By Courtney L. Anderson
SHARON — It’s official: Sharon hired its first city manager Thursday.
Thomas D. Lavorini starts Monday as interim city manager. He was hired by a unanimous council vote to serve for up to a year.
“I’m very excited,” Lavorini said about taking the job.
“This is truly a great day for the city of Sharon,” said council member Frank Connelly, who was also part of the home rule study commission that recommended the charter voters approved 2-1 in November 2007 that created the job.
Lavorini’s salary is $67,500 plus benefits estimated at about $12,000.
“I’m looking forward to coming here. It’s not going to be easy, for any of us, obviously you already know that,” Lavorini said.
He reminded council and the voters who chose the new form of government that “we’re all agents of change.”
About 50 people packed council chambers, a great turnout for monthly meeting.
“It’s nice to see a council meeting with a lot of people,” said Mayor Bob Lucas, whom history will remember as the city’s final mayor.
Council President Mike Donato said Lavorini will be a very big help to the mayor and council as they finalize the city’s 2010 budget.
Lavorini said he’s read the charter and the 2006 Early Intervention Report on the state of the city’s finances and made some notes.
When asked about goals for the city, he said “I have some thoughts” but stressed that “the mayor is the mayor until the first of the year.”
Lavorini, 58, also said it’s “too early” to know if he’d be interested in staying on long-term and relocating to the city from Butler Township, Butler County, where he and his wife Amy live.
Donato thanked the transition and hiring committees who put a lot of time and effort into the search for a professional manager.
Council member Bob Messina called it a “grueling process” but said he thinks they found the right man for the job and said he hopes Lavorini will bring new ideas to the table. “I’m sure the city and citizens won’t be disappointed,” said council member Darin Flower, whose term is up next month.
Lavorini applied for the job late in the game and said he heard about the opening in the spring, but a “cascade of events at that time” kept him from sending in his resume. He was still interested when he heard this fall that the position hadn’t yet been filled.
Lavorini, who has a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science from St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa., has 30 years of experience in municipal management and spent 18 years as administrator in Ross Township, Allegheny County.
He’s been in retirement and “playing golf badly” since township commissioners dismissed him from that job in August 2008 for what some transition committee members have said were “political reasons.”
Lavorini also worked in Aliquippa, an Act 47 community, so he is familiar with the state program that helps financially distressed communities. Rumors have circulated for years that Sharon is on the verge of entering the program.
