Fay Russo Confirms She Will Retire in a Few Weeks

Fay Russo, coordinator of rentals in the Town Center since they began 38 years ago, will retire at the end of May.

“I thought, ‘Maybe this would be a good idea,’” said Russo, 88, who was honored as Bedford Citizen-of-the-Year in 1986.

Russo handled short- and long-term space rentals in the Town Center and then at the railroad train car in Depot Park from her office in the Facilities Department. She said her responsibilities will be handled by Korina Vallerand of the Facilities Department staff, who now handles space rentals in the schools. 

Revenue and expenses connected to space rentals in the Town Center and Old Town Hall are processed through a revolving fund. 

Russo is not an employee of the town. She works for a non-profit organization, Bedford Town Center, Inc., which she said will liquidate at the end of June.

“The town has changed our operating profile from time to time,” Russo said, including the addition of the railcar and the 2020 conversion of the Shawsheen Room on the ground floor of Town Center to the food bank. “That room was a huge money-maker for us. We used to fill that all the time,” she noted.

Keith Backman, who chairs the Town Center Board of Directors, said the board decided last fall that “the best thing for us to do was to turn operations over to the town. We met with various partners in town government that we thought would be impacted.”

Backman, who has served on the five-member board for more than 20 years, said it always has been the long-term plan, but “the town hasn’t been in any hurry to change the arrangement.”