Town Attorney sets retirement date

After 15 years as town attorney, Laury Dowd, 65, has decided to retire.

Word came this week with an advertisement the Town Board is placing in the Reporter to seek a successor who presumably would start work January 1.

The position is being advertised as 30 hours per week at a salary of $70,000. Ms. Dowd salary is $83,775 in the current budget. But in addition to her years of service, her responsibilities extended beyond legal matters.

Ms. Dowd has been the town’s point person in dealing with MS4 issues — Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems. It’s a federally mandated program under the 1987 Clean Water Act that charges municipalities with taking steps to stop storm runoff into surrounding waters that can become polluted with fertilizers and other substances.

In addition to advising the Town Board on legal issues, Ms. Dowd also is the attorney for the Zoning Board of Appeals and has worked on updating the town’s Solid Waste Management Report.

She also provides guidance to some other town committees and was instrumental in helping the new Water Quality Improvement Projects Advisory Board get on sound footing in its efforts to create a grant program for people seeking to upgrade their septic systems.

In a 2012 interview, she said she expected to spend her retirement years in the warmer California climate where she had gone to the University of the Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law.