Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 12/4/2015
WEST SPRINGFIELD – Even a month after the Nov. 3 election, it has not sunk in for Mayor Elect Will Reichelt.
While Reichelt hoped to run for mayor somewhere down the line, he “absolutely” did not anticipate that eventual day to come fewer than two years into his role as West Springfield’s town attorney.
The 29-year-old edged out state Rep. Mike Finn by nearly a thousand votes for the seat, stressing continuity between his own administration and that of current Mayor Ed Sullivan’s. Having served as the “de facto” chief of staff for Sullivan’s administration, Reichelt’s campaign offered as much consistency for West Springfield as possible, short of having Sullivan sworn in for a second term.
But with the election over and weeks until the Jan. 4 inauguration, Reichelt has been tasked with balancing his current role as town attorney as well as that of the future mayor.
“The mayor came to my election night party to congratulate me and jokingly said, ‘Hey, I’ll see you tomorrow. You’re still the town attorney for two more months,’” Reichelt said. “I’ve been here since the day after the election. It’s been business as usual since I’ve been back.”
With his own cubicle just steps outside of Sullivan’s office, Reichelt said he has found the worlds of his two roles colliding. Because campaign issues could not be discussed during working hours, he was able to keep them separate, but after Nov. 3, the two began to overlap.
“Now, everything’s mixed in … It is tough,” he said. “More so now because during working hours, you get the least amount done because you’re in meetings. If I have to write a brief, then that happens outside of working hours, but that’s fine too. I knew what I was getting into.”
While wrapping up his own projects, the transition has included meetings with department heads to figure out what they need to discuss his plans moving forward.
This includes the implementation of his five-point plan, which served has the platform for his campaign. The plan breaks down to accessibility, approachability and accountability, creating a safe community, providing quality education, supporting business development and fighting blight.
While he said his first move will be to begin working on the budget, another focus will be sustaining enthusiasm around this plan.
“The biggest thing that I’ve found during the transition is making sure that everyone understands, and this will be a goal going forward, to buy into the five-point plan because that’s what I ran on,” Reichelt said.
“It’s a two-year term so it’s what I’ll be running on again, what I’ve done in that five-point plan in the past 14 months. That’s the biggest thing … I can have all the bullet points and flowcharts, but if people down in planning don’t really care what I have to say about receivership and that I want to make that happen, then I’m going to be pulling my teeth out,” he added.
Despite Sullivan’s decision to not seek reelection, he has continually offered Reichelt advice, even well before he began his campaign.
“I’m lucky that I have Mayor Sullivan as a great mayor and mentor to be here for the next few weeks to help me in trading jobs,” Reichelt said. “Again, one of the biggest things he said to me, when I asked him if I should run or not, he said, ‘Well I’ll be a driver and a three iron across the common at Sullivan Papers if you ever need me.’ He said, ‘I think you’ll be a great mayor, and I’ll be happy to be there when you have an issue.’”
Reichelt said, for the most part, things would remain the same in Town Hall, including the collaborative culture between departments. For him personally, the biggest change comes with the enhanced responsibility.
“Instead of being the guy that deals with the problem and someone saying, ‘What do you do?’ and I say, ‘You know, it’s not my call. I’m just telling you what the mayor may or may not say, but you’ve got to speak to the mayor,’” Reichelt said. “The change will be now I am the mayor and it is my final call. Always keep in mind, I’m here to do what’s in the best interest of the city. That’s what we’ll always do. That’s what my decisions are based on.”