[ noun ] an elected member of a board of officials who run New England towns <noun.person>
Selectman \Se*lect"man\, n.; pl. {Selectmen}. One of a board of town officers chosen annually in the New England States to transact the general public business of the town, and have a kind of executive authority. The number is usually from three to seven in each town.
The system of delegated town action was then, perhaps, the same which was defined in an ``order made in 1635 by the inhabitants of Charlestown at a full meeting for the government of the town, by selectmen;'' the name presently extended throughout New England to municipal governors. --Palfrey.
Dorothea Thomas-Vitrac, a New Braintree selectman, said the town did oppose some of the condominium and recreational development proposals put forth by Striar and Jacobson.
"Now it's much more of a horse race," said Dorothea Thomas-Vitrac, a town selectman and a leader of Conserve Our Small Town. "They outweigh us in raw power, but we balance them in people power.