the overall job,” Labor Counsel Richard Massina said. “It’s not to say that entering into it at this point with the vote would seal everything if there wasn't an agreement.”
Sullivan will work until June 30. Her departure brings an end to her 13-year tenure with the town.
Lovett is the town administrator for Blackstone, a town of about 9,400 people just north of the border with Rhode Island, a position he’s held since December 2023. Lovett said Blackstone has a $36 million budget, compared to Norwell’s roughly $70 million budget for about 26,000 people.
“To balance a $36 million budget or a $70 million budget, we face the same challenges. Rising costs, health insurance, employee benefits. It's a bigger scale, but it's the same problems,” Lovett said in the interview. “And I think that the benefits that I've had in the small town of being hands-on in many of the different areas will assist me in that.”
Lovett began his career in the private sector and said he developed his leadership skills while working in facilities at Trader Joe’s. Before taking his current position in Blackstone, he was the director of facilities and capital in Wrentham.
Select Board Member John McGrath said that he appreciated Lovett’s emphasis on “becoming analytical and strategic” with data and “standardization and improving systems for better insights.”
“If we don't evolve, we are going to be left behind and we're going to have a lot more challenges than we will have solutions,” he said. “And so having a TA with that level of experience is going to be critical.”
Lovett is currently the only applicant for the position. McGrath said that the town had received only one other application, which that candidate has since withdrawn. Select Board Chair Peter Smellie said that “there have been some conversations with some others” who were interested in the job but “weren’t at the same level.”
When one resident said during public comment said that the vote to authorize Lovett’s negotiations and hiring seemed premature, Smellie replied that “there have been so many people jumping from town to town” that he did not want to give other towns enough time to ask Lovett to apply to be their administrators.
Massina said in the March 5 select board meeting that the town administrator market was “weak” and advised the board to be “decisive” when a quality candidate is available, according to the meeting minutes.
Smellie also noted that the number of experienced town administrators applying to new town administrator positions is limited: individuals who currently work as administrators for other towns might hesitate to apply to the position in Norwell because the application process is public. If they do not get the job in Norwell, they risk their relationship with the town employing them.
“The talent pool isn't the deepest in this,” he said. “So when you find the shining stars, you want to try to grab them quick.”
Marshfield has been operating without a town administrator for 11 months after passing over two finalist candidates in December. The town has had to rely on interim leadership from two retired town administrators working part-time since April 2025, which Marshfield Select Board Member Stephen Darcy said has slowed down the process of crafting fiscal year 2027 budget proposals by months.
“I do not want to be stuck in the position where we don’t have a TA,” McGrath said.
Negotiations with Lovett will not be public. Smellie said that negotiations could be scheduled for the select board meeting April 1.
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