Weand applies for assistant manager
Council president among 73 candidates for borough post
POTTSTOWN >> Borough Council President Dan Weand is among the 73 people who have applied to be the new assistant borough manager, The Mercury has confirmed.
Borough Manager Mark Flanders responded to a query from The Mercury that Weand “is being treated like all of the other candidates.”
Weand has served on borough council for six years and is currently midway through his second term.
Weand was elected as president of borough council in January.
When he took that post, he said his primary goal for 2016 is to see 100 new “jobs that pay a family sustaining wage” created in the borough.
In 2015, the assistant borough manager post held by outgoing Erica Batdorf paid $87,829.20.
Weand did not return calls left on his home and mobile phones Friday.
Borough Solicitor Charles D. Garner Jr. said that if Flanders chooses Weand as his new assistant borough manager, Weand must step down from council.
“The borough code says that if you are in a borough of 3,000 people or more, you cannot be an employee of the borough and an elected official,” Garner said.
Batdorf, who took the assistant’s post in 2012, is leaving to become the manager of West Vincent Township in Chester County.
That township hired consultant David Woglom in January and paid him “no more than $7,000 to identify a new township manager.”
Flanders hired Woglom in May to find a replacement for Batdorf, at a cost not to exceed $2,500.
Asked at the time if he was aware of Woglom’s hiring to find a replacement for Batdorf, Weand said he was not and declined further comment.
Other than his experience as an elected official — he ran unsuccessfully for several different posts before being elected to council — Weand’s government experience includes time spent working in the Montgomery County Prothonotary’s office.
Prior to that he worked as a business consultant and for Stanley Flagg Brass.