The Brimfield Select Board’s Office

The Select Board as Executive

When a road goes unplowed in Brimfield, the response does not cross an administrator’s desk, because the town does not employ one. The five elected members of the Select Board, Martin Kelly, Crystal McGuire, Christopher DeBruin, Mitch Frazier, and Tom Stewart, run the town themselves. The Town Bylaws and the General Laws of Massachusetts grant the board broad powers to govern the town: it acts as the primary policy-making body, appoints the town’s boards and committees, recommends the budget to the Annual Town Meeting, approves the reorganization of town departments, provides oversight in litigation, and serves as the licensing authority for everything from a lodging house to the flea market operators whose fields draw the antiques world here three times a year. Most Massachusetts towns of this shape hire a professional Town Administrator to carry the daily machinery; Brimfield keeps that machinery in the hands of the people it elects. That changes what an election here means: when you vote for a Select Board member, you are not choosing someone to supervise a manager, you are choosing a working executive. The person who answers for the plowing schedule and the FY27 budget sits at a public table at Brimfield Elementary School every other Monday evening at 6, and the seat across from them is open to any resident who walks in.