WEST PARIS – Selectmen will meet less often now that a town manager has been hired, it was announced Thursday.

Meetings will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. the first and third Thursdays of each month beginning in March, the board decided unanimously. Meetings have been weekly since the town was chartered in 1958.

“Now that we will have a town manager running the office it will not be necessary for us to meet each week,” Chairman Wade Rainey said.

Donald Woodward of Marietta, Ga., will begin his duties after the March 6 annual town meeting. Voters approved the change in town government at last year’s meeting.

In other business, selectmen voted 2-0 to award office assistant Lorraine Piirianen a raise from $8 to $8.50 per hour, effective immediately.

Selectmen Howard Gurney and Jim Johnston supported the move, Rainey because he thought raises should only be considered after the town manager takes office.

There was some objection to the raise after former office assistant Jane Littlehale asked if Piirianen has had training in municipal affairs and learned she has not.

“I don’t think she should get any kind of raise until she has some training,” Littlehale said.

Residents Paul Morrison and Martha Robinson agreed. They also thought an employee should be at the job much longer than just over 30 days before getting a raise.

Johnston explained the board voted when Piirianen began the job in early January to give a chance for a pay raise request after 30 days upon the recommendation of her immediate supervisor, Town Clerk Cheryl Shattenberg.