BELLOWS FALLS-Municipal Manger Scott Pickup is leaving Rockingham and Bellows Falls at the beginning of the new year to take a similar position with the nearby town of Springfield.
Pickup came to the municipalities in October 2020, making his five years in the position one of the longest tenures in recent history. After several turbulent years, town leaders say Pickup brought a much-needed calm and stability to the position.
That was also noticed by the Springfield Selectboard, which voted unanimously at its Nov. 24 meeting to hire Pickup to replace Jeff Mobus, who is completing a five-year term.
“Scott really distinguished himself out of over 30 applicants because of his previous experience as a town manager, his knowledge of Vermont local and state government process, and his collegial personality,” Springfield Selectboard Chair Kristi Morris said in a news release announcing the hire.
Morris added that Pickup was selected because the board was “impressed with his work in Bellows Falls and Rockingham. He was recognized for bringing stability and has a strong professional management style.”
Pickup’s annual salary in Springfield will be around $155,000, compared to the $120,000 that he was making in Rockingham. The population of Rockingham is around 4,800, while Springfield is nearly twice as large, with over 9,000 residents.
Morris said that the Selectboard “thought he would be a great fit for Springfield. Scott checked all the boxes for what the town is looking for to implement our strategic plan, town plan and for updating our land use ordinances. All these are focused on growing our economy and increasing the grand list.”
Pickup’s last day in Rockingham is Jan. 2, and his first day in Springfield will be Jan. 6. But Pickup, who lives in Bellows Falls, said he won’t be far away and will be glad to help the town through the transition to a new manager.
Originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, Pickup, 63, has Bachelor of Arts and Master of Public Administration degrees from the University of Cincinnati. He has served as town manager in other Northeast towns and says he really prefers working with smaller communities.
“It’s one place where government still works. You can do things with an immediate impact,” he said, while acknowledging that not all decisions that small town leaders make are popular with everyone. “Sometimes they don’t like the answers they get. Hopefully, we can all get past that.”
Pickup said that the particular challenge of his current position is that “the municipal manager has a responsibility to the town of Rockingham [and] the village of Bellows Falls, and I work with the village of Saxtons River.”
That means working with a town Selectboard and two village boards of trustees.
Pickup said he is most pleased that during his tenure “the boards have worked very hard to work together,” he said, providing the community with strong leadership.
That cooperation was really put to the test during the past year when the boards faced the challenge of consolidating three fire departments — the Bellows Falls Fire Department (BFFD), the Rockingham Volunteer Fire Department (RVFD), and the Saxtons River Volunteer Fire Department (SRVFD).
In 2023, a study by AP Triton, a Wyoming firm, concluded that the town would be better served by the three departments sharing personnel, equipment, and fire stations. Consolidating fire departments was not a new issue — it had been discussed by the town for decades, with strong resistance and no action.
But following the study, town leaders agreed to pursue consolidation. After several occasionally contentious public discussions on the issue, the topic was brought to a vote at Town Meeting on March 1.
Despite strong pockets of opposition, the majority of voters agreed that the time for consolidation had arrived. By a vote of 191–103 — a nearly 2-to-1 margin — voters decided to consolidate the three departments into a single municipal division under one chief.
“It took two years of work” by the town, villages and the departments, Pickup said, “but it passed by a significant majority. The community spoke, and it is better served. It makes things more efficient.”
Pickup also said that he understood that “people feel strongly about it, and I get it. It’s hard to make changes.”
Confidence in local leadership
Pickup said that one of the things that makes moving on to Springfield easier is that he is confident that Rockingham has strong community leadership.
“It takes a lot of work” to effectively lead the community, “and I give the elected officials a lot of credit,” he said. “When there isn’t clear direction from the top, then there are problems,” and things don’t get done, he said.
Pickup has tried to make that point by his own example.
“Thanks to his quietly transformational leadership,” said Selectboard Member Rick Cowan, who has worked with Pickup his entire tenure in the town, “Rockingham and Bellows Falls have made remarkable progress in the past five years.”
Cowan noted that Pickup’s management style “deftly balances the reactive and proactive. When responding to an emergency, he always seeks a longer-term fix or whole new approach” while never losing sight of the bigger picture.
This long-term view of problems has served Pickup well in leading the town in making difficult decisions about parts of the community that were polluted during its industrial past, he said.
“Progress is measured in decades,” Cowan said. “It’s expensive to clean up legacy pollution. But at some point, the financial implications have to be addressed.”
The town has taken on significant brownfields cleanup projects in recent years, particularly on the Island and the Under the Hill areas next to downtown Bellows Falls. Railyards, paper and pulp mills, and other factories once brought prosperity to the region but have left decades of polluted soils to be cleaned up.
“I give [Development Director] Gary Fox and the boards credit that they’ve taken the years-long process to get the brownfields cleanup done,” Pickup said. “It has to be done. Decay just attracts more decay and decline.”
Pickup said that some have been critical of the cleanup efforts and noted that “criticism is uncomfortable, and we’ve had to make decisions that are difficult.”
