Williston has a five-member Selectboard elected for staggered terms each March. The Selectboard is responsible for hiring a Town Manager who is selected based on his or her knowledge, training and experience. In Vermont, the powers and duties of a Town Manager are spelled out in the state statutes. (24 V.S.A. § 1236)
Under the Selectboard-Manager form, power is concentrated in the elected Selectboard, which hires a professional administrator to implement its policies. This appointee serves at the pleasure of the Board and has responsibility for preparing the budget, directing day-to-day operations, hiring and firing personnel, and serving as the Board's chief policy advisor.
Born out of the turn-of-the-century progressive reform movement, the Selectboard/Council-Manager system of local government is one of the few original American contributions to political theory. In 1908, Staunton, Virginia, instituted the first position legally defining, by ordinance, the broad authority and responsibility associated with today’s professional local government manager. Sumter, South Carolina, was the first city to adopt a charter incorporating the basic principles of council-manager government in 1912.
Since its establishment, the council-manager form has become the most popular form of government in the United States in communities with populations of 5,000 or greater. The form also is popular in Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Honduras, Chile, and Brazil. For more than 100 years, council-manager government has responded to the changing needs of citizens and their communities.
