Not wasting any time to fill an important town position, the Belmont Board of Selectmen voted Monday night, Dec. 1, to appoint Jason Marcotte, the director of city services in Everett, to replace Peter Castanino as Director of the Belmont Department of Public Works.
“[Marcotte] has a great reputation and enthusiasm” in the public works arena, said David Kale, Belmont’s town administrator who was part of the search committee.
Kale noted that his experience in public works operations and fiscal and project management “has provided him with the opportunity to work effectively with elected and appointed officials, committees and boards at all government levels.”
“I have met [Marcotte] and what an impressive person he is,” said Selectmen’s Chair Andy Rojas.
“[I’m] pleased we attracted such a fine applicant [for the position],” said Rojas.
Marcotte was hired as an employee at will with a base annual salary of $120,000. He begins work on Jan. 5, 2015.
Marcotte, who goes by Jay, has been a young man on the move in the past few years. He was hired in Everett in July 2013 after spending a year and a month as Manager for the Village of Northfield, Vt. which recruited him from his job as assistant director of public works in charge of fleet, facilities and solid waste departments in Bryan, Texas, a neighboring city to College Station, the home of Texas A&M University.
“[Jay’s] innovative approaches and ability to think outside of the box resulted in significant fiscal savings for the Departments under his charge,” Alton Rogers, a fellow Bryan employee, wrote on Marcotte’s Linkin profile.
“If you wanted the words which best describes Jay, they would be integrity, honest, intellegent, innovative, perseverant and fair,” wrote Rogers.
Marcotte – who matriculated at Norwich University where he earned a BS (in biology) and MPA – also has work experience in the budget process and with large regional organizations as a member of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority’s advisory board.
He was also the chair for the Solid Waste Technical Committee for the American Public Works Association, a national organization of public works professionals with 30,000 members.
Marcotte should also garner the attention of the members of Sustainable Belmont as he published a paper on the workability of a cap and trade system for solid waste that was featured by the Sustainable City Network. He also presented a paper at the APWA annual conference in August titled “Boras, Sweden – A city free from fossil fuels.”
“His paper on cap and trade in the solid waste arena is cutting edge. The industry and government should stand up and take notice. I hope to see him published in the near future,” wrote fellow MPA recipient Erica Balk.
Marcotte lives with his wife and two children in Nottingham, NH which is close to the University of New Hampshire. He is on the town’s budget committee and ran unsuccessfully in March 2013 for the town’s three member board of selectmen, losing by seven votes out of approximately 700 cast.