By Joseph Elie, Community Reporter
Shrewsbury – On Oct. 25, the Shrewsbury Board of Selectmen opened its meeting praising the public service career of former Town Manager Richard Carney, who died Oct. 14.
Board Chair James Kane said that it wasn's necessary to live in Shrewsbury to understand the contributions Carney made during his 41-year tenure. Kane said Carney's professionalism was so well-recognized that elected officials from surrounding communities would want to follow his lead. Former mayors of Marlborough, when confronted with an important issue, would request their staffs to “check what Shrewsbury is doing on that,” Kane said.
“I don's ever remember him raising his voice” Selectman Maurice DePalo said and recounted a meeting that revealed Carney's depth of knowledge.
“There were four or five of us in his office one day and he was sitting in his chair while we were talking past each other for 15 minutes and nothing was getting done. One of us asked him “What do you think”? He said, “Here's the way I see it and here's what I think we should do.” Everybody's jaw hit the floor. And that's the kind of person he was. He would sit and listen and absorb it like a sponge and then lay out the right decisions.”
Town Manager Daniel Morgado described his year working as an assistant to Carney as “a tremendous impact on my development as a manager.” Morgado said when he later went to work in Grafton, he patterned administrative systems on what Carney did in Shrewsbury.
“We owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Carney and other managers of his generation that established this profession in the commonwealth of Massachusetts,” Morgado added.