The Marion Board of Selectmen are weighing their options of how to fill the superintendent of the Department of Public Works position when Rob Zora retires.

Zora is scheduled to retire on Dec. 15 after 33 years at the helm and 46 years with the department. His retirement was officially announced at the end of November.

Town Administrator Paul Dawson presented a handful of options to selectmen at a meeting on Thursday morning. The biggest dilemma is that the town recently received funds to undertake a review of the department’s operations. Because of this, Dawson expressed concern that the department could see changes pending the result of the review.

“I don’t think the board wants to hire a permanent, full-time successor until the board has the opportunity to receive the report and decide if any changes need to be made,” he said. “If changes do need to be made, then the job description would be tailored accordingly.”

Dawson said he didn’t know how long the process would take, but put his best guess at around six months, thus creating a need for an interim department head.

The options he suggested to selectmen were negotiating with Zora to continue on an interim basis, looking at internal personnel that could step up or finding recently retired people in the field who might be interesting in coming in and working temporarily.

“I kind of fished around a little bit and reached out to folks I know,” Dawson said. “I’ve been given a couple names as of this morning, but I don’t know if those folks would be interested.”

Both selectmen Jody Dickerson and Norm Hills agreed that they would like to know more about the option of recently retirees who might be interested, and decided to hold off on a decision until their meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 19. In the meantime, the board authorized Dawson to sign off on bills and payroll.

Resident Jay Ryder said that he thinks it makes the most sense to continue working with Zora if he was willing.

“Considering the fact that this is a critical period for the [department], if he is willing to do that, to me that would seem to be the best option,” Ryder said. “If not, does he have a suggestion of someone that can act as an interim?”

Another resident, Sherman Briggs, expressed concern that the decision was being made last minute.

“Why are we waiting until the last minute? This has been known for a while,” he said.

Dawson explained that the exact date of retirement had only been known for three weeks.

“I just hope we don’t make a bad decision because of the short window that was created,” Briggs said.