Southwick mulls name change for Board of Selectmen

Southwick is considering changing the name of its Board of Selectmen to the gender-neutral “Select Board.”

If the change is made, the office holders would be known as “Select Board member” rather than “selectman.” The proposal was suggested by Ruth Preston, executive assistant to the Southwick Planning Board.

Southwick Board of Selectmen Chair Russ Fox said he and his two board colleagues support the name change, but they want to make sure they go about making the change in the proper fashion.

Fox cited a concern about the costs of new signage and letterhead, as well as revising legal contracts. But according to Jim Lampke, executive director of the Massachusetts Municipal Lawyers Association, the name change would not affect the legality of the town’s contracts.

Lampke said the town should notify the state if a change in the board’s name is approved.

Southwick would join 14 other Massachusetts towns, all of them in the western half of the state, that use “select board” as the name of their governing board.

According to Marilyn Contreas, a senior program and policy analyst with the Department of Housing and Community Development, Dalton was the most recent town to obtain approval for a change in the name of its governing board through a home-rule petition. The change appears to have come as part of legislation in 1995 that authorized the town to hire a town manager. The legislation stated that “Select Board” could be used synonymously with “Board of Selectmen.”

More typically, according to Lampke, a board of selectmen that wants to change its name will do so on its own administratively.

“People could probably just agree to it,” Lampke said. “Though,” he added, “I can see some gadfly making an issue of it.”

Even in a community like Amherst, which has a formal charter, the board has the authority to change the name of the board, Lampke said. Amherst has used the name “Select Board” since the early 1990s.

In addition to Dalton and Amherst, the towns that use “select board” are Ashfield, Chesterfield, Deerfield, Granby, Granville, Longmeadow, Monroe, Monterey, New Braintree, New Salem, Wendell and Westhampton. Only two of the towns – Amherst and Longmeadow – have more than 7,000 residents.