Waterbury Public Library names new director as town govt. works to fill key roles
March 19, 2026 | By Lisa Scagliotti The Waterbury Library Commission announced on Thursday that it has hired a new director for the Waterbury Public Library, who will start in the position in mid-April.
The Waterbury Public Library has also announced that it will resume closing on Mondays at 8 p.m. starting on Monday, March 23. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti
Commission Chair Anna Black shared a message to patrons and the community saying that the commission chose Carolyn Picazio, an experienced librarian who has spent the past 10 years at the Kellogg-Hubbard Library in Montpelier, as director of library services and co-director.
“Carolyn is not only exceptionally qualified for this role but also has all of the determination, creativity, kindness, and fun, welcoming personality traits that will surely be key to helping her lead the Waterbury Public Library in the years to come,” Black said. “The commission is glad to have found Carolyn to step into this leadership role and is excitedly looking forward to Carolyn’s first day on Monday, April 13th.”
The library director position became open in December when former Director Rachel Muse stepped down. Michelle Willey, assistant library director, has been the acting administrator in the interim.
The announcement came just two days after Black shared with the Waterbury Select Board that the commission was finalizing the details for the new hire. She said there were approximately 12 candidates for the position. Black gave that update to the board at its meeting on Tuesday, at which the board took steps regarding filling several key roles in town government, including the municipal manager and town clerk positions.
The select board on Tuesday also discussed moving forward with multiple projects, including the Randall Meadow flood mitigation effort, multiple housing proposals, and interest from the state in improving pedestrian safety along Route 100 near the intersection with Stowe Street and Blush Hill Road.
Municipal manager
The select board voted on Tuesday to work with the Vermont League of Cities and Towns to begin the process to recruit and hire a new municipal manager. The organization provided a proposal with a base cost of $12,000 for the effort and listed additional charges for advertising, background checks and expenses associated with interviewing candidates. The proposal’s timeline suggests that a new hire could be in place by mid-summer.
The town worked with the league in 2022 when it conducted its last search for a municipal manager as former manager Bill Shepeluk prepared to retire. Tom Leitz was hired that fall, and he recently stepped down at the end of January. Leitz is now listed as vice president of finance and administration on the leadership team at the Greater Burlington YMCA, according to the organization’s website.
In discussing the municipal manager position, the select board heard from P. Howard “Skip” Flanders, who chairs the Edward Farrar Utility District, which operates the Waterbury water and wastewater departments. The district and the town have shared a manager since the district was formed in 2018.
Flanders said the district commission is considering that the transition with the manager position now may be an opportunity to restructure how the district’s management is set up. He suggested separating the utility district management duties from the town manager position. He said the utility district commission needs to discuss the matter further, noting how municipal staff handles various functions for the district, such as billing and managing finances.
Select board members said this transition period is a good opportunity to review the management structure to determine if any changes are desired as the job description is crafted for the upcoming recruitment effort. “The timing is perfect” to discuss making a change, board Chair Martha Staskus said.
The manager position is one of many that have come open in recent months following a series of staff resignations. Many of the vacancies have been filled to date with new staffers with several key roles still in flux. An adjustment given the various transitions has been a move started this week for the town offices to be closed to the public on Thursdays until further notice.
Town clerk and treasurer
Staskus reported to the board that she had been in touch with Karen Petrovic regarding her unusual recent election. Petrovic resigned on Jan. 2 from the elected positions of town clerk and treasurer in which she had served for the past three and a half years. Beth Jones, former assistant town clerk, was appointed as interim town clerk and Shepeluk was appointed as interim treasurer, to serve until permanent replacements take the offices.
No candidates filed to run for the clerk and treasurer offices in the March 3 election, but voters wrote in Petrovic’s name for both positions. As a result, she was the winner in both cases, earning 254 votes for clerk and 87 for treasurer.
State law allows those elected to office 30 days to take their oath of office or to decline to take the role. Staskus shared that she contacted Petrovic to inquire about whether she would accept the offices. Petrovic responded with an email to Staskus and Woodruff in which she wrote that she is considering accepting the positions that she was elected to recently.
At the meeting, Staskus read Petrovic’s email, where she said: “When I made the decision to resign, it was done knowing some day I might have an opportunity to return.”
Given that the clerk and treasurer positions are elected, the person or persons in those roles in Waterbury answer only to the voters; neither the municipal manager nor the select board is their boss. The select board, however, does set the budget for the positions.
In her message to Staskus and Woodruff, Petrovic included an employment request: retaining her 10-year status as a town employee from prior to her resignation, an annual salary of $87,360 with annual cost-of-living increases, a health care plan with a health care savings account in line with other non-union town staff members, and 40 hours of accrued sick leave.
The board met in executive session at the end of the meeting to discuss the proposal. When it returned to open session, it directed Staskus to share a response with Petrovic, but the board did not share the response publicly.
In January, after Petrovic stepped down, former Town Manager Leitz noted that the town clerk and treasurer position for 2025 had paid $69,659. The 2026 budget recently adopted on Town Meeting Day allocates $100,618 for both the clerk and assistant clerk positions.
Town leaders had recently envisioned revising the assistant town clerk position from a part-time to a full-time job that would encompass assistant clerk and treasurer duties and other administrative responsibilities in the office. That position is currently advertised, but has not been filled.
