Town Leadership
The Holliston Town Manager’s Office
The Town Manager
Frank Gervasio
Frank Gervasio runs Holliston day to day, and he was hired by the three elected members of the Select Board, who can also end the appointment by a majority vote. He is the first person ever to hold the title here. The Select Board announced his appointment on April 29, 2025 and he started on June 1, 2025, coming to Holliston after two and a half years as Assistant Town Administrator in Medfield.
The office itself is only a few months older than his start date, and it exists because Town Meeting made it. In October 2024, Fall Town Meeting voted Article 8, authorizing the Select Board to ask the Legislature for a Town Manager act. Representative James C. Arena-DeRosa of Holliston filed it as House Bill 5119. The House passed it on December 19, 2024, the Senate on December 30, and the Governor signed it on January 10, 2025 as Chapter 405 of the Acts of 2024. Section 1 of that act repealed Chapter 94 of the Acts of 1994, which had created the Town Administrator’s office thirty years earlier, and section 6 abolished that office outright.
What the town bought with that vote is a specific division of labour. Section 4 of the act gives the Town Manager the appointment of every department head, on merit and fitness alone, after consulting the board or commission that department serves. The police chief, the fire chief, the public works director and the assistant town manager are his appointments too, but each one has to be ratified by a majority of the Select Board. Section 3 puts the operating budget, the capital budget and the five year capital plan on his desk to build, and makes him the town’s chief procurement officer. And section 2 draws the line the whole act turns on, in the plainest words the Legislature could manage: the Town Manager shall not set town policy. He implements the Select Board’s. So the plan to fix a problem usually starts here, then goes to the board, and then to the room where every registered voter can vote it down.
| Role | Town Manager (chief administrative and operating officer) |
|---|---|
| Selection | Appointed by the Select Board, removable by a majority vote of the board, not elected |
| Office | Town Hall, 703 Washington Street, Room 103, Holliston, MA 01746 |
| Phone | 508-429-0608 |
| Website | townofholliston.us |
What the Town Manager Does
- Appoints the department heads. Section 4(a) of Chapter 405 gives the Town Manager the appointment of all department heads, on merit and fitness alone, in consultation with the board or commission each one serves, and that provision overrides anything in the town’s General Bylaws that says otherwise. The school department is excepted throughout.
- Appoints the chiefs, with the board’s ratification. Section 4(e) names four positions that work differently: the police chief, the fire chief, the public works director and the assistant town manager are appointed by the Town Manager but only take effect when a majority of the Select Board ratifies them. He may remove any of the four for cause without that ratification.
- Builds the budget, with the Finance Committee in the room early. Section 3 requires the Town Manager to meet the elected Finance Committee on or before December 31 each year and jointly develop the revenue model the next budget is built on. He then drafts the operating and capital budgets and a five year capital improvement plan, and every town body, the school department included, has to send him its numbers in the form he asks for.
- Signs the warrants and reports the spending. Section 2 makes him execute the weekly accounts payable and payroll warrants and report to the Select Board twice a month on where the money went.
- Negotiates the union contracts. Section 4(j) makes him the Select Board’s agent in collective bargaining, and then hands the result to two other rooms: the board ratifies it and Town Meeting funds it.
What the Act Splits Between Them
Holliston has no charter. Its government is built out of special acts of the Legislature and its own General Bylaws, and Chapter 405 of the Acts of 2024 is the newest and the most important of them. The Select Board’s own published comment on the article said what it was for: to focus the board on policy making and to hand the day to day operations to a Town Manager with greater responsibilities. Here is the division the act draws, and it is worth knowing before you decide whom to write to.
- Town Meeting holds the legislative power. It votes the budget and the bylaws, and it funds every labour contract the manager negotiates. Nothing in the manager’s authority reaches that.
- The Select Board sets town policy, appoints the Town Manager and can remove him, ratifies his appointment of the four chiefs and directors named in section 4(e), and signs the warrant that decides what Town Meeting gets to vote on.
- The Town Manager runs everything the act gives him: the departments and their heads, the budget, the procurement, the personnel system, the payroll, and the town’s buildings and property, except property the School Committee holds.
The act also has a rule for the days when the office is empty. Section 8 lets the Town Manager name his own acting replacement for an absence of up to fourteen days, subject to the board’s ratification, and if he does not or the board will not, the Select Board may appoint one for up to six months and extend it by majority vote.
One more piece of this is worth watching, because it took two tries. Article 8 was indefinitely postponed at the Annual Town Meeting in May 2024. The Select Board went back to the separately elected boards and committees through August and September, amended three sections of the draft, and brought it to Fall Town Meeting in October. The second time it passed.
Contact & Engage
- Town Hall: 703 Washington Street, Holliston, MA 01746. Open Monday, Wednesday and Thursday 8:30 am to 4:30 pm, Tuesday 8:30 am to 7 pm, and Friday 8:30 am to 1 pm.
- Town Manager’s Office: Room 103, 508-429-0608. Assistant Town Manager and HR Director Cheryl Houle, 508-474-3335.
- Report a problem: potholes, streets and snow go to the Highway Department at 508-429-0615, and after 3:30 pm highway emergencies go to the Police at 508-429-1212.
- Show up: the Select Board meets Mondays, usually twice a month, at 7:00 pm at Town Hall, and the public is welcome.
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