Is a First Selectman like a mayor?

[proud2BlibKansan]

Isn't this the lady sitting next to Obama on the front row?

[TheCowsCameHome]

1. Yes, and yes.

[Bad Thoughts]

2. Not entirely

The first selectman is the leader of municipal government, but is taken from the body of selectman who have been elected. Sometimes it's the one who received the most votes. Sometimes the selectmen pick amongst themselves. The position is not elected independently into the position. The mayor is elected separately from the municipal council.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. Does Newtown not have a mayor?

Why did this woman speak instead of the mayor?

[TheCowsCameHome]

4. No mayor. She is the leader of Newtown - First Selectman.

[Chan790]

5. Most small New England villages don't have mayors.

The town charters of a lot of these towns pre-date the US Revolutionary War...the selectmen model grew out of the church-leadership as town-leadership model that we inherited in that part of the country from the Puritans and off-shoots. Church was the center of daily life and the community meeting-space. It used to be that the men elected a church board and the church board selected a minister from among them who was also the administrative head of the village. Hence, select man.

Now we just have town elections but the selectman as administrative head of the town remains...it's been divorced from the churches for about 300 years.

[MANative]

9. Correct. My late grandfather was First Selectman of a small town in Massachusetts...

during the mid to late 1940s, a town which was founded in the early 1700s. The home he lived in was built by a whaling captain in 1743 and still stands today.

[Bad Thoughts]

7. Think of it as ministerial government

From the body of people who make the laws is drawn the people who will administer them.

[NewJeffCT]

8. Most of the towns I know in CT

it is typically a separate office - vote Joe or Jane Doe for First Selectman/woman of the town of ____

[bluestate10]

6. In many New England towns, senior Select people act as Mayor. nt

[unblock]

10. think of it like a prime minister rather than a president (at the local level, of course).

[Chemisse]

11. The board of selectmen makes decisions as a voting group

The lead selectmen would not actually have any more voting power than the others, but would be in charge of logistical details, and would represent the board at events such as this.