READING \u2014 The Select Board voted unanimously to appoint former Tewks\u00adbury town moderator Jayne Wellman as Read\u00ading\u2019s next Town Manager, concluding an interview process that board members described as thoughtful, productive and encour\u00adaging for Reading\u2019s future.<\/p>\n
The 5\u20130 vote followed a round of comments from board members who reiterated the confidence they expressed during Well\u00adman\u2019s public interview the night before. Select Board member Melissa Murphy called the decision \u201ca no-brainer,\u201d while Karen Rose-Gillis and Car\u00adlo Bacci each noted that Wellman\u2019s detailed answers had addressed many of their outstanding questions.<\/p>\n
Chair Chris Haley added that he was optimistic about the direction the town could take under her leadership.<\/p>\n
Wellman thanked the board for what she descri\u00adbed as \u201cexcellent questions\u201d during the interview and said she believed the public benefited from the 90-minute discussion. She expressed gratitude for the opportunity and said she looked forward to working with the board.<\/p>\n
Immediately after the vote, the board entered ex\u00adecutive session to begin contract negotiations with Wellman, a required step before she formally as\u00adsumes the role.<\/p>\n
Then serving as town hall\u2019s second-in-command, the assistant town manager was named acting town manager earlier this month by the Select Board following the sudden resignation of Matthew Kraunelis, whose one-year contract was set to expire in the summer.<\/p>\n
Like Wellman, Kraunelis was a town hall veteran who rose up the ranks to the assistant town manager\u2019s role and was promoted after the departure of predecessor Fidel Maltez back in January of 2024.<\/p>\n
Heading into his third round of contract talks with the Select Board earlier this winter, Kraunelis had asked the elected officials to extend his contract for a multiple year period. When that offer was appa\u00adrently not extended, both sides reportedly agreed it best to part ways.<\/p>\n
Kraunelis had been sche\u00adduled to earn roughly $214,000 this year. When Wellman took over temporarily for her former boss in early March, the Select Board agreed to hike her compensation rate tem\u00adporarily to a rate equivalent to an annual salary of $184,550. Now that she is taking over the town hall leadership reins permanently, Wellman will likely be looking for a larger sa\u00adlary bump.<\/p>\n
A Tufts University and UMass Lowell alumna, the new town manager was first hired in Reading back in 2016 as the community\u2019s business administrator. She served in that position for seven years before being promoted to serve as Reading\u2019s director of operations in 2023, when Kraunelis took over the assistant town manager\u2019s position.<\/p>\n
About a year later, when Maltez stepped down to accept a job as the City of Chelsea\u2019s CEO, Wellman was again promoted to take over as assistant town manager while Krau\u00adn\u00adelis stepped into town hall\u2019s corner office.<\/p>\n
Wellman also previously served as Reading\u2019s procurement manager for nine years between 2017 and 2026. Before starting her career in the public sector, she worked for more than a decade as a news reporter and editor for the Tewks\u00adbury and Wilmington Town Crier, which are sister pa\u00adpers of the Reading Chro\u00adnicle.<\/p>\n
A long-time Tewksbury resident, Wellman has been active in her hometown and previously served on Tewksbury\u2019s Select Board, School Committee and as the community\u2019s town mo\u00adderator. Notably, back in January of 2025, Wellman stepped down from Tewks\u00adbury\u2019s Select Board in or\u00adder to focus on her growing number of work responsibilities in Reading.<\/p>\n
A mother-of-two, Wellman also several years ago founded \u201c100 People Who Care Tewksbury,\u201d a non-profit organization that has raised more than $115,000 since its inception to benefit other area charities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING \u2014 The Select Board voted unanimously to appoint former Tewks\u00adbury town moderator Jayne Wellman as Read\u00ading\u2019s next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[71713,71704,71705,71710,32609,71707,71701,71703,71706,71702,16465,736,128,130,129,71700,71711,71698,71699,68016,71712,71708,71709],"class_list":["post-158451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-100-people-who-care-tewksbury","tag-carlo-bacci","tag-chris-haley","tag-city-of-chelseas-ceo","tag-editor","tag-fidel-maltez","tag-jayne-wellman","tag-karen-rose-gillis","tag-matthew-kraunelis","tag-melissa-murphy","tag-news-reporter","tag-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-select-board","tag-tewksbury-and-wilmington-town-crier","tag-tewksbury","tag-town-crier","tag-town-manager","tag-town-moderator","tag-tufts-university","tag-umass-lowell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}