Select board opening
One other key role still unfilled is a vacancy on the select board. Former Vice Chair Kane Sweeney stepped down after town meeting, and the board has put out a call for applicants with an April 3 deadline for letters of interest. Staskus said the board will aim to interview interested candidates and make an appointment for that seat at its April 7 meeting. The new member would serve until the March 2027 election.
At the board’s first post-election meeting, interim Assistant Town Clerk Carol Dawes answered questions regarding the process to fill the vacant board position. She explained that candidates from the recent local election would need to apply for consideration for the position if they were interested, and the board would consider all applicants. She said Vermont elections do not have a “runner-up” feature.
In the March 3 election, five candidates ran for three seats on the select board. Staskus, along with Sandy Sabin and Don Schneider, were the top vote-getters, with Staskus and Sabin winning one-year terms. Schneider as a write-in. won a three-year seat. Also on the ballot were Chris Viens for the three-year position and Evan Hoffman in the race for the two one-year spots.
Boards and commissions
The board briefly discussed upcoming openings on town boards and commissions that are typically filled in April. Town Clerk Beth Jones is compiling a list of the various positions on the appointed bodies that have terms ending soon. People serving in those roles may apply to continue serving, and others may submit applications as well. Details on the various positions are posted on the town website here, along with a link to the application form. Candidates are asked to send in their applications by noon on April 3.
In addition, the board discussed setting up a schedule for the various appointed boards and commissions to meet with the select board several times during the year to share updates on their work. A draft schedule was presented at the meeting and will be shared with committee leaders, Staskus said.
Randall Meadow and Stanley-Wasson
Woodruff said the town has received an extension until Sept. 30 to complete all of the requirements to receive the $2 million federal disaster recovery Community Development Block Grant for the Randall Meadow flood mitigation project.
In the meantime, he said town staff will prepare a request for proposals to hire a consultant to do environmental analysis this summer of the roughly 40-acre site that would be excavated to create more storage for future flood waters.
Chris Viens asked about whether town staff would begin to look for potential sites for where excavated fill from the site might be hauled. Staskus cautioned that knowing the characteristics of the soil will be key to determining what sites might work to move it to. Vice Chair Schneider suggested that the town could begin to seek out members of the public who may have sites that could accept the fill.
On the Stanley-Wasson proposed housing project, Woodruff noted that the previous select board, in late February, agreed with the state to extend the town’s option to purchase the property in question until the end of this year. The site on the edge of the State Office Complex near the Randall Street neighborhood is being considered for a large-scale apartment complex. An overarching concern is that the location is in the floodplain, posing numerous challenges for new construction.
Woodruff noted that a predevelopment agreement is still in draft form before it can be entered with developer DEW Construction, the only firm that showed interest in a project on the site. DEW has asked for a year to 18 months to exclusively work to investigate the market and the building site, and to develop a building plan to present to the town. The town could then purchase the property from the state of Vermont for $400,000 and sell it to a developer to construct housing with an emphasis on creating affordable units.
After additional discussion of various hypothetical questions, Staskus looked to move on, but emphasized that both the Randall Meadow and Stanley-Wasson projects are still in their early stages, with much information-gathering yet to be done.
“There are no tax dollars coming from the town and those first steps in both cases are studies,” she said. “We need data. Everything needs to be considered, but we can’t do that until we have data.”
She added that as part of this early investigation, she would like to have the hydrologist who did analysis in Waterbury after Tropical Storm Irene in 2011 to attend a board meeting. “Let’s have an engineer in the room that is qualified and has the knowledge and the history of this area and can speak to some of these questions,” she said.
Staskus asked for patience as the town staff moves the various projects forward. “I encourage folks to give us a little time,” she said.
The board chair also noted that a priority of hers and vice chair Schneider’s is to fill the key staff positions, given the work ahead on many fronts. “That helps everybody start to go back to doing their jobs like we want them to,” she said.
Staskus asked that both the Randall Meadow and Stanley-Wasson items remain as meeting topics for the foreseeable future.
Woody Avenue property
Woodruff told the board that the town has received a 30-day extension to complete requirements for a $300,000 planning grant, also from federal disaster recovery Community Development Block Grant funds, to study the feasibility of constructing new housing on town-owned land behind Brookside Primary School. The site sits along the former Armory Avenue, now renamed Woody Avenue. The grant is intended to fund a study that involves public participation to envision new housing on the site.
Rt. 100 pedestrian improvements
Finally, Woodruff told the board that he has heard from the state Agency of Transportation regarding state grant funding not yet spent but intended for some pedestrian improvements along Vermont Route 100 in the vicinity of the Blush Hill Road and Stowe Street intersection.
Improvements at that spot in recent years included an upgraded traffic signal, widened lanes in the corridor between the intersection and the Shaw’s shopping center that include a bike lane, and the new Stowe Street bridge built in 2025.
Woodruff noted that he believed the traffic light upgrade was equipped to potentially add a pedestrian crossing signal. In addition, grant funds of approximately $193,000 remained that could be used to design and construct additional sidewalks in that area. He cautioned that the funding would not be sufficient to add sidewalks in the entire stretch from Stowe Street to the blinker light at Cross Road.
The board directed Woodruff to work with the state to determine what improvements the funding could cover and to report back to the board.