Several community leaders praised Pickup for his calm and farsighted approach to these issues in the face of critics.
Former Village Trustee Jeff Dunbar said that “Rockingham has been extraordinarily fortunate to have Scott serve as its municipal manager.” He noted that Pickup’s style of management “quickly earned the trust and confidence of his staff, governing boards, and community at large.”
Dunbar added that “during his tenure we have seen considerable improvement in infrastructure repair and maintenance.” He noted in particular Pickup’s work in the “coordination of local, state, and federal agencies as we prepare for bridge reconstructions and development on the Island. We have seen an effort to stabilize, restore, and celebrate the architectural and cultural fabric of our villages.”
Those efforts to move the community ahead have not been appreciated by everyone.
Pickup said that when anyone is critical of initiatives to improve the town, “I ask them, ‘So, what’s your vision?’
“In most cases they don’t have one,” he said. “They just want to criticize. So we move on.”
He said that one of the strengths of Rockingham is that the people are hardworking and committed to their community and its future.
“Those people want to be here in 20 years,” Pickup said.
He added that not addressing the pollution issues would be shortsighted.
“What does it mean if we don’t clean up the legacy pollution?” Pickup asked. “Then we don’t expand the tax base, and we still have a polluted site. People or businesses thinking of moving here see that, and they say, ‘You’ve given up.’”
‘A town governance ninja’
“Scott Pickup is an extraordinarily good town manager,” said artist and town activist Charlie Hunter, who has worked with the municipal manager on several projects. “He knows how to listen and make people feel heard, sculpting others’ rough proposals into viable concepts.”
Hunter said Pickup is “calm, organized, and able to move projects forward without getting mired in controversy. The unwieldy two-headed beast that is Rockingham/Bellows Falls town/village government with its myriad fiefdoms didn’t seem to intimidate him. He was able to walk between the raindrops — he’s sort of a town-governance ninja.”
Hunter said he especially loved working with Pickup on matters concerning the Bellows Falls Opera House.
“Meetings are to the point; he understands the big picture and has zero interest in micromanagement,” he said,.
Hunter said that under Pickup’s tenure, the Opera House deficit has shrunk by two-thirds while offerings have expanded greatly.
Pickup, he said, “understands what an economic driver that place can be for the whole downtown. To quote Kenny Rogers, he ‘know[s] when to hold ’em, [knows] when to fold ’em, knows when to walk away, knows when to run.’
“Our loss is definitely Springfield’s gain,” Hunter said.
That sentiment was expressed by many who have worked with Pickup.
“Losing Scott Pickup as our town manager is certainly a loss for our town,” expressed Selectboard Vice-Chair John Dunbar (Jeff Dunbar’s brother). “Scott has been a solid leader for Rockingham, taking on the position at a time when the town had experienced a lot of turnover in that position and with the complexities of having separate town and village governments.”
Dunbar said that during Scott’s tenure the town had seen many projects — many of large scale — take shape, “including overseeing the scheduled replacement of bridges, supporting the Windham & Windsor Housing Trust in the rebuilding of the [Bellows Falls] Garage project, bringing much-needed housing to our downtown, as well as managing the effects from flooding events and storm damage.”
John Dunbar said he appreciated Pickup’s leadership during the consolidating of the fire departments and his work with the Development Department and Fox to save the train station “from becoming another historic building in our town lost due to neglect.”
Dunbar noted that Rockingham and Bellows Falls “have been gaining attention statewide as an example of a town rebuilding its vibrancy,” which he said “is in large part due to Scott’s leadership and his ability to work with the various departments, boards, commissions, and committees that are tasked with implementing the necessary work. I have appreciated working with and learning from Scott.”
Winding down
In his final weeks, Pickup said he hopes to wrap up a few loose ends.
Even as he was being interviewed for this article in his third-floor office in the 100-year-old Town Hall, work crews could be heard finishing up replacing the historic building’s roof. With water damage to ceilings and plaster walls clearly visible throughout the building, preventing further damage by replacing the roof has ranked high on Pickup’s priority list.
“It’ll be nice to have it fixed,” he said.
He also hopes to announce the new fire chief hire for the consolidated departments by the end of the month at a tri-board meeting.
As far as his replacement, he said he was confident the town’s leaders would find a good candidate, likely with the help of the Vermont League of Cities and Towns.
“It’ll probably take three to six months,” he said. “I’ll be available during the transition. I’m not going away, and I’m more than happy to help in any way I can.”
He said that he had a lot to thank his staff for.
“A lot of the work is done behind the scenes by the staff, and it’s not easy,” he observed.
Pickup had high praise for the community he’s served for the past five years.
“As you well know, this community is fiercely loyal — to their schools, to their alumni, to their history,” he said. “Because of that, we have a future. You need people with that kind of dedication. You don’t find those kinds of people everywhere.
“People here are doers,” Pickup said. “They make things happen. That’s a wonderful resource.”
This News item by Robert F. Smith was written for The Commons.