The Town of Seymour will get a new blight enforcement officer this month.
The Board of Selectmen voted Tuesday to hire Michael Marganski, the former blight officer in Ansonia. He will start work Oct. 15.
The vote was 6 – 1, with Gary Bruce voting no.
Bruce said afterward he wanted the job to go to someone who lives in Seymour.
“I wanted to keep the position open for a town resident,” he said after the meeting.
First Selectman Kurt Miller said “the consensus of the board” was to hire someone from out of town in an effort “to avoid any conflict.”
Selectmen discussed Marganski’s hiring during a 10-minute executive session Tuesday, but none of them made any public comments later in the meeting when they voted on the appointment.
Miller said he interviewed two finalists for the job, from a list of “40-odd applications.”
The other finalist, also from out of town, had experience in zoning appeals and wetland enforcement, but not blight enforcement experience, Miller said.
Marganski will receive a yearly stipend of $5,000 in the position. The stipend will be pro-rated this year to reflect Marganski’s Oct. 15 start date.
The position won’t have set hours, Miller said, but will be “based on workload.”
The town used to have two blight enforcement officers but those positions were axed during the 2009 – 2010 budget process.
Click here to read the current ordinance.
Prior to the blight enforcement positions being cut, several residents had raised concerns to town officials that the law pitted neighbors against each other.
Miller said that once Marganski starts work, he’ll ask for his thoughts on the ordinance.
“I’m going to ask him for a recommendation once he’s had a chance to settle in, look at things,” Miller said.
Marganski would then work with the Selectmen’s ordinance committee — made up of Miller, Nicole Klarides-Ditria, and Theresa Conroy — to revise the law before bringing a recommendation to the full Board of Selectmen.
Residents can make blight complaints online.
